Move your ild file into the ild folder inside of the LaserBoy folder.
Edit the file LaserBoy.bat to adjust the size in pixels of width and height to fit inside your monitor's resolution. Leave room in height for the window's title bar. You need to see the whole area opened inside of the LaserBoy window. There is a line of text at the bottom of the window.
Double click on LaserBoy.bat to start LaserBoy.
Input your file into LaserBoy.
i to input
1 for ild
type the name of your ild file. [Enter]
1 to replace everything currently loaded in LaserBoy with the contents of this file.
Use the left and right arrow keys to move through the frames. Or show the frames as an animation by hitting the ` key (look for the ~). [esc] to stop.
The menus in [Tab] and x from the main menu are all settings that effect all of the behavior of the running LaserBoy application.
Any changes you make to these settings to suit your needs can be saved so that LaserBoy will open with YOUR settings.
o to output
6 for wtf
the default name inside of the [] is LaserBoy.wtf (hit [Enter])
Now when you open LaserBoy, it looks for this file by default. You can also save wtf files of other names and load them into LaserBoy.
i to input a file
6 for wtf
type the name of the file [Enter]
You just loaded all new settings into LaserBoy!
Some settings you might want to be familiar with right now are...
In the [Tab] system value settings:
0 (digit zero) move points per key hit
a rotate degrees per key hit
b scale percentage per key hit
In the x system switch settings menu:
a minimize ild, dxf, txt output
If this is set on (by default, indicated by the arrow pointing to a) LaserBoy will strip all of the optimizations out of the data to make it as small as possible as it saves it to the file. If you want to save your files WITH optimizations, make sure this option is off! Tapping the a key toggles it on and off.
If you look at menu v from the main menu, you will see tables of keys that effect your view of the art.
The digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 all orbit the "camera" around the art. For each key hit of 1, 2, 3 or 4, the camera orbits in some number of degrees around each axis or all three axis. The number of degrees of rotation is set in the [Tab] menu, option a. The shift key plus 1, 2, 3 or 4 rotates in the opposite direction.
The keys 5, 6, & 7 snap to the cardinal views of front, side and top of the 3D cube of space. Shift plus 5, 6 & 7 snap to the logical opposites of back, other side and bottom views.
The 8 key is like the 4 key but it also advances the frame. So you can press and hold it to see an animation in full rotation. Shift 8 does this in reverse.
The q, w, e & r keys, right below 1, 2, 3, 4, pan the camera left-right, up-down, both-at-the-same-time and return to center. Shift on q, w & e pans in the opposite direction. The amount of pan motion per key hit is in some number of points, set in menu [Tab] option 0 (digit zero). Points are relative to the signed 16-bit number space in which this vector art exists. So from one side of the 3D cube of space to the other, along any of the cardinal axis, there are 65535 points.
The keys a, s, d & f, right below q, w, e, r zoom the camera. The a key stretches the X axis; the s key Y and the d key does both. Shift plus key shrinks them. The f key returns the camera zoom to normal; a factor of 1.0. Option b in the [Tab] menu determines the percentage of zoom per key tap.
The one thing you might notice is that pan and zoom have nothing to do with the Z axis. That is because these controls effect the way the art is displayed on the screen. The screen simply has no Z axis. It is important to understand that none of the keys described above have any effect on the numerical values that define the art. They only effect the way the art is displayed on the (2D) screen.
You can however impose the current view on the art itself so that what you see is actually what is stored in the frame data.
A big issue here is that the view of the art must all fit inside of the 3D cube of numerically defined space. Note that it is very easy to set the view so that this is not the case.
If any of the art, in a non standard view, is outside of the defined 3D space, trying to apply the view simply will not work. LaserBoy will not remove or change the coordinate values of any vertices in the frame. It just won't do anything.
It's also important to think about applying the effects of rotation, pan and zoom individually. Don't try to do all of them in the same step.
The "current view" displayed in menu v shows the rotational angle on each axis, the offset and the scale that the display math is using to make the 2D raster picture on the screen from the 3D vector art in the RAM.
Below that are shown the letter options for applying these factors to the art itself. Once the factors are applied to the art they are set back to normal so that you can see the art as it really is; from the front of space with no pan or zoom. Lower case letters o, t & g apply the view to the current frame only. Upper case applies the view to the whole frame set. If any of the frames in the set do not fit inside the defined cube of space, only those frames will be left unaltered.
So.......
If your objective is to convert a 2D drawing into 3D, first you need to know that the only thing that differentiates 2D from 3D is that in a 2D frame all the Z coordinates for every vertex in the frame have a value of zero. So if you move the 2D image away from the Z axis origin, either forward or backward in the cube, a 2D frame meets the criteria for being stored as a 3D frame.
But, as was mentioned above, pan has no effect in Z. So first you need to orbit the camera to the side of space (the 6 key). If your frame really is 2D this will display the frame as nothing but a vertical line, possibly of different colors, at the origin of space. Apply this rotation to the art (the o key for this single frame or the capital O key for all frames). Then pan the camera left or right to move the view away from the origin of space (the q key). Apply this offset (the t key for this single frame or the capital T key for all frames). Finally view the art from the opposite side applied in the first step to see it from what you want to be the front (the ^ key) and apply this rotation to the art (the o key for this single frame or the capital O key for all frames).
Once you're done with this you can press and hold digit 4 to spin the camera around and verify that the art is no longer on the plane associated with zero Z.
In menu u from the main menu you can turn on and off some visual elements that enhance the display on the screen. The fixed bounds and origin in conjunction with the floating bounds and axis makes all of this make a lot more sense visually.
All of the listed keys in the view menu work in the main menu except for the keys that apply the view to the art. Those only work when you are in menu v.
The number keys 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 work the same way in menus k and l (L) to enhance the ability to draw and manipulate vector art in 3D space; again, only effecting the way the art is displayed on the 2D computer screen.
This text file attachment might be very useful for anyone trying to prepare files for projectors that are TTL color.
http://laserboy.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=551.0;attach=2267You can put this file inside of the LaserBoy/txt/ folder and import it into LaserBoy as a new target palette.
i to import
4 for txt
type the file name [enter]
6 to import a palette
Now you can go into the palette transforms menu, use the up and down arrows to find the new palette and use either b to match the current frame to the new palette or B to match all frames to the new palette.
Once you have done a best match to this color reduced palette, all of your colors will be as close to pure TTL as you can get. (Only cyan is a bit off. All the others are exactly correct.)
Your vector art will now be displayed on the screen with only the TTL colors that are in the default palette. This is how it will look when you project it with a TTL color projector.
To save this as a standard ILDA format 0 or 1, you need to find the default palette of 63 colors with the up / down arrow keys and do a best match or a match to index (c for current frame. C for all frames) from your current new palette back to the default palette.
Now when you save this as ILDA it will not save a format 2 (non-default palette) in front of the format 0 or 1 frames.
To save your work, from the main menu hit
o to output a file
1 for type ild
3 to save all frames
type the name of the file [Enter]
Look for your file in the ild folder inside the LaserBoy folder.
James.
