2D Monitor View - initial thoughts

[Paul Evans]

I'm aware the 2D monitor view is still experimental, but already it's looking interesting and useful.

I have the following issues to report:

1.1) Whenever the monitor is visible it seems to consume 100% of a CPU core. It doesn't show any bad effects, other than eating all that CPU. As soon as the window is made invisible, either by minimising/shading or by switching virtual desktop, it stops consuming CPU. This doesn't happen for the regular DMX values monitor.

1.2) While it's possible to add fixtures on other universes, it doesn't appear that I can make them respond. They always show as plain black discs.

Additionally I would like to request the following features:

2.1) Support the "dimmer" channel. Most RGB LED fixtures use this combined with the RGB channels to calculate the actual colour. Additionally, discharge + CMY filter lamps (such as found in most modern moving heads) will also use it. Currently these lamps show as pure white when the CMY channels are all at zero, even if the dimmer channel is set low.

2.2) Show the name (or somehow else distinguish the identity of the fixture) so that they can be distinguished.

Finally, more of a question:

3.1) How "complete" an emulation of the fixtures' behaviour did you have in mind for this? For example, I'm looking at the Martin MAC 700, which has two sets of gobos, prism, iris, zoom, pan and tilt, various timer effects like shutter control, as well as the dimmer function mentioned above. I'm aware there's a danger of going "over the top" on this, but if at least some of these features can be easily and accurately extracted from the definitions (or extra information added using the fixture editor), the simulations could be made more accurate.

[Massimo Callegari]

Ok, here's my comments. I've numbered your post items to reply one by one.

1.1) Since you talk about CPU usage, you should tell also which CPU you are using and what kind of scenes/equipment show this behaviour

1.2) I don't understand this one. Does it mean that if you add a fixture to the workspace and then add it to the 2D view it doesn't respond ?

2.1) Yesterday you build from sources. Which sources did you use ? Cause dimmers are implemented on GIT

2.2) Currently 2D fixtures have tooltips showing the name (just stop over one and you'll see it). Adding labels is something I already thought about, but it all depends on how fixtures are displaced on the view. If they're all close to each other, labels will only introduce a useless mess. I will leave it as an option

3.1) The plan is to support wheels first (colors and gobos). Not sure if I will ever implement strobo, pan and tilt. Strobo will not give a real preview in 99% of the cases. Each fixture has different timings for that.
Pan and tilt are very difficult to represent in 2D. Most likely that is something going to happen on a 3D visualizer.

[Paul Evans]

1.1) Absolutely anything will do it. Start a brand new qlcplus. Add a single Dimmer fixture. Open the monitor window. Switch to 2D view and add it. Instantly 100% of a CPU core. Hide the window and instantly CPU usage disappears. The system is a 2.3GHz Core i5. This isn't a "it's a bit busy" issue; it's a 100% CPU busyloop.

1.2) All my fixtures on Universe 1 work correctly in 2D view. No fixture on any other universe shows any color or response on the view; they remain purely black.

2.1) Ah; I built the plain 4.7.0 RC1 tarball; I'll take a look at a later development snapshot and report back.

3.1) I'm aware that strobe could be difficult, yes. However, that still leaves quite a few options - most of my lights have a zoom ability, and the profiles also have an iris control. Additionally it might be useful to have some understanding of the shutter control, at least to know if the shutter is closed, or in some other mode. Sometimes I forget to open the shutter, so having a little warning over the fixture to indicate a closed shutter might be useful.

Up til now I have in fact mostly been using a visualiser I wrote that receives Artnet frames. I'll post a screenshot or two from that to demonstrate the kinds of things I find useful at least; maybe they might give you some ideas. As to pan and tilt, currently I just have a crosshair marker over the disc of the fixture's main colour, to indicate where in the pan/tilt range it is aimed. Iris is implemented as a black ring around the disc of colour, and zoom has a little "beam angle" arc in the top corner.

[Paul Evans]

Here, for interest, is a screenshot of my current Artnet visualiser. As you can see, most of the fixtures are dark. The two empty crossed-out ones are the ones with closed shutters. The purple tick marks are the pan/tilt indicators, showing the four main spots are converged in the centre of the stage, and the two centre spots have a tight focused beam, as shown by the beam zoom indicator.

[[img src=ppstage.png]]