Controlling a large matrix on my house

navyav8tr

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Jan 1, 2014
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Greetings,
I wanted to get some input as to best handle this. I am going to be placing a RGB matrix on the front of my house next year with spacing between each Pixel being 8" wide by 8" tall. The area where I am having issues or I should say confusion is how to best handle my specific matrix since it will be different sizes on certain areas of the house. Ideally I would like to have an effect flow seamlessly from one side to the other and vice versa. I have attached a pdf of the matrix I plan on setting up. This is my first year with RGB and had been using LOR in the past but am getting my feet wet on xlights, Nutcracker, and HLS. Any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated.


Regards,
Charlie
 

Attachments

  • Christmas 2014 Pixel Grid.pdf
    41.1 KB · Views: 52

dale82

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Ok, This is just my personal opinion, im wondering if it would be best broken up into smaller even matrices, also what lights will you be using and software as this will play a big part in it as well.
 

navyav8tr

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I am going to be using Pixabulbs from DIYLed Express. Currently I have not decided on the software to use yet. I currently use LOR for my 10 LOR controllers. Thanks!
 

mborg10

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If you take a look at lightshowpro you can map where every bulb is on your house separately, map areas and joint them together or you can split it up into separate matrixes if they have different spacings. You can then add the multiple matrixes together on a single layer to apply a macro effect. Once you have your lights mapped it's is really simple to have add effects.

At 8" 200mm spacings you will be able to see colour sweeps patterns but don't count on being able to see text unless your viewing distance is a fair way back. If you use pics they have to be very very simple shapes.
 

mborg10

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[quo te author=924aussie link=topic=5410.msg46659#msg46659 date=1389579908]
So what is a good spacing for people to see text ?
[/quote]

I have not successfully done text yet but my mega tree last year had 100mm spacings with a viewing distance of 6m and it was still hard to make out the letters. It all depends on the viewing distance.

This year I'm planning a matrix which will be about 12m away and it will be 100mm spacings. 10 pixels per m strip and hopefully that looks better.
 

fasteddy

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For me I use LightShow Pro and I would treat each matrix as an individual sized matrix but then treat them as the same matrix by tying them all together through a layer. im not sure how good other software is at doing this.
 

dale82

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That is exactly how I would do it to eddy, I wasn't sure on lights and software that navy was using but I think LSP will make it very easy do map
 

fasteddy

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On further look at your proposed layout, If using LSP I would treat it as 3 separate matrices left, middle and right.
The right matrix is actually the more complicated one, so I would still map out the dimensions of a matrix that was big enough to cover the dimensions of the right grid. I would then still map those blank channels in but not actually use them. You can then use a matrix within a matrix feature to then create additional matrices within that right hand matrix. You can then tie in the 3 matrices using a layer to then treat it as one big matrix, you can also just group the left and right matrix only into a layer and so on.
 

navyav8tr

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Thanks for all the replies. I am going to take a look at LSP. I have also heard that HLS can accomplish the same using pixel planes. Thanks for the advice and help.
 

viennaxmas

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924aussie said:
So what is a good spacing for people to see text ?

This year I started with 11cm x 11 cm on a fairly flat roof. Viewing distance was between 40 and 60 meters. The result was somewhat ok if the text was large enough. I ended with 3 cm x 6 cm which sounds odds however the pitch of the roof compensated and from street level it almost looked like a square distance between pixels....

The 3 cm is based on pixel strips with 30 pixel per meter...
 

David_AVD

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I looked at some of these a while ago. One issue was getting information on how to drive them. Would be a shame if they only work with the (typically crummy) Chinese software the controller board comes with.
 

Jodenbach

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true that, but one would think they should have a video input interface for them so you could just send them a DVI or VGA signal and use it like a video monitor? no? I honestly haven't looked that close yet.
 
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