Brightness vs. number of points

[dmxlaser]

HI All,

I have read several posts here referring to brightness and the number of points in a frame.

On one side there's the number of points wich will have an effect on the brightness of the projection, as you would expect, but in some postings I see Bill telling us this is only percieved brightness.

I understand that it is not really intensifying the beam itself only it will let the beams go slower so the light has more time to reach our eyes, thus the light is indeed perceived to be brighter.

Yetr when I place a single point on a line and display that in the design studio then the beam is very thin and dim, but when I use renumber to up the pointcount to say 100 points, the laser does become brighter. So in the situation of a single point vs 100 points, is the laser turned off and on in between these points ? I don't believe it is, but this could be my wrong perception.

Anyone know the facts for this. Am always eager to learn more

Oh and another thing.
I have been looking again and again, but really cannot find the suggested RESAMPLE option anywhere in Intro. Am I looking in the wrong area's ( menu) or is it just not there ?

Regards,

Peter

 

[Pangolin]

Hi Peter,

The reason you will have something look brigher if you use more than one point is because LD2000 and the QM2000 inserts blanked points automatically.

If you use the drawing tools (with the exception of the single point tool), LD2000 will automatically insert blanked points at the beginning and ending of everything you draw. The reason is obvious -- because if you draw a separate item, you probably would not want this connected to the last item. You can adjust the number of automatic blanked points placed at the beginning and ending of drawn items by right-clicking on any of the drawing tools.

In addition to the automatic blanked points that LD2000 drawing package adds, the QM2000 itself almost always adds blanked points to the beginning and ending of every FRAME. The reason is obvious -- if you have multiple active frames (i.e. multiple tracks), you would not want these to appear to be connected together. These "blanked points between tracks" can be adjusted on the System Settings dialog box.

With this being the case, if you place only a single point using LD2000, what you will have is a single VISIBLE point, and normally something like 10 BLANKED points. So in other words, you only have a 10% power efficiency. That is why it does not look bright. I recommend changing this to perhaps 80 to 100 points "per beam location" if you are creating beam locations. That way, you have a 90% or better power efficiency and of course would be near the top of visual perception, since visual perception is highly logorithmic. You can do this using the "Add point" tool in LD2000 (just select the visible point and hold down CTRL+A) or using Renumber or Resample as you are now.

Regarding the Resample option, you can find this on the EDIT menu of the Frame List in Showtime. Basically, LD2000 has "Renumber". Showtime has "Resample". In a vague way, both do a similar function, but Resample is easier to use on blocks of frames. Basically the idea is that you gather your frames in preparation for making a show, and this gathering can be done in LD2000 or Showtime. Once gathered, you prepare the show in Showtime. Once you have the frames, you probably don't want to switch applications all the time, so that is why we put that function into Showtime.

Bill