Newsletter - Digest Q2 2002

Items removed from the Newsletter section of the Backstage Area originally posted during the second quarter [April, May, June] 2002.

NOTE: Links on destination sites are often changed. We provide the digest pages for archival purposes and the links to external sites were working when the material was originally published but may no longer be working.

New products and services of interest to laserists. Submit your new product information and images in .gif or .jpg format to our E-mail or contact us at 905-523-7669.

May 7, 2002: Pangolin Laser Systems and Eye-Magination announced a new application which
enables you to open new markets. With Mercury Messenger you are able to display SMS messages (simultaneously) on different types of display i.e. laser and video.
Demonstrations have shown that people are enthusiastic about using SMS this way and find it a �cool� way to communicate. They use it to display jokes and to get in contact with each other. Receiving 300 or more messages per evening is not unusual.
Visitors can use their GSM mobile phone to send SMS messages to a GSM modem which is connected to your PC running Pangolin software. After receiving a message, Mercury Messenger scans it for rude and abusive language (automatic or manually) before displaying it.
Club owners can use Mercury Messenger for marketing purposes by using the collected GSM numbers to send messages thanking their visitors for visiting the club and to inform them of future events. Using text messaging, they can approach their specific target group purposefully and at the right time.
Mercury Messenger enables you to:

May 01, 2002: The Laser Institute of America and the Board of Laser Safety� announces the Certified Laser Safety Officer� program. The first exams will be held in 2 locations on Sunday, October 13th. The locations are Scottsdale, AZ and Orlando, FL.

Info: www.certified-lso.org or call 800-345-2737.

April 30, 2002, Cheshire, England: Nu Light Systems Ltd is now marketing budget laser lighting, world wide, and has built up an excellent overseas and UK clientele. In 1997, our own range of laser products under the name of LASER TECHNIQUE was designed and launched.
The MINI SCAN laser is a simple stand alone low power laser which produces spirographic laser patterns. It is ideal for use in very low ambient light levels or for a simple eye catching display. The PROSCAN+ lasers produce spirographic patterns as well, but also have the added facility of a panning scanner which allows projections to cover 120 degrees in the horizontal plane, coupled with higher powers.
The PROSCANs require the PROSCAN CONTROLLER, which has 16 preset patterns with auto and manual control, variable pattern change, audio modulation of patterns and panning, beam on/off, auto and manual positioning of panning. The controller allows up to 16 systems to be linked together.

The DMX GRAPHIC SCAN laser is DMX controlled and it just like an intelligent light fixture. It uses 8 channels and has full pan and tilt, 32 graphics including 6 banks of simple scrolling text, size control, modulation effects (X and Y rotations, spinning, shrink and grow, and 2 3D effects), strobing and scan rate control. It has been designed specifically for the club venue and creates all the classical laser effects you would expect. It is extremely simple to use and can be integrated into existing lighting control systems using DMX without the need of a separate controller.

Nu Light's LASER ANIMATOR graphics system is a Windows 95/98 based PC controlled full laser graphics and animation system. The software is very easy to use and is similar to Shockwave Flash. You can use it to create fantastic beam effects in smoke, along with full animations and custom logos to suit specific venues.
There are powerful animation tools, that allow you to create animations very quickly, a large image and animation library is also provided; even if the user is not fluent in drawing, library images can be used in your own animations. The system also allows you import any Windows true type text font, including Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic text fonts.
The software comes complete with over 20 tutorials which take you through the software functions and the animation processes so that the user can become familiar with all functions.
Animations that have been created can be imported in to a player, where they can be organized into a complete show, or have hotkeys assigned so that the press of a keyboard key will play an animation or sequence that has been programmed - this is very useful for live work. Alternatively you can automate a show and have it run automatically for set time periods or at specific times.
The interface for the LASER ANIMATOR system also has output lines, that [via a suitable interface] can be used to trigger other effects, such as smoke machines, strobes, lighting etc.

April 21, 2002, Spain: 3D Laser announced the new 3DL I/O V2 DAC BOARD. This is an ISA PC board that offers:

This is a non processor based laser graphics board [it uses the computer's CPU for operation] for lower price, with all ICs in DIP sockets for easy repair if required. All of the outputs are fully buffered (DACs & I/O) to avoid damage to critical/expensive IC's.

The software to drive the board is is 3DLaser Show Pro V 1.20 (available in two months or so), other laser OEM's have shown an interest in supporting the board with their software.
This is preliminary info, the board has been tested and is running, but we can decide soon about the exact pinout / function options. The output connector is a DB 37 female, due to it's capabilities exceeding the DB 25 ILDA standard projector connector. Users can easily make a cable adaptor to DB 25 ILDA standard.
The price for the package with software and hardware is $ 520.00 US$ plus shipping.

