Gesture Controlled DMX Moving Head Lights

When I registered for the Light and Interactivity course, one of my goals was to learn more about DMX lighting and how to control it. The final project was the perfect opportunity to create a DMX controller that would be responsive to hand gestures. For this, I used TouchDesigner to parse body tracking data from the Microsoft Kinect and madMapper to receive OSC messages that would change channel values to control the moving head lights.

The video shown below is the first prototype: the X coordinates controlled the Panning channel, and the Y controlled the Tilt.

Bill of Materials

• Pair of UKING 80 Watt Double Beam Moving Head Lights, $128.78 on eBay

• Kinect Azure, borrowed from ITP Equipment Room

• ShowJockey USB -> DMX Adapter, gifted from CHiKA, can be purchased from garageCube

• ZOTAC ZBox QK7P3000, my NUC PC

• Rockville RDX3M25 25 Foot 3 Pin DMX Lighting Cable, 2 pack for $10.95 on eBay

Software

• TouchDesigner 2020.22080

• madMapper 3.7.4

• OSC Data Monitor (Processing Sketch), for troubleshooting

System Flow

PC -> Kinect Azure -> TouchDesigner -> madMapper -> DMX moving heads

TouchDesigner Setup

madMapper Setup

Roadblocks

ShowJockey USB DMX
TouchDesigner is a powerful tool and includes its own DMX out CHOP, but Derivative built the TD environment with ENTTEC hardware in mind. Tom put together a workaround for DMXKing’s eDMX1 Pro using DMXout via sACN which would send messages to QLC+ for controlling the lights. The eDMX1 Pro uses an FTDI driver which can be recognized with the QLC+ software.

I experienced difficulty finding the specification sheet for the ShowJockey SJ-DMX-U1 device, and could not see which driver it would need. I blindly downloaded the FTDI driver to see if the ShowJockey would then show up, but that did not work. As per Tom’s advice, I checked to see what serial devices my Mac recognized. To do this, I used the Terminal command “ls /dev/cu.*” The ShowJockey did not show up.

When CHiKA gifted me the ShowJockey, we were using it only with madMapper, so I knew that the device was functional in that environment. I assumed that this product on the GarageCube site is what I must have, and its description says "This "NO DRIVER!" DMX controller is plug & play and ready to work with madMapper and Modul8 (only)" For this reason, I decided to use TouchDesigner simply to send out OSC data to madMapper for channel value changes.

OSC Connection
When trying to establish the link between TouchDesigner and madMapper, I knew that OSC would be very straightforward. It’s a matter of matching network ports, setting up the correct network / local addresses, using the appropriate protocol, and making sure the OSC message that is being sent is in the correct format that the receiving software could recognize. When I did not see any changes to the channel values within MM, I used the OSC Data Monitor to make sure that I was indeed sending out an OSC message with TD. Sure enough, I was sending an appropriately formatted OSC message.

I followed a few tutorials (see references) but they all did not mention a very important thing; Tom pointed out "You'll need to use the address 127.0.0.1 if you're trying to communicate between two programs on the same machine.” Duh. Thanks Tom!

Notes

I picked the UKING 80W Double Beam moving heads as Louise had mentioned in class that UKING had decent reviews. For this project, I favored these lights for their basic functionality and value, however, I was not pleased with the color blending quality. Once I received my order, I used my AKAI APC40 MIDI controller to change channel values within madMapper just to test that the moving head lights were received in working condition.

References

• Particle Attractors & Kinect

• madMapper qLab OSC Tutorials

• OSC Out to Resolume
  

Lighting Moment 4/29/2020

The left window

The two middle windows

The right window

Final Project Proposal: TouchDesigner DMX Control

A while back, I had plans to complete the fabrication of LOIE, my midterm lighting fixture for my final project, but knew that the sculpture still called for additional CNC work to make a sturdy back plate that everything would mount to. Last week, I started sketching out ideas for another light sculpture, but as some of my ordered items are not showing any clear signs of when they will be delivered, it really makes rapid prototyping and the final design processes much more difficult.

I am thinking that now is the right time to start diving deeper into TouchDesigner, a program that I began to start using when working for Leo Villareal. I am interested in it as a powerful tool for interactive show control and generative visuals. I am planning to create a DMX controller interface within TouchDesigner using gestures to control specific channels of the DMX lights set up on the ITP floor. I borrowed a Kinect Azure from the ER before quarantine began, and I would like to capture the infrared depth data within TD and program it to trigger events, such as sliding the hue values or brightness levels up and down with the wave of a hand.

Here are two inspiration videos that use the Kinect and TouchDesigner to control a moving DMX light.

