Flying movers on an Ion: touchpad?

Jay Ashworth

Well-Known Member
Does the Ion software (ours is 2.6.2, going to 2.8.current next week or so) in any way support using a USB touchpad or trackball to adjust the pan and tilt of a mover (and maybe the beamspread, with the ring on a trackball) all simultaneously?

If it doesn't, is that something programmers would find useful and I should RFE it?
 
There's a trackball option in the ML control that already provides the feature. I think it dates back to the original ML control implementation circa 2010. Personally, I don't like using it because of trackball sensitivity issues and because the mouse click to set pan and tilt also actuates whatever is under the mouse cursor at the time of the click. Then there's trying to wrap my head around >360 degree pan in a 2D space, pun intended.

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It works with any pointing device that can be recognized as a mouse. There's no feature to designate a particular pointing device with a particular action. If you want that then I suspect ETC will point you at developing your own OSC implementation. When 3.0 comes out next fall the 3D engine will likely provide a point-and-shoot mechanism which would be better than a trackball or mouse move implementation.

FWIW, sensitivity setting are available in the settings area. Trouble is the sensitivity setting doesn't really handle acceleration well.
 
I shouldn't think OSC would be the proper target for implementing mouse tracking myself, but perhaps it's more flexible than I think.

Do you mean "acceleration implemented in the device isn't accounted for well"? Or "I'd like acceleration and it doesn't do that in the software"?

Also: obligatory rant about big releases coming out *at the beginning of a season*, instead of the end. :)
 
If you lower the mouse sensitivity to work well as a tool for pointing movers then it requires excessive motion to use as a pointing device for navigating the rest of the application. It's not smart enough to make big gestures move the pointer farther and faster (acceleration).

ETC's OSC implementation is designed for implementing any controlling action such as encoders, faders, buttons, etc. Translating a mouse movement into a series of pan and tilt messages is pretty trivial for the API. It's all covered in the Show Control manual as well as in the #LightHack forum on ETC's website.
 
Got it. Though I did in fact have in mind the application picking off the secondary pointing device and treating it as a separate source. If I go to osc, I have to have a whole separate computer in between The Mouse and the lighting board, which seems overkill. I'll go take a look at the forums. We do use osc, but largely for the alien software remote and qlab.
 
And it's what we use; it's on 2 iPads and 3 people's phones, yes. I don't recall that it has X/Y encoders, though, which was the topic of this post, does it?
 
And it's what we use; it's on 2 iPads and 3 people's phones, yes. I don't recall that it has X/Y encoders, though, which was the topic of this post, does it?

The Alien app has configurable encoders that can allow pan and tilt and IMO have reasonable sensitivity.

And as BTW, I can state I’m getting a bit tired of the snarky attitude, that comes thru clear in this reply, but is in others as well. If you want free advice don’t get testy with those who offer it.
 
Sorry you think that's snarky.

But, in fact, my just having gone back and looked, I'd really like you to itemize; "which was the topic of this post" is the only thing *I* see that fits, and yes, that was purposeful.

That said, as often happens, even here, a lot of these replies amount to "that's not a reasonable thing to want; you shouldn't want that". It does get tiresome.
 
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Does the Ion software (ours is 2.6.2, going to 2.8.current next week or so) in any way support using a USB touchpad or trackball to adjust the pan and tilt of a mover (and maybe the beamspread, with the ring on a trackball) all simultaneously?

If it doesn't, is that something programmers would find useful and I should RFE it?
I use a touch screen monitors in ML
 
Controlling P/T ona trackball was the native mode of operation for the Strand 300/500 series consoles. While it seems like a wonderful idea, it is far less precise than dual rotary encoders. Ultimately, you feel like you should be able to whip a trackball around and have the fixture just get where you want, but most fixtures can’t keep up. Then if you want to make a small tweak, you feel like you are always overshooting.

Now, maybe a velocity jog via joystick would be cool.
 
Well, for the record, I was actually suggesting a trackpad, I think, which seems slightly less troublesome, being absolute, rather than relative, but I'll bow to experience.
 
Well, for the record, I was actually suggesting a trackpad, I think, which seems slightly less troublesome, being absolute, rather than relative, but I'll bow to experience.
Well, that exists in the ML controls screen. On a touch screen, it would effectively be the same as a trackpad.
 

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