Definitions

  Frame creation definitions
  Show creation definitions
  Output capabilities definitions
  Miscellaneous definitions
   

  Comparing LD2000 Pro, Basic and Intro
   

For more details about the points of comparison listed in the first column, click on the underlined link.
   

   
In LD2000 you can zoom into the drawing window. This lets you get resolution which is greater than the computer screen. LD2000's resolution is 16,000 coordinates in the X direction and 16,000 in the Y direction.

In LD2000 Pro, frames have true 3D depth. This is because each point has an X, Y and Z (depth) coordinate. When you rotate a true 3D object, you can see it has depth from any angle.

LD2000's AutoTrace function takes a standard Windows bitmap and turns it into a laser drawing. (The program Adobe Streamline works in a similar way.) Generally, the bitmap should be fairly simple and easy to trace.
        In LD2000, the auto-trace feature is manually triggered (you point at what you want traced) and it works on silhouettes (by tracing the edge of a shape). This works fine for text and many logos, but would not work for a photograph.
        It is possible to trace a photograph, but you must do it manually by drawing on top of the displayed bitmap.

Digitizing tablets are used to trace artwork previously drawn on paper. There are two modes in which the tablet can work:

• In "tablet direct" mode, the maximum resolution of the tablet is used; typically, this is 1000 pixels per inch. This mode is preferred as it gives the highest resolution and best accuracy.

• In "mouse" mode, a driver emulates the mouse, so the maximum resolution is the same as the computer screen (e.g., 640 x 480).
     

In LD2000, as you move the mouse, you simultaneously see the results. (In fact, there is a mode where you can turn on a "laser-projected cursor" which projects a crosshair at the mouse location. This is used if you want to trace around a large object, such as a car, or if you need to accurately align with a mirror or a slide projection.) In some other programs, you must draw "blind"; the laser projection is updated only after you finish drawing.

The three LD2000 versions differ in how many colors you can draw with. With Pro, you can select any one of 16.7 million colors. With Basic, you can pick one of 48 different colors. And with Intro, you have the 12 most popular colors.
        When it comes to outputting these colors to a laser projector, you can map the drawing colors onto any one of 1 trillion different color choices. How does this work?

Can you get certain colors?
In all LD2000 programs, there are six analog color channels. This means that for each drawing (computer) color, you can select how much of each PCAOM color channel is used by the laser (projector). For example, if the drawing color is orange, you can set this to be 100% of the red wavelength and 50% of the green. Basically, you can get any combination of colors which are available on your laser.

How many colors can you choose from?
Let's look at LD2000 again. It has six analog color channels, each with 101 steps (from 0% to 100%). This is 101 x 101 x 101 x 101 x 101 x 101 combinations, or 1,061,520,150,601 – over a trillion possible colors.

How many colors can you use?
In LD2000 Pro, you can draw with any one of 16.7 million colors. In Basic, you have 48 colors to draw with; this includes lighter and darker colors. In Intro, you have 24 colors. (Remember these are drawing colors; the drawing colors can translate into any of 1 trillion laser-projected colors.)

How about playback?
When playing back shows, you have unlimited colors. The color limitations of Basic and Intro are only for drawing and editing. All three LD2000 versions can show any color.

Can you fade in and fade out?
Yes, LD2000 LD can fade frames in and out. This is because LD2000 uses analog color channels which have a wide range. For example, in Showtime you can cross-fade, so that one frame fades out while another fades in.
   

Raster frames are made by a series of lines, each of which varies in color. Just like a TV set, the collection of lines looks like a picture. One difference is the resolution is coarser – about 60 colors per line, and 60 lines (compare this 60 x 60 resolution with a higher resolution 640 x 480 computer screen).
        To create photographic-style raster frames, you need fine control over color. Systems with digital (on/off) color cannot create photographic rasters because they cannot get fine shading.
        Pangolin and Lightspeed Design Group co-invented raster frames for galvo scanners. This won an ILDA Technical Achievement award in 1996.

Vector frames are a special effect for advanced users. With vector frames, only the endpoints of lines are specified. The laser software fills in the midpoints. This allows you to zoom in very far into vector frames, to get "flying" type effects. It also makes lines appear smoother, since the point density is the same no matter how large or small the image is scanned.

The first laser shows used psychedelic-looking abstract frames, created by mixing oscillators. Many people love the classic look of abstracts. LD2000 uses true abstracts, created from digital oscillators working live in realtime. The abstracts will slowly evolve – as slowly as one cycle every eight hours. Because they are digital, they can be repeated at will.
        The more oscillator banks, the more complex the resulting image. Pro has the most -- three oscillator banks. Basic has two, and Intro has one.
        Also, in Pro you can use any frame as a waveform. This leads to spectacular effects such as a complex warping logo which would be impossible to create by any other method.

