Par Can Grid to display words/images

[SamAU]

Hey guys,

I'm doing a lighting design for a production at the moment, and had the idea to make a grid of par cans (or led cans or something) in a grid, say 5 x 5.

Anyway, my question is not on the setup side, but control, is there a better way than putting up each light one by one (on the desk) to make the letter/image and then record that as one step of the chase, or is there some sort of intelligent programing software for a laptop or something that can program these things better/faster? I have heard the word media servers and arkaos mentioned arround this area, but am completely new to it.

Cheers, Sam.

 

[shiben]

Those would probably be things to look into. However, there are probably better ways than a PAR can grid to display messages, like LED walls or a special kind of fixture that uses a grid of lamps... it was mentioned on here earlier. A grid of PAR cans is going to be large and take a lot of power, I would think.

 

[soundman]

Hmm You could use anything that can pixel map from Magic Q or a grand ma to a media server. When you pixel map something you are applying an image to lights where each light represents a pixel of the image. The way this works is you configure the pixel mapping application to tell it how many, what kind and where each light is. For your application you would tell it you had 25 single channel fixtures, patch in the dimmers and arrange them in a grid onscreen. Now the pixel mapper will know what lights to turn on to correspond with what pixels. With LEDS and CMY fixtures they should change color to match.

If you are only going to display one letter at a time it might be easier to make a group for each letter and write a series of cue only cues to make words. group 3 full, (c) group 1 full (a) group 2 full (b) and so on.

Sounds like a neat project.

 

[Footer]

MagicQ would be the way to go on this one as mentioned before. 5x5 might be enough to do what you want. You might need to push it out a bit to get letters to be a bit clearer.

 

[SamAU]

Thanks for the feedback guys, as for fixtures, probably looking at LED cans at this stage due to their power consumption, (I dont know the word for this, but their ability to "strobe" or flicker more rapidly than the pulsing type effect of a standard par can) and colour abilities.

Looks like we will give magicq a go!

Cheers, Sam.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

GrandMA with the built in Bitmap effects are the way to go! You layout the grid and then can just type the text in, you can also do all sorts of other fun effects with out needing a media server.

Here is a photo from a recent show we did with an LED matrix:

 

[SamAU]

Wow that's really cool, if only I had acess to a GrandMA, btw just out of interest was that a full size or the GrandMA lite?

Cheers, Sam

 

[Pie4Weebl]

That was a full size, but the software is the same across the whole product line so you could use any desk you like, as long as your array doesn't use too much DMX for the smaller ones.

 

[LampieTheClown]

Another reason for using LEDs is that with pars, you only get one color. I would think the entire grid would have to be the same color to make reading the letters easy, and that would make the grid a one trick pony.

In the days before Vari-lite changed our world, par grids were pretty common. The goal was to hang more lights faster, and with a 12x12 grid, (that folds in half for lamp protection and truck pack) you could focus 144 lights with the motor controller, in a matter of minutes. 8 colors, 18 lights per color, and then do it again on the other side of the stage. With 36K per wash, and arena trim heights, it saved a lot of climbing.

Both the Artisan and Virtuoso desks have a 10x10 "century panel" for channel selection. Patch the LEDs correctly, and pixel mapping becomes an analog solution.