Pixel based gobo record control format
Contents
1. If possible it is desirable to avoid using uncom pressed images For example one simple form image to manipulate is a bitmap also known as a bmp type image The bitmap represents each pixel of the image by a number of bits e g for an 8 bit 3 primary color image each pixel would require 24 bits This can unfortunately use incredible amounts of storage However since the bit map has a 1 to 1 correspondence with the image it can be relatively easy to manipulate the bit map For example a matrix representing the bitmap can be easily manipulated e g rotated The image form can be compressed e g to a GIF or JPEG image This compressed image however loses the one to one correspondence and hence cannot be directly processed as easily One aspect of the present system is to store the image as a compressed image and most preferably as polygons The software package Adobe Streamline TM breaks a bitmap into multiple polygons The polygons can then be defined as vectors An additional advantage is that the vectors can be easily processed by the DSP The DSP 800 then builds the image from the vectors Since the image is defined as vectors it can be easily handled via matrix arithmetic Using Adobe Streamline for example an 800 kilobyte bit map can be compressed to a 30 kilobyte vector image Another improvement of the present system is the control of the gobo using filters In an analog gobo system a filter can be used to2. 08 854 353 now U S Pat No 6 188 933 describes a stage lighting system which operates based on computer provided com mands to form special effects One of those effects is control of the shape of a light pattern that is transmitted by the device This control is carried out on a pixel by pixel basis hence referred to in this specification as pixilated The embodiment describes using a digital mirror device but other x y controllable devices such as a grating light valve are also contemplated The computer controlled system includes a digital signal processor 106 which is used to create an image command That image command controls the pixels of the x y control lable device to shape the light that it is output from the device The system described in the above referenced application allows unparalleled flexibility in selection of gobo shapes and movement This opens an entirely new science of controlling gobos The present inventors found that unexpectedly even more flexibility is obtained by a special control language for controlling those movements SUMMARY The present disclosure defines aspects that facilitate com municating with an a point controllable device to form special electronic light pattern shapes More specifically the present application describes different aspects of communi cation with an electronic gobo These aspects include improved processing or improved controls for the gobo BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DR
3. alternative embodiment uses a different DSP The functions of the transfer controller are then replicated in the FPGA as desired For example an alternative possible DSP is the C6201 which uses the Very Large Instruction Word VLIW architecture This system can use for example 128 bit instructions However since this is connected to the 32 bit data bus a transfer controller could be highly advan tageous This would enable the equivalent of direct memory access from the memory FIG 11 shows the gate array schematic of this alternate embodiment in which the transfer controller is part of the FPGA Asecond embodiment of the gate array logic as arranged according to the present system is shown in FIG 11 This gate array logic is formed in the field programmable gate array 820 to carry out many of the functions described herein Block 1100 corresponds to a transparency device which calculates values associated with transparency Block 1102 is a dual port RAM which receives the VLIW at one port thereof and outputs that value to a multiplexer 1104 which outputs it as a 32 bit signal used by the CPU DSP Transfer controller 1106 has the functionality discussed above It is controlled directly by the CPU data received on line 1105 The transfer controller can have two lists of parameters each 64 bits in width These values are received on the list receivers 1110 1112 Another issue noted by the current inventors is the size of images
4. b gt yY se SS SS SH SS G Ol k we 00S 4 L D I IN IN U S Patent Apr 15 2003 Sheet 6 of 9 US 6 549 326 B2 700 702 FIG 7A 704 A 706 I FIG 7B FIG 7C U S Patent Apr 15 2003 Sheet 7 of 9 US 6 549 326 B2 804 Cee eee ne ee ee 830 IMAGE STORAGE SERIAL FIG 8 910 U S Patent Apr 15 2003 Sheet 8 of 9 US 6 549 326 B2 FIG 10 U S Patent Apr 15 2003 Sheet 9 of 9 US 6 549 326 B2 1100 ARDY CPU 128 Transparency 128 VSDRAM Backoff Math Fill Write Calculation Unit data 1102 Dual Port RAM 256 Bytes 16 x 128 bits 1104 CPU 3 Dat 1103 128 128 Write Poster WP1 gt gt gt WP2 1106 Transfer Controller Core Logic 128 Video Controller and eyes uffer 1024 bytes ee 64 x 128 bits VS AE 1114 FIG 11 US 6 549 326 B2 1 PIXEL BASED GOBO RECORD CONTROL FORMAT CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a divisional of U S application Ser No 09 679 727 filed Oct 4 2000 which is a continuation of U S application Ser No 09 495 585 filed Feb 1 2000 now abandoned which claims the benefit of U S provi sional application serial No 60 118 195 filed on Feb 1 1999 FIELD The present invention relates to a system of controlling light beam pattern gobo shape in a pixilated gobo control system BACKGROUND Commonly assigned patent application Ser No
5. be brighter than the other This raises the possibility of a system such as shown in FIGS 5A 5C Two gobos are shown spinning in opposite directions the circle gobo 500 is spinning the counterclockwise direction while the half moon gobo 502 is spinning in the clockwise direction At the overlap the half moon gobo which is brighter than the circle gobo is visible over the circle gobo Such effects were simply not possible with previous sys tems Any matrix operation is possible and only a few of those matrix operations have been described herein A final matrix operation to be described is the perspective transformation This defines rotation of the gobo in the Z axis and hence allows adding depth and perspective to the gobo For each gobo for which rotation is desired a calcu lation is preferably made in advance as to what the gobo will look like during the Z axis transformation For example when the gobo is flipping in the Z axis the top goes back and looks smaller while the front comes forward and looks larger FIGS 6 1 6 8 show the varying stages of the gobo flipping In FIG 6 8 the gobo has its edge toward the user This is shown in FIG 6 8 as a very thin line e g three pixels wide although the gobo could be zero thickness at this point Automatic algorithms are available for such Z axis transformation or alternatively a specific Z axis trans formation can be drawn and digitized automatically to enable a custom look