LD2000 includes 25 stick, script, and outline fonts. In LD2000 Pro, you can also create your own font by simply drawing the characters which make up the font.

A morph is a very popular effect, often used as an animated transition between frames. A pre-computed morph is done by storing all the in-between frames which make up the animation. This works fine for short morphs of a second or two. But longer morphs – such as 10 seconds – can take up hundreds of frames. This is when real-time morphing is useful.

In real-time morphing, the software creates the in-between frames as the show is running. Thus, the morph is as smooth as possible, whether it takes one second or 100.
        It also makes it easy to change a show at the last minute. You don't have to recompute all the in-between frames; you just change the start and end frame. This technique works even in LD2000 Intro, which normally does not have real-time morphing. If you load a show created in Pro or Basic (which have real-time morphs), and in LD Intro you change the start and end frames, then you have created a new real-time morph.

The Paint Roller tool lets you put down a broad area of color; any points in that area are recolored. The Rainbow tool makes each line in a frame a different rainbow color, or each point a different rainbow color. This is a very popular tool. The Smooth Colors function smooths out transitions between colors

In Pro and Basic, you can move a frame three ways: 1) manually with the mouse, 2) using "quick" menus which can instantly center or rotate a frame, and 3) very precisely by using sliders to enter numeric values. Intro retains the manual and quick methods, but does not have the numeric sliders.

In LD2000 Pro, a 3D object can be changed in the following ways:

• It can be wrapped around a cube (in one of three ways, depending on the height of the cube)

• It can be wrapped around a sphere or half-sphere (hemisphere).

• It can be wrapped around a cylinder or half-cylinder (hemicylinder).

• It can be wrapped onto a cone or hourglass shape.

• It can be stretched into a black hole (edges stay while the center sinks).

• Its height can be derived from gray scales on a bitmap. For example, you can make a raster face by bump mapping a black-and-white version of the face. The brighter nose, cheeks and chin will stick out while the eyes recede. This can be the only practical way to make complex shapes.

• It can be stretched into a line in the Z axis. From the front, the frame looks untouched, but as soon as the frame rotates, it is distorted. Twice during each rotation the frame "snaps back" to its untouched look.

  
With LD2000's Showtime timeline system, if you want a frame to rotate once over 15.5 seconds, you simply stretch the "Rotate once" effect until it is 15.5 seconds long on the timeline. This is very simple for the user, although it is surprisingly complex for the software to perform this. (Each frame takes a different amount of time to display, or refresh. The timeline software has to take this into account to determine exactly how to rotate the frame so it finishes at exactly 15.5 seconds.)
        Showtime also makes it easy for the user to adjust the timing – just stretch or shrink the effect to fit the music. Finally, this saves tremendous amounts of memory. Instead of storing all the frames necessary to rotate once in 15.5 seconds (approximately 350), Showtime just stores one frame plus the "Rotate once" instruction. The 350 rotation frames are actually generated in real-time, during the show, and are discarded immediately after use.
        Contrast this with systems that are not timeline based. Most effects are created in advance, and are stored as a pre-computed series of frames. If you want to change the timing, you have to re-compute a new series of frames. Or, if you don't re-compute then the effect may go by too fast or too slow.
        Pre-computed systems are fine if you want to quickly pick from a preset series of animations. But most shows require timing to music, and this means the preset animations would fit the music only by accident.

With LD2000 Pro, you can have up to four QM2000 boards in a single computer. This lets you control up to four different laser projectors -- you can create one show with four times the graphic complexity. For example, many theme park clients run multiple boards in one computer, because they have different material on each screen or area.
        Basic can run two QM2000 boards in one computer. Intro can run one board at a time.
        Click here for more details on using multiple boards.

With modern high-speed scanners, a laser projector can show a number of frames simultaneously. LD2000 takes full advantage of this. For example, a single image could have a sun rising, while a man is running, while a bird is flying, while clouds are moving. In this case, there are four "tracks": the sun, the man, the bird and the clouds. Each track can have its own movement, rotation, brightness, scan speed, color cycling, and other parameters.
        Just as multiple tracks are essential for modern music and video techniques, multiple tracks are essential for modern laser shows. It makes it much easier to work with different graphic elements.

LD2000's previews are completely accurate in their timing. They are also accurately synchronized to music from the CD-ROM drive, waveform or MIDI file, or SMPTE timecode. You can preview a show to a client on the computer screen, knowing that the preview timing is identical to the show timing.

