Vixen 3.x Plugin / Feature Request / Development Tracker Thread

[tojo]

Velleman: ''The K8055 USB interface board has 5 digital input channels and 8 digital output channels. In addition, there are two analogue inputs and two analogue outputs with 8 bit resolution. The number of inputs/outputs can be further expanded by connecting more (up to a maximum of four) cards to the PC's USB connectors. All communication routines are contained in a Dynamic Link Library (DLL). You may write custom Windows (98SE, 2000, Me, XP) applications in Delphi, Visual Basic, C++ Builder or any other 32-bit Windows application development tool that supports calls to a DLL.''

Though I'm new to Vixen I really don't know how the K8055 plugin was used in earlier versions, but I see a huge potential in this device. My house is a ''smart home'', meaning it is controlled by a computer system. This system is pretty advanced but doesn't really have the ability to control the christmas lightings. It is possible, but not recommended. Better would be to have a dmx system to do this but it would be nice if that system could talk to my smart home, and the K8055 could perhaps be the bridge for that. A signal in to this card could start a sequence in Vixen, and Vixen sends a signal to the cards output to confirm this. A signal to another input starts another sequence and so on...

Even if there isn't many out there planning of this particular setup I think many could use this feature. There are five inputs which could start five sequences or make these inputs: start, stop, pause, next sequence... Each of the 8 outputs could indicate a sequence running or...

What do you guys think? Is it possible?

More info about K8055: http://www.velleman.eu/products/view...g=en&id=351346

[sallz0r]

What do you guys think? Is it possible?

Sure, I'd say it probably would be. Definitely as an output device, and probably as an input -- we have support for it, it's just a case of actually writing the modules to drive it. :-)

[buckanear]

To the Development Team

So far nice work on 3.0.

i know that the features for 3.0 are most likely locked by now. I would like to see this in a future release.

When the effects editor is invoked, could you also allow for the start time and duration also to be edited along with . The grid on the sequence editor is in my opinion to small at 1 mS to really do much drag and stretch to get the placement of an event. I think it would be easier to place and then edit in the event editor screen. Besides my eyes are not as acute as they were 40 yrs ago.

I don't particularly like to do all that much zoom in then zoom out. Right now that seems to be the really one glaring issue that I have found not so to my liking. Otherwise I think the direction is on the right path. I love the channel configuration setups. That really allows you to logically think of your display and not so much as channels.

edit for alternative to slow display on changing event duration.
After playing with 3.0 for the first time, I now understand what some are saying about slow display. I have a quad core 3.2 GHz processor with an above average video card. This could be where adding editing feature of start time and duration into the event editor may be a simple work around to the slow dragging to resize the graphics in the sequence editor.

Still overall the work is great. Despite the slow graphics at times, the concept is great. Now I think of what I want my lights to do instead of what each channel is doing. I love the concept. Keep up the work.


james