LED Pixel System

When working with LED strips controlled from a lighting console you quickly realize that there is a problem with having meaningful control with a large number of LEDs while still maintaining flexibility and ease of use.

To address this issue we wrote a piece of software that allows us to map arrays of strips into a single controllable group that we can then run preprogrammed effects or video clips on and control parameters that allow us to get a pretty wide variety of looks out of it. We can also create new effects very easily through a node based effect system to be able to make whatever we want to see actually happen. Our software interfaces with PixelPusher LED controllers which interpret our data into something the LED strips will understand.

So in the end, the process looks like this:

A lighting consoles sends Artnet to our software to tell it what effect to use, and what values the parameters of that effect should be set to. This allows us to integrate these changes into our lighting cues with the rest of the lighting show. This signal is then captured, and used by the software to build the proper effect and determine the values that all of the LED channels need to be set to. This information is then pushed out to the PixelPushers, and they translate it to a form the LED strips can use, and the LEDs respond accordingly.