Info: http://www.3dlaser.net/hardware.htm

March 30, 2002, Orlando: Pangolin Laser Systems announced today it had concluded a deal for the purchase of all copyrights, distribution rights and source code for LAStudio and TraceIT from the Ukrainian company Uspekh LTD.
Pangolin has also retained the computer software development services of Uspekh for the continued development of LD2000 software and other Pangolin products. Uspekh LTD was founded in 1995 and quickly became the Eastern Ukraine leader in the fields of professional audio, lighting equipment, and laser software development. Uspekh currently specializes in systems and services for cinemas, sporting arenas and educational institutions.
LAStudio is a software package [Ed Note: LAStudio debuted on www.laserfx.com in 1999 - click here for the original story] that works as an add-on for LD2000. It includes a 3D drawing and object creation program, timeline-based show creation program and an abstract generator. The package allows additional effects and provides some new methods to create scrolling text, abstracts, 3D frames, and other show elements.
TraceIT is a bitmap to vector program that can be used with or without LD2000. When used with LD2000, it allows direct conversion of bitmaps and video sequences to laser, using the QM2000.
Pangolin clients will now have some additional tools to choose from and clients will be able to purchase these tools directly from Pangolin dealers. Pangolin now has additional development resources that enable them to create new software more quickly and respond to user�s requests more effectively.
The main LAStudio software package is $1,995 US$ list. The TraceIT bitmap tracer is $595 US$ list. Note that the above prices are only for the software. A QM2000 Intro, Basic or Pro board from Pangolin is required for laser display output. LAStudio and TraceIT are available now from Pangolin and Pangolin dealers.

News items about laser show technology, installations and special events/shows from around the world as well as social items relating to laserists. Our "Pluses" items cover laser items from the mainstream media.

08 May 2002: Reliable sources have indicated to LaserFX.com that LaserMedia has been sending out E-mails and faxes offering to liquidate equipment at rock bottom prices in order to raise some money.
Phone calls to the Los Angeles, California, based company, on May 1st and 2nd, at different times during business hours, got only a number of automated menus - and badly corrupted automated menu recordings at that - to step through with no humans answering the phones. Messages left on the voice mail of Harvey Poltnick by LaserFX.com, and E-mails sent to the address listed on the company web site some days ago were not returned by press time.
An employee [who asked to remain anonymous] reached by other means, indicated that "The company is having some financial troubles" but was not able to make any official statement or advise if Chapter 11 filing was imminent. Stay tuned and we will bring you an update as soon as anyone returns our messages or E-mails.

UPDATE 09 May 2002: This morning we received an E-mail from a former LaserMedia employee who asked to remain anonymous as follows:

A call to the company at 14:00 EDT [11:00 PDT] today reached only the automated menus [which had been repaired since our last calls]. We left another Voice message for Harvey Plotnick, requesting an official comment but it had not been returned by press time.

The Delta Heavy is a novel concept. The combination of star DJs with cutting edge lights, sound and laser is by no means new� you can see that at many raves and clubs on almost any weekend in most major cities. Taking that on the road for an average of 4 shows a week on an international 12 week tour is something new. Essentially the Delta heavy tour is an �instant rave� that comes to town, sets up, plays for the dance fans then packs it all back into the two semi-trailers and hits the road to the next destination, with the crew and DJs living and sleeping on the busses except for the occasional layovers where they get the luxury of a hotel.

The stage for the Delta Heavy tour with DJ booth, three large video screens, lights and remote fiber optic projection heads. Photo by L. Michael Roberts

    The show itself is also somewhat different from the average rave. The tour emphasises higher production values than you often see at raves with a stage set, props, high quality video and a massive full colour laser show. Rather then the typical half dozen DJs, there is one opening DJ who plays a one hour or 90 minutes set, and then Sasha and Digweed take over giving the crowd a 4 to 5 hour tag-team set of the type of trance and electronica they are famous for. Much more satisfying that the typical 90 minute or 2 hour set from the often over hyped and overpaid �star� DJs one usually gets.
    Stellar Designs Inc., of Clifton, New Jersey [Stellar Designs Inc., web site] has been contracted to provide the lasers for this tour and laserist A.J. Seabeck [AJ to his friends and associates] was kind enough to give www.laserfx.com the backstage tour of the production.
    Perched atop a 10ft high aluminium scaffolding was a 171 while light laser doing about 8 watts output the night we visited the tour. This feeds a custom double deck Stellar Designs projector, which has PCAOM colour control for the dual scan heads and beam table. There is also a separate colour box for control of the beam sent to the fiber optic couplers. These connect to a pair of 12K remote fiber optic projectors.

