Could Pixelmad control up to 60 Universes of DMX?

I just got the specs for a big LED installation in autumn 2005 on my desk.

I am working quite close with the developer of the LED panels and we came to the discussion how to control such a big LED setup.

I put pixelmad in the game not really knowing if it could handle an installation of that size (given a maximum of 40 Universes on the pixelmad-website) - but anyway I would not know any other control application to handle this...

Requirements for control software would be approx. 60 Universes of DMX and a pixel array of at least 200 x 200.

Question: Would pixelmad be the right software to control this? And what would be the hardware requirements for the mac running pixelmad...
Or would it help to have an array of pixelmad servers all getting the same commands but controlling other parts of the LED matrix... - if so what about syncing...

In my personal opinion there is no other way to treat an installation big as this other than as video data... Talking about preproduction in Aftereffects rather than programming content on site...

You could not come close to the same results using generic matrix effects - even given you have a console capable of controlling 60 Universes...

As said above all of this is in an early projecting state - this is just a technology check to see what is possible...

Olli
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Oliver Ranft, Aachen, Germany

Im doing 25 universes right now on a show.

My guess is that 60 universes is not impossible.

How many fixtures?

I have up to 5000 tested fixtures working at the moment.

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I just built a 60 universe version.
Seems to work.

If you output gigabit ethernet to a switch with your 10BT artnet nodes, you will minimise your dmx latencies.

It will be an area of around 400 square meters lit by LED tiles 20 cm by 20 cm.
That makes 25 fixture per square meter and a total of 10000 fixtures - if you consider each tiles as a single RGB fixture - would be 2000 fixtures of you consider a row of five tiles as a fixture. Anyway it results in 30,000 channels of DMX that would be about 60 universes...

The pixel array size is still important as it will not be compact like a square but the fixture will be more distributed... My guess right now is an image size of 200 x 200 would be fine...

For now I will pass on the info that 60 universes are possible - that sure is a winning point :-)

I will get back to you as soon as I know some more...

Thanks so far,

Olli

I can do a demo build for you -and we can see what problems emerge.

show i just did works fine at 25fps with around 28 universes - in one continuous viewable image.

Olli.

I just posted a version with 30 universes.

I have another one ready with 60 universes?
Would you like to test it?

Has anyone already used that many universes in real situation?
Will the ArtNet nodes be able to cope with all the broadcast data?
If been doing test with our units up to 30 universes running fine without hickups. But actualy I did not had a good opportunity yet to test it with much more universe at high refresh rates. I did with 60 universes (8 x Ethernet-DMX8 boxes) but only at a refresh rate of 18 FPS. The software and system I was using at the time could not do more.
I can imagine that some uProc devices won't be able to read all broadcast data.
I would advise to check this when going for that many universes. I'll see if I can do some more decent test on our Luminex boxes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bswinnen

Has anyone already used that many universes in real situation?
Will the ArtNet nodes be able to cope with all the broadcast data?
If been doing test with our units up to 30 universes running fine without hickups. But actualy I did not had a good opportunity yet to test it with much more universe at high refresh rates. I did with 60 universes (8 x Ethernet-DMX8 boxes) but only at a refresh rate of 18 FPS. The software and system I was using at the time could not do more.
I can imagine that some uProc devices won't be able to read all broadcast data.
I would advise to check this when going for that many universes. I'll see if I can do some more decent test on our Luminex boxes.

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i added a routable data - rather than broadcast - option to the current version in january - so you can use a switch to route the data to to each box individually.

Which g5 where you using - what speed?

Great. So you actualy can talk to individual IP addresses?
That's good to know. At least this will not overload the nodes, however with 300Mhz processing power in our boxes we do have some margin :)
About G5: I do not have a PixelMad. We did some test with a PixelDrive and that one only broadcast data. We only use it to test our nodes to real live situations.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bswinnen

Great. So you actualy can talk to individual IP addresses?
That's good to know. At least this will not overload the nodes, however with 300Mhz processing power in our boxes we do have some margin :)
About G5: I do not have a PixelMad. We did some test with a PixelDrive and that one only broadcast data. We only use it to test our nodes to real live situations.

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yes i actually talk to individual addresses. i automatically scan for artnet devices. they return their ip address, and i can send directly to that ip.
you can select broadcast or routable from the artnet info window in the full screen gui. ( See attachment below )


you can download a fully working demo from this site.
only thing that happens is a red bar output every few minutes.

by the way - i just did a show with 28 universes.
and have possible spec for many more.

just used 2 of your boxes on zazie, and they appeared in this list just fine. i added your artnet ID to the latest build so your product number appears in this list.

