Laser Pan/Tilt (LD Sy-190 RGY)

[lncdoc]

Hi guys,

I have created a fixture file for a 190mw (60 green, 130 red) RGY laser I recently purchased. The laser is an L D SY-190, but it's sold under a whole bunch of names.The pan and tilt are on channel 5 and 4, respectively, and are only 7 bit wide (128...255 are autopan and autotilt, respectively). But there's a twist (literally): The center is at 0/0, not at 63/63 as you would expect... so between 0..63 you're moving the pattern/beam/whatever from center to right. At 64 you're suddenly all the way at the left, moving towards the center, so 64...127 is moving from all the way left to the center.
The same is true for the tilt, which is straight ahead at 0. From 0...63 you move it down all the way to the bottom and at 64 you're at the top, so 64...127 is top to center.
Since this is not so easy to explain, I have made a diagram with the bit values:

laser_pan_tilt.png

Can anyone tell me how to map this onto the normal pan/tilt thing? I'm okay completely using the autotilt and autopan or just writing macros for that part of it, but it would be really nice to be able to use the joystick to control pan/tilt with the center at the actual center, as at the moment it jumps violently from left to right whenever I cross that magic treshold of 63.

Thanks a lot,

lncdoc

[Mavi]

Hi and welcome to FS forum!

This is a realy unusual way to controll pan/tilt. Not only the channels are splited up with different functions, they also act like a ring. To map onto normal pan/tilt behavior you would have to do some math by adding or subtracting values. But the values to add/subtract depends on the values you set, otherwiese the fixture will go into autopan/autotilt or will not map onto the "ring" correctly. I do not think you can do this with FS.

[lncdoc]

Hi Mavi,

Thanks a lot for your quick reply. The math behind this is actually really easy, but I have no idea how to incorporate that, I guess in the current version this may just not be possible. My C programming is very, very poor, so here's a MATLAB function that would map the input to the correct output for both pan and tilt:

Code: Select all

function [ptout]=pantiltmapping(ptin)
ptin=(ptin+127)/2; % Add 127 to offset center to right to upper right quadrant
ptin=mod(ptin,127); % Take the modulus ('roll over' at 127) at 127
ptout=round(ptin); % Ensure the output is integer.

This would produce the correct mapping for my laser, so basically just add 127 to the input value, divide by two, take the modulus of 127 and round the output to the nearest integer.

If anyone has any idea how to do this, I would be immensely grateful.

lncdoc

[Mavi]

You are right, the math behind is not that hard But the problem is to bring this to FS. There is an other topic with the same problem (http://www.freestylersupport.com/fsforu ... f=8&t=3345) and Spirit just points out:

So far as i know this is Not possible, or i know a work around for it but it's not realy official.

Perhaps you should ask him about the work araound.

[Spirit]

Yes, But only this workaround works if you have a Midi controller or touchscreen.
but i will sort it out when i come home first i need to work.

So i don't know anything about a Joystick.

[Spirit]

oke i have lookt at the joystick features but you can only assign keyboard shortcurt so mine Workaround doesn't work.

[lncdoc]

Thanks for checking, Spirit. Would you mind sharing the workaround for midi controllers and touchscreens anyways? maybe I'll find some weird joystick driver that will allow me to patch in something like that (like map a joystick to midi or something like that). I think I would be okay even controlling it with a keyboard... I'd be very interested in seeing your solution.

I wish FS were opensource, I could just write in 2 lines and fix it (but don't get me wrong guys, I totally understand why one wouldn't want to make it opensource! It's an awesome program ). I think I'll post this as a feature request - something like an "add mapping equation" in fixture creator where you can just enter an equation to change the mapping. I don't know how hard it is to parse something like that, but I know a few programs (like the Generic Mapping Toolkit) that allow just that.

lncdoc

[Spirit]

oke, if you take your pan and tilt channels, and assign tham to the Iris channel, and Focus channel.
now you can say the Min. and Max. Value lets fill in 0 and 127. (in Fixture Creator 5.5)

now open Fs en add de Fixture with the Workaround.
open the Iris/Focus/Frost /zoom/prism. Palletwindows now those 2 channel would act as a Pan and tilt with a value of 0-127.you can drag it also with the mouse.

now you can also use the Iris and Focus channel with Midi and or touchscreen only the touchscreen haves Encoders en a midi controller faders i prefer Faders.

i hope you undestand it otherwise i will hear it.

[lncdoc]

Thanks Spirit. This workaround does solve the 0...127 issue, but the weird 0...64 and 64...127 mapping issue is a little more tricky. I may just switch to ILDA for laser control...

lncdoc