Backstage view of the scaffolding with laser system and projector. The customized power transformer can be seen at the bottom left with the large blue pressure tank below the scaffolding. Photo by L. Michael Roberts

    AJ explains, �Flexibility is very important on this tour. We are playing in different venues with different stage sizes and ceiling heights each night. The rig is designed so that it can be placed in its optimal location behind the DJ booth with beam and scanned effects projected through the space above the DJ both and below the central video screen; or off to the side of the stage when space is not available. The positioning of the fiber optic remotes also has to be varied to suit the staging on a show to show basis.�
    Due to the vagaries of the water supply at the various locations and the dreaded �john effect� AJ built a special water system. It consist of a heavy duty well pump that is capable of actually sucking all the water it needs out of the supply lines no matter what the available flow and pressure are. The pump is equipped with a self-regulating pressure system that varies the amount pumped so as to keep the output pressure in the 40-60 PSI range. The pump is mounted to a very large pressure take with a large draw down just in case the water pressure should fall to catastrophically low levels or there is a power failure.
    Another necessity is a sophisticated multi-tap power transformer with it�s own cooling fans. This allows AJ to adjust the taps on the input within a wide range to insure that he is getting the correct voltage output to keep the laser happy.


Left: Laserist A.J. Seabeck installs a fiber optic remote head into the set on stage right. Right: Partial view of the control position showing the DMX control board and a Pangolin system running on a laptop which controls the scanned beam and graphics projections - the fiber control system is to the left of the DMX board and is not shows in this picture. Photos by L. Michael Roberts

The control system [shown above] consist of a DMX console that controls projector functions such as the main shutter, beam effects pick-off, beam table, fiber optics pick-off and colour box. The graphics and scanned beam effects signals for the main projector are generated from a laptop and docking station with Pangolin LD and a QM32 installed running the �Live� software. Beam effects for the remote fiber optic heads are generated by a separate Pangolin system running from a second laptop and docking station but colour control signals on these effects are ignored as the DMX console controls the colour through the colour box in the projector. The system uses ILDA standard Db25 throughout which is very helpful for working in an environment where long signal cables are often overlaid over lighting and power cables.

Happy dancers enjoy the spectacular lights and laser show accompanying the pounding dance music spun by Sasha & Digweed - Photo by L. Michael Roberts

The laser show itself was the fairly standard fare ones sees at raves and clubs. A heavy emphasis on static and scanned beam effects with some grating effects but no graphics at this particular venue. There was a good interplay of the intelligent lighting effects and the lasers even though the lighting operator was located some distance from the control position and there was no clear-com between them. AJ explained that even though the material played by the DJs varied form show to show, he and the lighting technician had worked out which parts of the music selections were better suited to laser, which to lights and which to a combination of the two.
If the Delta Heavy tour is coming to your city [the dates are available at the Delta Heavy web site], and you are a fan of trance and electronika, the show is well worth a visit.

Germany, March 18, 2002: MediaLas today announced the availability their latest software tool, the SMS-to-Laser interface. SMS2Laser allows one to connect any Nokia mobile phone, by using a serial cable, to the laser computer. Any SMS sent to this phone is displayed in real-time in laser output on the laser projector. Filtering software is included to remove objectionable content or block SMS messages from selected phone numbers.
Not to be outdone, Pangolin announced on March 19 that "Pangolin will be premiering an SMS application that works with LD2000 for the first time at the SIB Trade Show in Rimini Italy. Here we will be showing how SMS can be used with our LD2000 system to do not only SMS text to laser, but also SMS text to video. The SMS application supports video animation as well as text display, and can be used with video or laser or both. There are lots of display options and there is also a database which logs each SMS message and caller. The database can be used later to send messages to those who originally sent messages. This way, the system is two-way in nature."
For those in North America where cellular technology actually lags behind the rest of the world, SMS stands for "Short Message Service" which allows owners of GSM cell phones [the almost universal standard for cellular technology outside of NAFTA] to send short text messages to each other. Many North American carriers have web pages that allow you to send a short text message to another cellular customer, this is not true SMS just text messaging. SMS is implemented from the users cell phone and can be sent to a subscriber on another carrier in GSM service areas. You key the phone number and the short message into your cell phone and press send.
One might wonder why all the fuss about SMS and lasers? SMS was introduced almost as an afterthought in the GSM system but has proven to be one of the most popular applications. Rather then spending the airtime to call someone with the simple message "pick up milk & bread on the way home", SMS allows that text to be delivered almost instantly and at a very low cost - from any cell phone to any other SMS enabled cell phone. Carriers report that SMS messages now comprise a significant percentage of their traffic and revenues.
Giving a laser system the ability to display SMS messages has some useful applications. By attaching a SMS enabled phone to a nightclub laser system or to a laser billboard, people can send messages which can be displayed as laser text for all to see. The filtering feature in the MediaLas version means that objectionable content can be suppressed. Pangolin will have more information available on their version after the SIB trade show in Rimini.

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