Out of curiosity, I looked to see if there were any DMX moving lights that were somewhat affordable.

2 Chauvet MiN spots for $225?

Lighting Moment 4/22/2020

DMX Lighting: Controlling the lights on the ITP floor

Following Tom’s intro to DMX and sACN video, I was able to successfully control the 4 DMX lights on the ITP floor using QLC+. In the video, I showcase my test of the four lights that were set up on channels 1, 21, 41, and 61.

Lighting Moment - 04/08/2020

Lighting Moment - 03/29/2020, 1:05 AM

A rainy, contemplative Sunday through a south-facing window in Ridgewood.

With so much stillness we create stories of movement, where this temporarily seized energy has dire potential for release. The slick streets are covered in the memories of commuting rubber. Illuminated veils gently conceal the hints of our neighbors’ lives. The sky is brightly polluted by the neighborhood’s collection of street lights. Perhaps the nearby once-bustling Myrtle Ave, now silenced at this hour, is making its residual contributions to the light captured by the clouds.

The fiery glow from within the scene is coming from an aptly volcano-embellished lava lamp. Its warmth is starkly contrasted by the cold white street lights outside, seemingly amplified by all of the wet, reflective surfaces. The dual glass window panes reflect the light, resulting in an offset portrait of me. You can even see the reflection of the lava lamp in my eyeglasses. A hanging prism contains the light of the lava lamp that sits underneath it.

LOIE, A Sculptural Light Study

Inspiration

I named the piece Loie after the artist Loie Hollowell. I attended her exhibition at Pace Gallery last year titled Plumb Line. I thought to myself that her use of gradients with bold colors and geometric forms could be easily translated into washes of light.

I began to look into her other paintings, and came across The Land’s Part, a painting she did in 2017.

Loie Hollowell, The Land’s Part, 2017.

In addition to Hollowell’s paintings, I’ve always been inspired by the Art Deco movement - the patterns, the architecture, and the lighting fixtures that were being made in the 1920s.

I used to work at Remains Lighting, a bespoke lighting manufacturer that started off with antique restorations. One of my projects was to oversee the repair of these beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass sconces:

Objective

• Light and Interactivity: to create a light fixture to be installed in an assigned room within the ITP floor. I chose phone booth #467, with the desire to cover the several holes that exist in the walls because of previously installed shelving.

• Subtraction: use joinery to create an object. Below is a drawing of the final dog bone joint that I used to connect all of my pieces together. It took 3 tries to get the perfect tension fit, the hole ended up being a .02 offset from the key width.

Materials

• 3/4 plywood

• Materials from the “scrap bin” at Remains

  • Ingersoll glass globe

  • Brass trapezoid + strips

• Two-way mirror acrylic

• Mirror Acrylic

• Hue Light controller, created for Connected Devices assignment

• Hue Light system

Process / Assembly

Glass globe print from Remains Lighting

Lighting Moment: 4 hour Time Lapse

The first time lapse I took was observing the light coming in from my partner’s kitchen windows. This was taken from roughly 4am - 5:30am - unfortunately, the GoPro (at full battery!) died within 1.5 hours. With the GoPro Hero 4, there is an option to use the Night Lapse mode, which adjusts its shutter speed to allow as much light into the camera. In retrospect, I should have kept a standard shutter speed to observe the natural changes without the camera compensating for the amount of light coming into the sensor.

I imagined that the pink over the stove light would slowly fade as the radiant morning light flooded into the kitchen as it typically does. There are quick flashes of the lights from passing vehicles, and slight glimpses into the neighbors’ morning activity.

The second time lapse I took was from roughly 1:30pm to 6:30pm. I set up the GoPro by the window facing southwest towards Willoughby St. With the darkened, gloomy sky, I did not observe dramatic light changes. As the sun went down, the reflections of the windows became more apparent, so it was possible to observe the light coming in from the ITP floor in the same shot as the buildings outside.

Hue Light: Cassette Controller

I transformed an old cassette tape from a thrift store into a Hue Light controller. I embedded a rotary encoder and a push button through the cassette spools, and an OLED screen through which you would see the tape. I included a red LED at the bottom of the cassette to confirm the WiFi connection.

Materials

• Hue Light system

• Arduino NANO 33 IoT

• Rotary encoder

• Push button

• OLED Screen

• Cassette Tape from thrift store

Code

My code can be found on my Github here.
I modified Tom’s “HueBlinkWithJsonEncoder.ino” file, which can be found here.

Because my controller has an OLED screen, I put together a unit test so that I could adjust the sizing and positioning of the text.
The screen will show when it is attempting to connect, when it finally makes the connection, what settings / values are being changed, when the request is sent, and the response code.
I made sure to modify the default “on” state to “true”, brightness to 255, hue to 0 (red), and saturation to 255.
I increased the stepping for the hue values so that picking another color would be quicker.

