XLaser

XLaser emulates a scanner lighting fixture within an X11 window, useful for example for creating light shows with computer projectors.

Control

Control data is input via the Art-Net protocol, generated by most lighting control desks and software.

Gobos

Up to 255 projection gobos are supported via a configurable folder containing images named value.png (eg. 127.png). All non-transparent pixels of a gobo image will be colored in the resulting image.

Channels

One XLaser instance uses 16 channels, some of which are reserved but not yet mapped to functionality.

• Channel 1/2: Pan coarse/fine
• Channel 3/4: Tilt coarse/fine
• Channel 5/6/7: Red/Green/Blue color mix
• Channel 8: Dimmer
• Channel 9: Shutter
  • 0 Open
  • 1-127 Strobe slow-fast
  • 128-192 Flash in slow-fast
  • 193-255 Flash out slow-fast
• Channel 10: Gobo
• Channel 11: Gobo zoom
• Channel 12: Gobo rotation absolute
• Channel 13: Gobo rotation speed (not yet implemented)
• Channel 14: Gobo focus (experimental)

Building

XLaser is available with multiple backends (currently XRender and OpenGL). The default target, built by running make in the project repository, builds XLaser with the OpenGL backend.

To select the XRender backend (slower, but might work on older hardware), run make xrender.

Prerequisites (debian)

• A C compiler
• libx11-dev
• For the XRender backend
  • x11proto-render-dev
  • x11proto-xext-dev
• For the OpenGL backend
  • libglew-dev
  • libgl1-mesa-dev

Running

Basically, edit configs/sample.conf to match your setup and run xlaser /path/to/your.conf. Optionally override the starting address with the -d <address> parameter (useful to start multiple instances from one configuration file)

Configuration file

The configuration file is split into multiple sections, which may appear in any order in the file.

The general section

Controls general behaviour.

Option	Example value	Description
bindhost	*	Which interface to listen for ArtNet data on
gobos	gobos/	Where to look for gobo images

The window section

X11 window parameters.

Option	Example value	Description
windowed	true	Do not initially fullscreen the window
width	800	Initial window width (when windowed)
height	600	Initial window height (when windowed)
x_offset	100	Currently not implemented
y_offset	100	Currently not implemented

The artnet section

ArtNet control data input setup.

Option	Example value	Description
net	0	The artnet net parameter for this fixture
subuni	0	The artnet subnet parameter for this fixture
address	1	The dmx start address (1-512)

The remap section

Reassign control channels (for example to emulate other fixtures).

List of remappable channel names

• pan
• panfine
• tilt
• tiltfine
• red
• green
• blue
• dimmer
• shutter
• gobo
• zoom
• rotation
• rotationspeed
• focus

A remap argument may consist of one or more of the following parts

Option	Parameter	Example	Description
fixed	value	fixed 123	Channel is at fixed value continuously
source	offset	source 0	Channel value is read from another channel (given as an offset from the base address)
min	value	min 0	Minimum channel value. The value is interpolated from the full channel range
max	value	max 127	Maximum channel interpolation value.
inverted	none	inverted	Invert channel values

ArtNet input

Most professional lighting desks can be configured to output one or more universes to an ethernet port via multiple protocols. XLaser requires broad- or unicasted ArtNet as input. Please report any problems encountered with a desk to the Github issues section.

Tested desks

• GLP Creation2 (+ OnPC)
• MA Lighting GrandMA2 OnPC