If you are not familiar with LXFree or LXBeams for drafting light plots, these are great, low-cost software solutions for drawing lighting plots and creating lighting paperwork (an all-in-one solution). The LXBeams2Go application allows you to view, edit and interact with LXSeries light plot files on your iPad. Most recently, I have been using the LXBeams application (and teaching student designers and electricians the LXFree application) by Claude Heintz Design, and most recently adopted the LXBeams2Go app.
Over the years, I have used a number of different CAD software programs on my computer to create lighting plots. This allowed me to view the plots, but it was not possible to make changes or notes on the plot very easily. Until recently, I worked with digital PDFs of plots that I would share along with separate paperwork files. However, the information that can be communicated through a graphical light plot is indispensable. For lighting paperwork such as instrument schedules, channel sheets and colour cut lists, for example, simply sharing Google Docs or Microsoft Office files is common. Typically, these applications are quite heavy and consume a lot of processing power, so it really is no surprise that they aren’t more common. There are actually very few lighting plot and paperwork applications available for the iPad. While this certainly does not cover the wide spectrum of applications available, these are the tools that I have found useful in my workflow and I hope that you may find them useful as well.Īn iPad instrument schedule report on the LXBeams2Go app I have separated the applications into three categories. In this article, I am going to present some of the applications that I use on my iPad throughout my lighting design process and through performing maintenance and other tasks to the equipment during the implementation or maintenance phases. The sharing of lighting information between the designer and electricians (students in my case) has become virtually instantaneous, which has allowed my workflow to become not only more efficient, but clearer and more flexible as well. Today, through the use of a number of software applications on my iPad (and even on my smartphone for that matter), I am able to go through the lighting design process virtually anywhere that I want – including in the control booth, auditorium, catwalks or lifts as I am working with the fixtures themselves. I was then able to load that file onto the console once in the venue, make any adjustments needed to my programmed palettes, and then I was ready for rehearsal. This enabled me to program cues without having the console – or any of the actual lighting rig – in front of me. I also remember the first time that I used software for pre-visualisation – seeing a digital representation of my lighting rig and ‘controlling’ it with a software lighting controller to pre-program a show.
Lxfree gobo pdf#
PDF or image exports could be given to lighting electricians as well as paper printouts. This also meant that changes could be made quickly, though it still required me to go to a design lab where the software was installed. No longer did I need to worry about the neatness of my own writing and lighting plots could be drawn much more efficiently using libraries of symbols that could ‘snap’ to objects in the drawing. In the later years, I was exposed to computer-aided design (CAD) software programs that digitised the drafting process. An iPad channel spreadsheet on the LXBeams2Go app
0 kommentar(er)
