"EmuLaser"!

keebs

Active Member
Well, I don't see much information on this forum or PhotonLexicon about it, but I'm stoked to see Pangolin's inclusion of the "Emulaser" option to use a projector as an emulated laser! I've been thinking about this recently a bunch but figured that I would never get around to doing it because it would require learning video mixing software, getting source material, etc.

This is perfect.

Has anybody used this in a real setting? I'm very curious to its effectiveness.

I tried it in my living room without any haze and found that (at least with my fairly run-of-the-mill home theater projector), if this was pointed at the crowd, it would need to have the brightness turned way down so that the "black" doesn't come off like a big flashlight.

Would love to hear anybody's experience with this, and good job Pangolin making what I thought was "my idea" a reality!

Keebs
 
Although I had this running well last night, today I can't seem to figure out how to get the window for the actual Emulaser output to show up. I added the projector and it says its state is "OK" (my FB3 says "Online")...

Does it need to say "Online" like the FB3 to allow me to open a window for it?

Or maybe I'm just missing something?

It all worked so perfect last night :rolleyes:

Thanks,

Keebs
 
Yah, it's a way to emulate a laser beam using a normal video projector. First you connect a video projector to your laptop, then in Beyond, you set up a video projector as if you were setting up another laser projector. Next you pull up a window that has an image of what graphics would normally be displayed (this is the part I'm having problems finding now), drag it onto your video projector's screen and maximize it. Voila, instant emulated laser.

Keebs
 
Try to assign the EMU Projector to a projection zone, then goto Laser and EMUlaser controller hardware under the settings menu, click on your video projector and close the window.

The EMU Window should appear now, rightclick that window to send it to another screen (Projector)
 
Hmmm, I just followed these steps without success.

Attached are screen caps of my Projection Zone setup and controller hardware settings in case I'm missing something:

Thanks for the help,

Keebs

ps - everytime I close/open Beyond it pops up the "there's an error that happened and we've saved a file to send to pangolin". Other than that screen popping up, there's no clear indication that there was an error. I'm not sure if that's related.... or what. I could post that file if it would help.
 

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Well, I just tried adding a second video projector in the controller hardware window and when I then closed the window, the Emulaser 2 video window popped up.

I went and deleted the Emulaser 1 video projector and now everything seems to be OK again. Strange.

I had previously tried deleting the Emulaser 1 video projector and re-creating it, to no avail.

Keebs
 
Weird, it works fine here, try to remove the EMU projector and add it again. Could it be that you already sent the window to another screen?
 
Weird, it works fine here, try to remove the EMU projector and add it again. Could it be that you already sent the window to another screen?

Yeah, I suspect what might've happened is:
-I sent the window to another screen via a USB HDMI output I have
-Closed Beyond
-Restarted Beyond with the USB HDMI adapter disconnected
-EmuLaser Video window was gone "forever".

I'm having a different issue now tho: I got the EmuLaser Video window to show up by adding a second EmuLaser Projector and deleting the first, but now the content sent to the correct zone isn't showing up in the EmuLaser Video window.

Note: displaying the test pattern in the window works correctly, it's just that sending graphics to it doesn't.

See the attached screen capture (the black box in the lower right hand corner is the EmuLaser Video 1 window.
 

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Keebs, don't be embarrassed... I too followed in your footsteps and found unreliable results. That is -- until I realized that, just like a real laser, the "Enable laser output" button must be depressed in order for *any* output to go to that window. So, when it comes to Emulaser and my own testing, that button got me every time =). And heck, I'm the guy who invented the thing!! :D

Don't forget to right-click in the video window. There you will find menus which help to easily set the window to full screen on the secondary monitor. Also, within the general Configuration options (found on the Settings menu), you will find options to control the beam width (which basically makes the video projection brighter and darker) and a few other things.

EmuLaser should work very well, as long as you have a great video projector. And when it comes to EmuLaser use, brightness is not the most important factor for the video projector. Rather, contrast ratio is! I believe LCOS (Liquid Crystal On Silicon) video projectors provide the highest contrast ratio available today. Some projectors also have a built-in automatic iris to enhance the contrast ratio even further.

Please let us know your results!

Best regards,

William Benner
 
One funny thing that gets us every time, and I can see it got you too.

See, EmuLaser pretends to be a laser. So you must ENABLE LASER OUTPUT in order to see it in the window. In your case (and in our own testing from time to time), I can see that you do not have laser output enabled (top right button).

We recently tested EmuLaser with a 2500 lumen home theater class of video projector and it worked well, and compared quite favorably to a 1 watt laser projector. Of course the video output is completely human-eye safe, and also camera safe and video projector safe.

Best regards,

William Benner
 
Alexey, maybe you can make the Preview Beam diameter (pixels) effect on the Emulaser as well so we can get more power from the video projector.

Aricha
 
Hi Aricha,

It already possible the most latest version of BEYOND. EmuLaser window now has controlable width and alpha channel, and increase the diameter depending on number of anchor points.

New version is not available for public release yet, but we will do update as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

Alexey.
 
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