Hi

We´re planning on installing Catalyst 4 with the PixelMad plugin in a night club here in Norway.
I want PixelMad to control 30 ColorWeb LED nets. But I´m not sure how to set it up, connection-wise. The venue needs a cable plan, and since I´m a newbie, and nearing deadline, I would be most pleased with any assistance available!
I know naught about DMX universes or light jockey vernacular, and my mother tongue is Norwegian, so keep it simple if possible ;-)

Is this it: Mac G5 server --> Ethernet HUB --> ColorBlock PSUs --> ColorWeb LED nets?

This is the first of what will be a long stream of nOOb questions on this site, I fear.. ;-)

The setup would look a bit like this I suppose:
Mac G5 -> (Ethernet switch) -> ArtNet node -> DMX to ColorWeb panel
Depending on the number of panels you use, you need a number of DMX universes.
I think 1 panel = 48 DMX channels
So maximum 10 panels on 1 universe.
So 30 panels would mean 3 universes
You probably need 1 additional universe to control your G5 from the desk.
And maybe some more universes available for future plans.

Have a look at these nodes to convert the ArtNet to DMX:
Luminex Ethernet-DMX8
If you drop me an email on our Luminex website I can send your further detail about a possible setup.

colourweb and alkalite fixtures supported in f44

i put a test version up which does 60 universes.
f44 pixelmad 16.

m147 has support for up to 250 universes in demo mode-
this is possible with unicast artnet.

I will do some testing on 200+ universes as soon as I have some time for that...
I will also try to find out how far you can go on braodcast when using 100 Mb/s infrastructure... - you should get 250 universes as well (have seen that work on other systems...)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OlliR

I will do some testing on 200+ universes as soon as I have some time for that...
I will also try to find out how far you can go on braodcast when using 100 Mb/s infrastructure... - you should get 250 universes as well (have seen that work on other systems...)

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as long as the ethernet switch routes the data directly to the artnet boxes - it should work.
You can send 1Gb ethernet out from catalyst as artnet fine - even on fibre backbone-
what breaks artnet is sending too much data down the final cable between switch and artnet box - many artnet boxes only work at 10BT.
This final stage needs to be routed.

Has anyone tested 200 Universes so far?
I guess it might also be a question of hardware - should be the 8xCore.

Highest number of universes I tested so far with pixelmad was 60. Worked fine on my MacBookPro. 25 fps without dropouts.

Right now planning an installation with 200 universes - and wondering if I should quote two media servers each running 100 universes rather than just one running 200 u.

Si, that post was from 2005 - I hope he's got it sorted by now!

Nev.

Yesterday I tested a 240 universe Pixelmad patch. (1600 Fixtures)

For starters I just tested on my MacBook Pro - and it did not run stable...
Application freezes after a few seconds - even faster if you have the Pixelmixes window open.

Seems to be to too much work for the MBP - I will try it on my 8xCore as soon as possible.

Olli

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OlliR

Yesterday I tested a 240 universe Pixelmad patch. (1600 Fixtures)

For starters I just tested on my MacBook Pro - and it did not run stable...
Application freezes after a few seconds - even faster if you have the Pixelmixes window open.

Seems to be to too much work for the MBP - I will try it on my 8xCore as soon as possible.

Olli

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yes i think so. way too much for a poor little laptop.

..But the poor little laptop managed to drive 120 universes of ArtNet (all in Broadcast with 100bT-nodes)...

Parts of the HUD GUI do not work with the Pixelmix window open - so I believe these 120 Universes are close to the edge...

I might have an installation coming up were I will need 200 Universes - but this will have to run on an 8xCore Macpro and for sure not on a laptop...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OlliR

..But the poor little laptop managed to drive 120 universes of ArtNet (all in Broadcast with 100bT-nodes)...

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its this 'broadcast mode' that totally overwhelms your artnet boxes.
( then people blame me... )

people trying this - must route the data to individual addresses. really or it wont work well at all.
Especially as many of the artnet boxes only do 10BT.

That is right. Unicast is much better than broadcast.
However it depends who's ArtNet boxes you're using. ;) Our Ethernet-DMX8 can cope with up to 100 universes in broadcast (actually never done a test above).
But as unicast is possible, it is always better, because many devices don't have that processing power to process all the data, to check if it is a universe they have to output.

Grtzzzz

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bswinnen

That is right. Unicast is much better than broadcast.
However it depends who's ArtNet boxes you're using. ;) Our Ethernet-DMX8 can cope with up to 100 universes in broadcast (actually never done a test above).
But as unicast is possible, it is always better, because many devices don't have that processing power to process all the data, to check if it is a universe they have to output.

Grtzzzz

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i dont think some of the artnet boxes can even run 10 universes @ 25fps without halting. let alone 100!.
They just dont seem to expect this amount of data.

richard

Quote:

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Originally Posted by samsc

i dont think some of the artnet boxes can even run 10 universes @ 25fps without halting. let alone 100!.
They just dont seem to expect this amount of data.

richard

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Indeed, that is where we make the difference ;-)
A lot of processing power on board to handle a large amount of broadcast data.

Regards