MADRIX Forum • Why does mapping non-standard arrays have to be so painful?
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Why does mapping non-standard arrays have to be so painful?

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 12:11 am
by dijjital@gmail.com
Hey guys,
new user to madrix but long time pixel mapper... My company (Digital Ambiance) creates custom lighting fixtures and installations using addressable strip. I have been working with Jim St. John's SanDevice 6804 as an artnet to SPI bridge to link Madrix with my addressable pixels. I can't recommend it enough (blows the pants off of the DMXKing LeDMX. PM me and I'll explain).
Our installations use layouts of LEDs that are rarely if ever a straight grid. Trying to map our real-life layouts in the Madrix patch editor is like pulling teeth. Common features such as copy/paste fixtures, or fixture groups are missing. A feature that allows you to map curves would be amazing. These features are standard in other mapping solutions.
I have a request to the developers. I've spoken with other users of Madrix who explained to me that the patch editor would have to be almost rewritten from scratch to make it easier to map non-grid arrays. I have an idea on how this could be solved very easily.
What if you could import an image file to use as the background of the patch editor? If I could import an image of the physical layout I am trying to map, scale it, and use it as the backdrop, then I could just place my pixels ontop of the image. This would make accurately mapping installations made up of crazy routes of LED tape SO MUCH EASIER???

What do you think developers? Can you hook a brother up?

Re: Why does mapping non-standard arrays have to be so painf

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 5:55 pm
by Ismal
I have also wanted this feature, but in the meantime you can use a software like 'Image Overlay Utility' or many others, which allows you to display an image on-screen, with scaling and opacity parameters, and the best part is you can make it click-thru.
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Hope that helps!

Re: Why does mapping non-standard arrays have to be so painf

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 5:30 am
by dijjital@gmail.com
Great tip. Hope the devs impliment this.. seems like a no-brainer ;)

Re: Why does mapping non-standard arrays have to be so painf

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 10:36 am
by Wissmann
Hi at all,
.
first off all thank you for the feedback and the hint how to solve such things.
The idea with the background image is not new and we have this already on our list. Because of a lot of other important features, bugfixes and so on we unfortunately did not realize this feature request so far.
Regarding the patch editor we currently have a lot of request we like to solve one after the other.
Just as one example: With MADRIX 3.6 we add the feature to merge patches. Means you can load a second patchfile into the currently opened. With this more than one person can work on a complex patch.
Please be patient with us, we like and will improve the patch editor with new MADRIX releases.

Re: Why does mapping non-standard arrays have to be so painf

Posted: Fri May 13, 2016 9:37 am
by eduardoeestevez@gmail.com
i know this is a very old post but im new to pixel mapping and having some difficulties trying to map curved LED heres some pics
Image
Image
Image
Image

Ive been using just the regular effects and played with the parameters but i wanna create some more complex cues. I mostly do regular lighting programing but this i seem to get lost somehow. any help would be apreciated.

Re: Why does mapping non-standard arrays have to be so painf

Posted: Tue May 17, 2016 8:18 am
by Fritzsche
Hi Eduardo,
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Since the images will not load here, please feel free to send us an e-mail to info[at]madrix.com and we'll have a look!
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Thanks.