You can see the on-screen preview in one of two ways, as a graphic or as a beam show. For example, if a circle is displayed, as a graphic it looks like a circle, but as a beam it looks like a cone coming towards you.
        Keep in mind that the laser projector is always outputting a circle. But what that circle looks like depends on whether you see it on a screen, or you see it coming at you through fog or smoke.

Realtime animation is the ability to create an animation while the show is running. As explained above, it can save hundreds or thousands of frames in a show, since the animation frames do not need to be pre-computed. Also, it can give smoother animations. For example, if you wanted a frame to rotate once over one minute, you'd need to store 1440 frames to get smooth motion (1/4 degree per frame). But in a realtime system like LD2000 Pro or Basic, you simply store one frame plus the "Rotate once" instruction.
        There are two types of realtime animation. In time-based, you specify how long the animation should last. The software looks to see how long it takes to show the frame once (the refresh time) and then figures out how many animation frames are necessary to match the time. Contrast this with a refresh-based animation. You specify how many times to draw (refresh) a frame before moving on to the next animation frame.
        Both types have their uses, which is why LD2000 Pro and Basic include both types.

In a morph, one frame changes into another. Realtime morphs happen while the show is running. All you do is specify the start frame and the end frame. The morph will be as smooth as possible, even if it takes an hour to morph, since the in-between frames are computed in realtime during the show.
        For pre-computed morphs, you tell the software how many steps to take to go from one frame to another. These in-between frames are then stored and played back just like any pre-computed animation.
        There are two types of realtime morphs. One uses two frames: the start and end. The other is sequential where all frames between the start and end are used. For example, one frame morphs into the next, which morphs into the next, and so forth until the end frame is reached.

How objects move can be important in setting a mood or in looking believable. The simplest type of motion is linear: an object immediately starts moving (or rotating, or changing size) at a constant rate, and then it immediately stops.
        However, real-world objects usually don't move that way. For example, a car accelerates as it starts driving, and decelerates when it comes to a stop. In LD2000 Pro and Basic, you'd use the "accelerate then decelerate" rate of change to duplicate this.
        The more rate-of-change choices you have, the more realistic your animations can look.

The more parameters you can change, the more effects you can make. All laser software can make effects which change size, rotation and position. LD2000 gives you these additional effects:

3D perspective: Whether objects have a "normal" perspective (the far side is slightly smaller than the near side) or a more severe perspective (which can look more dramatic)

Viewing distance: Whether the object appears close or far. In combination with 3D perspective, this can give either a "normal" look or a more dramatic look.

Scan speed: How fast the image is drawn (in points per second).

Window-wipe. This is actually six separate parameters, so you can block out part of an image or create video-type wipes. To get "hidden line removal" type effects, use the Z (depth) window to block out the far sides of objects

Brightness: This is used to create fade-ins and fade-outs. By having one track fade out while another fades out, you can create sophisticated cross-fades.

Draw-out and erase-in. This determines how much of a frame is visible. A draw-out looks like a pen is writing the image: at first there are no points, then you see more and more until the entire image is drawn. An erase-in is the reverse, making an image look as if it is being erased. You can also create chases, where a line travels through the image.

Depth cueing: This creates a fog-like effect, so the far side of objects are dimmer than the near side. Depth cueing makes 3D objects look much more realistic.

Master screen size and master screen position: This is used when projecting onto multiple screens. You can set up a master size and position; all subsequent effects will be shrunk and moved to fit onto that screen. Specifying which screen an image appears on becomes as simple as dropping the screen's effect onto the Showtime timeline.

All of the above parameters can be used on a track-by-track basis. That is, each track can have different settings for the size, rotation, position, perspective, etc. This makes it easy to do sophisticated layering where one track is doing something while another track is doing something completely different.

The most convenient way to program to music is to put an audio CD in your computer's CD-ROM player, and use the computer to start and stop the CD. This is how LD2000 works. You press "Play" in Showtime; the CD music and the laser image start up, always in perfect synchronization. You can even scroll through the timeline and hear snippets of the music as you move the cursor. This lets you drop effects right on a beat.
        If you have custom music, you either can burn an audio CD or turn it into a WAV waveform file.

Some clients create their songs in the form of waveform (.WAV) or MIDI (.MID) files. As with the CD-ROM, LD2000 can automatically synchronize to these sound files.

