Dimmer Brightness Curves

[P. Short]

Is there any way in Vixen to adjust the brightness curves of output channel(s)? The brightness curve of the MR16 LED lights that I'm testing are far different from those of the mini-lights or LED strings running on AC, and so forth. It would be nice to be able to compensate for this, so that it doesn't have to be taken into account when entering sequences or when changing lights.

There was discussion of this in the past (maybe in the context of DMX support), but I don't remember the results.

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Phil

[FireGod]

Here is the topic in the old forum you were thinking of:
http://blinkyflashy.14.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=823&start=0

It would help me also, I have been trying to tune and the progress is slow.

I have not seen any posts from KC and he has not checked hic PMs. I guess he has lost his way.

[DynamoBen]

The dimmer curve thing is on the "feature request list" but I don't think its a hot enough issue. Dimmer/Channel curve and patching are kind of related topics. Basically the level data is going straight to the outputs, KC would have to make a "side trip" with the data for both features to work.

[P. Short]

Crunch time at his day job, I suppose.

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Phil

[FireGod]

It would be really cool if we had an interface like this one to set the curve. There could be an input table to input points in 10% increments to set the curve.

It would be really really cool if you could "drag" points on the curve with your mouse to reshape it.

[P. Short]

And you should also be able to set the gain in dB, and to import spreadsheets for generating the tables.

But internal data representation may need to be changed to make this really useful. I think that either more than 256 levels of brightness would be needed (in the .vix file), or storing more information than just an array of values (i.e. remember that the values within a given range were originally entered as a ramp).

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Phil

[DynamoBen]

I had this in mind.

[FireGod]

I was thinking Vixen would just use the 10 points of input to make a 256 point curve which would translate into a lookup table. The lookup table would then be used to adjust the output. In my curve above, 1% from Vixen would actually be a 20% (level 51 out of 255) output to the hardware.

To make it easier for our programming master, it could simply be a 256 point input table.

I am assuming if it is not a simple modification, we will have no chance of getting it done this year if ever.

KISS

[P. Short]

Fair enough.

Do you think that some (or all) of this could be done without involving KC? I tend to think that a large part of this functionality belongs in the plugin(s), not in vixen central. The reason for this is that the run-time implementation may end up fairly plugin-specific. The hardware may provide full or partial support for this, and it would be nice if the design took advantage of this.

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Phil

[FireGod]

I don't know how the plugin works but I assume that it could be put in the plugin. Tony (teberle) would be the guy to ask.