Assembly

Week 2: Candle

Objective

Create an artificial candle or lantern using a NeoPixel jewel or other programmable LED. Your candle should include a base and a shade or diffuser. Try to capture the colors and behavior of a real candle in programming your candle.

Materials

• (2) Fluorescent green acrylic rods, 1’ L x1/4” D - Canal Plastics

• (2) Clear acrylic rods, 1’ L x 1/4” D - Canal Plastics

• 1/4” white acrylic - Canal Plastics

• Neopixel Jewel

• Arduino NANO 33 IOT
  
  

Enclosure Fabrication

I started fabricating the enclosure for the Neopixel because I wanted to adjust the color of my LED candle to take the fluorescent green acrylic rods into account.
I lasercut out two circles that would hold the weaving acrylic rods in place to simulate the look of fluted glass.
I trimmed the acrylic rods into 16 pieces using the bandsaw, and used a rubber mallet to hammer them into the circle.

Code

I observed three sketches: NeoPixelSimple (red pixel one at a time) NeoPixelCandle0001.ino (red to orange) and WS281xCandle.ino (flicker) before attempting to make any changes.

Source: Adafruit.com

I referenced the Neopixel color chart to determine the color range I wanted my candle to fall within.

At first, I thought that the green acrylic rods with very saturated yellow tones would benefit from LEDs that were less saturated and in a deeper red tone range. I changed the hue color range to 1000 to 2000, saturation 50-100, and intensity from 10-100. This resulted in an even more artificial pink orange that did not resemble the flame.

I then tested out more saturated yellows, which resulted in highlighting the green acrylic even more in an undesirable way.

Finally, I settled on a range where the candle initializes within the ranges H: 4000 - 5000, S: 230-255, I: 200-255. Looking at the enclosure straight on, there is still more artificial green that I am not sure can be avoided due to the materiality of the acrylic rod choice. However, looking at the ambient glow of the light on a white piece of paper resembled closer to the warmth of an actual flame. Here is a link to the code.

Helpful Resources

• Colorizer

• Color Models and Color Spaces

Week 1: Fading Curve

Hue Light: Interface

This week, I was able to successfully control the Hue Lights that were set up on the ITP floor using Terminal. Here is a video turning the Hue lamp on and off with the following Terminal commands:

On:
curl -X PUT -d'{"on": true, "hue":42900, "effect": "colorloop"}' http://172.22.151.181/api/YQWwzjYDMcgI4WlYHbl-ITkV2F17nXqcjkWusDMy/lights/1/state

Off:
curl -X PUT -d'{"on": false}' http://172.22.151.181/api/YQWwzjYDMcgI4WlYHbl-ITkV2F17nXqcjkWusDMy/lights/1/state

After successfully using Terminal to control the Hue lamps, I attempted both Arduino and p5js to make changes.

I used the Arduino HTTP client example sketch, but was unable to turn the Hue light on and off. The Serial monitor only showed that the Arduino was attempting to connect to sandbox370, but did not complete the connection.

Week 2: Lighting Moment

11:53pm, Rebecca’s on a rainy Thursday Night Out. There are several lighting moments within this composition. The striking glow from two neon signs in the window exhibit a range of colors: the middle is a dominantly yellow sign that reads MIXED DRINKS with a white border, while the other is a vintage Rollerblade sign. The white semi-sheer curtain diffuses the glow but allows light to seep into the bar’s ambience. The jukebox screams to be touched with a fluorescent yellow coming from the song selections and teal blue accents. The walls are a wash of indigo as a result of the bar pendant Hue lamps. In the upper left corner is the red of the EXIT sign mixing with the indigo creating a soft puddle of fuschia. Through the entrance, the wet streets offer reflective surfaces for the headlights of incoming traffic along Bushwick Ave.

Week 1: Lighting Moment

Here is a silhouette of a red kimono hanging in the bathroom doorway, seemingly dripping in a breath of faded blue. At first thought, I thought the dripping shadow’s shadow was a result of the fabric diffusing the light source. This scene is illuminated with a singular light source - an upright floor lamp that is a vertical bar of warm white light. There is a thin red cellophane film that is comfortably enveloping the fixture, with pieces overlapping, crinkling, and in some parts exposing the white light beneath. Towards the bottom of the fixture, the red film does not cover the source, allowing a larger spread of the white light to illuminate the space. This explains why the shadow that is casted by the kimono appears as if there were two separate light sources of varying color. The white juxtaposed in a dominantly red environment becomes this faint blue as the white is cool in comparison.