SMPTE timecode is used when there is a master timecode control, which is read by other devices. For example, the nightly "Illuminations" show at EPCOT Center synchronizes fireworks, lasers, lights, and fountains using a central timecode distributed to the equipment locations.
        LD2000 automatically synchronizes to SMPTE, so Showtime plays whatever code is received. The SMPTE handling in Showtime is quite sophisticated. If the SMPTE tape is stopped and rewound, Showtime also "rewinds" and starts from the new location. If the SMPTE tape is played faster or slower than normal, Showtime will track it.
        Showtime also handles offsets. For example, if the Showtime show starts at 30 seconds, but the SMPTE cue on tape is at 30 minutes, then you specify an offset of 29 minutes, 30 seconds.
        Note that LD2000 requires an external SMPTE reader. The reader translates SMPTE into the serial commands read by LD2000.

For advanced multimedia applications, it is important that a particular laser frame be shown at exactly the same time as a corresponding video frame. This is called video sync.
        One use is for overlaying laser effects onto video. Another use is when you videotape laser, to help eliminate the flicker that is often visible due to differences between the laser scan rate and the video frame rate.

As a Showtime show runs, you can press the spacebar on musical beats. Showtime remembers these "beat marks" and shows them to you on the timeline. This makes it easy to line up effects with beats. There's even a "Snap to beat" function so you can't miss.

Normally, a Showtime show is sent directly to the laser scanners. Each frame is calculated in realtime, is output to the scanners, and is then discarded.
        However, you can save a Showtime show as a series of still frames. When played back, the frames will look exactly like the Showtime show. This lets you transfer a show (or part of a show) into systems which don't use Showtime, but which can load ILDA-format frames.
        The only disadvantage is that the frame files can be enormous. A four-minute show using 1000 KB (1 MB) of frames and a 25 KB show instruction file, can turn into 30,000 KB (30 MB) when saved as a series of animation frames.

  
You can use any LD2000 version to play back shows. Even the lowest-cost Intro can play back full Pro shows, including 3D, 32 tracks, and full effects. You cannot see any difference between the show playing on Intro, and the show playing on Pro.
        However, once you go to edit the show, then you are limited to the tools available in the LD version you have. For example, in Intro you can only edit the first three tracks; you could not edit the Z coordinates of 3D objects; you could not edit advanced Showtime parameters such as depth cueing, etc.
        Intro does have enough tools for routine editing of playback shows: replacing frames, moving frames, creating new frames, etc. Should you need to edit advanced features, then you will need something with more tools and tracks – either Basic or Pro.

Because all LD versions use the same QuadMod board, the scan speed (points per second) does not depend on the PC computer. You can get shows from other Pangolin users, and the timing will remain perfect. Similarly, you can get a new, faster computer, and the timing will remain perfect.

Because LD uses its own "computer-on-a-board", once you start a show, the show runs from the board. If the PC crashes or freezes – the show continues. If you reboot Windows – the show continues. The only ways to stop it are to press "Stop" in Showtime, to press the computer's Reset button, or to turn the computer power off.

If you are interested in doing 3D stereo shows, contact Pangolin for more information about the various methods.

No software company can foresee all its users' needs. Therefore, Pangolin provides the API (application programming interface) for LD2000. This lets anyone write their own extension or custom program.
        It can be as simple as a program to warp frames or input custom file formats, or as complex as a complete customized turnkey system (where the buyer does not even know there is a Pangolin system embedded).
       With LD2000, any Windows 32-bit language such as Visual Basic or C++ can be used to create the programming.

Obviously, program size alone does not indicate how good a piece of software is. But a larger program usually has more features, greater flexibility, better user-friendliness, etc.

LD comes with six Windows Help files. It is very convenient to have full documenation immediately available on the computer. If the Help files were printed out, the result would be about 750 pages of documentation. The six help files cover:

• Lasershow Designer frame creation and editing

• Showtime timeline show programming

• QuadMod32 board operation

• API programming (scripting) in Visual Basic or C

• Laser graphics fundamentals

• ILDA Laser Glossary
    

LD Pro and LD Basic come with over an hour of laser material: 26 song-length shows. (LD Intro includes 13 of these shows, marked with asterisks below. The other 13 are available on CD for $910.) You may use the shows as is, or replace frames with your own logos and graphics, or simply use the frames and animations as "clip art". Pangolin provides royalty-free music to three of these shows; two as audio tracks on the LD CD-ROM and one as a MIDI file.
Here is a list of the Pangolin shows as of March 1998.

Pangolin has the most generous money-back guarantee in the laser industry. You can try Lasershow Designer for 90 days – three months – to be sure it is right for you. If you return it, for any reason, within the 90-day trial period, we will refund your money (less any shipping or customs charges).

LD prices are U.S. list. Dealers may offer LD at a lower price by passing along part of their discounts to you. Prices outside the U.S. may be higher due to increased support costs, customs and currency charges, etc.

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