Re: [LCtalk] The unusual numbers

[Fokko van Duin]

At 12:11 -0500 21-10-2005, Paul Carver wrote:
> This is more a curiosity question than anything, but what's the 
> story behind the rather unusual numbering sequence for things like 
> fade times and hold times? Why a drop down list instead of just 
> allowing text entry?

It has all to do with memory space. By using only one byte for a fade 
or hold time we managed to use only 7 bytes per cue step (without 
lighting data).

As it is not useful to have a 10 min fade with a resolution of 0.05 
sec, we used a fixed range of numbers which give about 5% resolution.

If 5% is too coarse for a certain application you can  easily add an 
extra step to get a certain time, as the values we are showing (like 
5.1sec) are <0.01% accurate in absolute time.



> I don't have any immediate need, but if I wanted a fade to run 
> longer than 15 minutes, what's the best way to acheive that? 
> Manually calculate an intermediate cue?

You can make it as slow as you want when you just add 1 (or -1) every 
n sec. In order to do so, you need to set the mixmode of the used 
layer in "add" mode. You should be able to find several examples in 
the LanBox-Talk archive.



> PS. I can't say often enough how great the Lanbox is. I was playing 
> around with it last night using a control cue to change chase speed 
> of a different cuelist running in a different layer. The UI is 
> complicated but I've mostly got the hang of it now and it's really 
> capable of some very complex things.

Don't forget that the tutorial explains with examples, this often 
helps to understand the use of all features.

--
Fokko van Duin,                     Creators of the LanBox-LC
CDS advanced technology bv,         DMX lighting controller.
http://www.cds.nl/                  http://www.lanbox.com/

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