Topic: Noodle Bug

[James]

I've given up on the idea that there is any end in sight in finding the best way to optimize points for scanner display!

I'm digging into the nitty-gritty right now.

Since I've spent a lot of time recently paying attention to exactly what goes on between each frame scan, I now have to figure out exactly where to put the end of frame marks in the optimized wave. It all comes down to one single sample!

James.  

[drlava]

James, I think you can make any thread a laserboy thread

[James]

I'm just saying......

If you're going to work in the area of points optimization.....

There is a lot to it and there are some neat things out there that might be helpful.

I think it's pretty awesome that we all work with the same exact numerical data and yet we do it in very different ways.

James. 

[meandean]

I think it's pretty awesome that we all work with the same exact numerical data and yet we do it in very different ways.

 Progress and technology would not be possible otherwise.

[meandean]

James, I think you can make any thread a laserboy thread

  After all, it is the LaserBoy Forum.

[James]

It's kinda' hard for me to talk about the art and science of laser display without mentioning...... well you know.

James.   

[Fanny Pack]

Do you plan on publishing a .bug standard?

Hadn't thought about it.  The drawing file format will be in XML so I won't be hiding anything.  So, if someone wanted to write their own super featured drawing application to create their own bug files that would be fine with me.  If they wanted to do anything further with the files they would have to create a preprocessor/runtime engine.  That's the hard part. 

[BlinkenLights]

James, I think you can make any thread a laserboy thread

  After all, it is the LaserBoy Forum.

yes but this is plainly in the OTHER SOFTWARE  section (u want me to move this to a new section in your forum area gary?)

[James]

Began working on my new project.  I call it "Noodle Bug".  It's a drawing application.  It will not be ILDA based at all but will have a runtime engine that will be able to convert Bug images to an optimized series of points for laser display.

"to convert Bug images to an optimized series of points for laser display"

Do you mind if I ask how you deal with your points?

What I mean is, what kind of memory model do you have?

Do you have all the points represented in RAM at the same time?

............

Will your new file format be point-literal or will it be conceptual; like here's a circle, here's a spline?

James. 

[Fanny Pack]

Points will be generated on the fly.  A "frame" at a time. 

The file format will be object based and will contain layers, circles, polygons, lines, beams, and all sorts of generic and custom objects that are useful for general drawing and beam projection.  It's the same thing that has been brought up on here over and over.

If you are interested in this why didn't you speak up when I mentioned something of the sort a week or so ago? 

[James]

I'm mostly interested in how you get from concepts to actual clocked out points.

Somewhere in there, you also have a time-line to match to music.

I guess I'm just fishing for how those ideas come together in your implementation; not the actual code, but more like the concepts.

Plus, I like to keep the forum chatter going.

Maybe other people will chime in.

James. 

[Fanny Pack]

Basically, each frame has a play time associated with it.  I wait until it is time to display a frame and send it to the DAC.  There are two players within Spaghetti.  In project mode I grab frames from the timeline by specifying a time.  In show mode, the frames are streamed from a file and they tell me what time they should be sent to the DAC.  It's a little more complicated than that but that is the concept behind it.

Frames are created from existing ILDA file frames before sending them to the DAC by applying effects to them.  Optimization is the very last step before sending to the DAC.    In project mode, frames go through a lot of processing before they are spit out the USB cable.  In show mode, most of it is done ahead of time.  I just do some sizing and optimization.  In the new version, the user can change the output size and optimizations settings while the show is playing and see the changes as they are being made.

If you take a look at an SPGP file it will tell you all you want to know.  It is an object oriented view of an entire laser show.

[BlinkenLights]

neat.. so is the data "buffered" in memory? and what happens if the computer starts doing a virus scan durring a show. is there a buffer overrun situation?

[meandean]

 Much antivirus software is a virus in itself...

[BlinkenLights]

Much antivirus software is a virus in itself...

hello.. im a computer tech for a living.. i know this...