Hi Moti, Nothing about this feature's status has changed since February when I last replied to this thread: https://forums.cast-soft.com/index.php?threads/led-tape-wizard.827/#post-3874. I understand perfectly how important this feature is to our users, and I will do everything possible to have it ready for R48. Thank you for your patience, Dany
Sorry @sanderloonen, but no. Hopefully this year. I wish I had better news. It is not for lack of wanting to implement the feature though: like everyone else in the industry (in the world), CAST has been affected by COVID, and it will simply take time to get back to full development strength.
so, how do I add a simple LED strip to WYG? patch it to a channel, have it show up in reports, control it in design and live. or just a piece of scenery that has some light in it. I cant. on software that I pay a ton of money for. this question was raised several times over the years. since 2016 at least. dont use COVID as an excuse, this is now our reality and has been for a while. please fix this as you can tell from my tone, I am frustrated. ciao Sander
I understand your frustration Sander, and can do nothing more than apologize. If it helps in some small way, I can tell you that in some ways, I feel the same as you. You probably don't believe this, but as you said, I've been talking about this feature for a number of years... and the design has been sitting there, ready to be developed, but without the necessary development resources, because other features had to be prioritized based their weighing against other requests, usefulness, impact on workflow, etc. (I explained parts of our design/development process in this post.) As for how to get around the lack of LED Tape, going by the requirements you outlined, there are options which are worth exploring: - Use Light-Emitting Lines to simulate the LED tape, like in this example (and the screenshot below). You can control these both in DESIGN and LIVE modes -- but no, they will not appear in Reports at this time. - Most objects (drawn or inserted from the Library, except Fixtures and Accessories) can have Light Emission enabled, so if you need to simulate a "glowing piece of scenery" that's your answer. (This is very common practice in WYSIWYG, and has been employed very successfully over the years. Again though, there are no Reports for this at the moment.) Enabling the Global Illumination screenspace effect (Shaded View's View Options > Visual Effects tab) to simulate the effect of light emission on other objects in the scene. Please note that this is NOT the same as Radiosity (it was never meant to be); also, it will not work for Line objects becasue they are too thin to be "picked up" by this effect -- but Light Emission's Glow option will help there. I understand that none of this is the ACTUAL solution you are seeking, but it will get you at least some of the way there. Thanks, Dany
Hi Danny, thanks for the reply. I do believe you. Years ago I visited a automation company for a course. Over lunch I overheard the programmers and my course leader having a heated discussion with the 2 software developers of the company. the gist was "I need this and this to program better" - "well you talk to the boss then about hiring a 3rd developer." I am sure its the same cost/benefit discussion at Cast. However... For me the main benefit of WYG over the competition is the ease of putting fixtures in a plot and having the associated paperwork update at the same time. and right now, as you say "it will get you at least some of the way there'' ciao Sander