6. blur the image representing the gobo for example Many different 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 12 kinds of filters are used For example some filters randomly distort the image Other filters affect the image in different ways The blurring can be carried out as an electronic filter Apreferred user interface defines the filter as a separate gobo that is multiplied e g AND ed or OR ed with the first gobo More generally a filter can be used to alter the image in some way e g scale the image decay the image or the like The blur can be used to make the image apparently out of focus in some locations The filter uses a second gobo that simulates the effect of an analog filter For example one operation simulates the optical effect of the glass that forms the filter in an analog gobo That glass is used to make a model that emulates the optical properties of the glass Those optical properties are then manipulated through the matrix representing the gobo thereby effecting a digital representation of the filter In one aspect the filter is considered as a separate gobo which is OR ed with the second gobo In this case the dual gobo definition described above can be used Alternatively the filter can simply be added to the gobo defining matrix This definition has the advantage that it avoids defining a totally separate control The filters are each defined as one specific gobo A user manu
7. could only be transmitted in the additive or subtractive combination between the two colors red and blue The present system defines the two images as conceptu ally being separate planes This enables transmitting the or or any other combination between the two images Both the first image 700 and the second image 704 are displayed Moreover the intersection portion of the image 706 can be made in any desired color either the color of either the color of the subtractive combination or a totally different color While this system describes an or operation it also encompasses any combination between the gobos e g exclusive or Schmitt triggered hysteresis induced combination AND OR or others The gobo operation is also simplified and made more efficient by using a transfer controller as described herein FIG 8 shows the basic block diagram of this embodiment The Digital Signal Processor DSP 800 effectively func tions as the central processing unit A DSP for this embodi ment is the TI TMS 320C80 This has a 64 bit bus 802 Memory 804 is attached to the bus 802 The memory 804 effectively forms a working portion A transfer controller 810 is provided and allows increased speed The transfer controller can take control of the bus and can carry out certain functions One such function is a direct memory access This allows moving information from the program memory 804 to a desired location The transfer controller r
8. given the example of a circle it should be understood that this scaling and moving operation can be carried out for anything The polygons circles annulus and any other shape is easily scaled The same operation can be carried out with the multiple parameter gobos For example for the case of a ring the variable takes the form annulus inner R outer R x and y This defines the annulus and turns of the inner radius the outer radius and x and y offsets from the origin Again as shown in step 3 the annulus is first written into the matrix as a default size and then appropriately scaled and shifted In terms of the previously described control the ring gobo has two controls control 1 and control 2 defined the inner and outer radius Each of these operations is also automatically carried out by the command repeat count which allows easily forming the multiple position gobo of FIGS 4A 4G The variable auto spin defines a continuous spin operation The spin operation commands the digital signal processor to continu ously spin the entire matrix by a certain amount each time One particularly interesting feature available from the digital mirror device is the ability to use multiple gobos which can operate totally separately from one another raises the ability to have different gobos spinning in different directions When the gobos overlap the processor can also calculate relative brightness of the two gobos In addition one gobo can
9. polygonal shape In addition the iris can rotate when it is non circular so that for the example of a square iris the edges of the square can actually rotate Returning to step 206 in the case of a replicate there are multiple gobos in the matrix This allows the option of spinning the entire matrix shown as thin matrix An example will now be described with reference to the case of repeating circles At step 200 the new gobo infor mation is received indicating a circle This is followed by the other steps of 202 where the old gobo is copied and 204 where the new gobo is formed The specific operation forms a new gobo at step 300 by creating a circle of size diameter equals 1000 pixels at origin 00 This default circle is automatically created FIG 4A shows the default gobo which is created a default size circle at 00 It is assumed for purposes of this operation that all of the circles will be the same size At step 302 the circle is scaled by multiplying the entire circle by an appropriate scaling factor Here for simplicity we are assuming a scaling factor of 50 to create a smaller circle The result is shown in FIG 4B A gobo half the size of the gobo of FIG 4A is still at the origin This is actually the scale of the subroutine as shown in the right portion of step 302 Next since there will be four repeated gobos in this example a four loop is formed to form each of the gobos at step 304 Each of the gobos is shifted in p
10. which could be copied as the starting point Once these values are set the third and fourth channels automatically become the inner outer radius controls Using two radii allows the annulus to be turned inside out Each control channel s data always has the same meaning within the console The console treats these values as simply numbers that are passed on The meanings of those numbers as interpreted by the lamps change according to the value in dfGobo The lamp will always receives all 4 bytes of the gobo data in the same packet Therefore a DoubleCntrl gobo will always have the correct control values packed along with it Hence the console needs no real modification If a soft console_is used then name reassignments and or key reas signments may be desirable Timing For each data packet there is an associated Time for gobo response This is conventionally taken as the time 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 4 allotted to place the new gobo in the light gate This delay has been caused by motor timing In this system variant gobo the control is more dynamically used If the non variant parts of the gobo remain the same then it is still the same gobo only with control changes Then the time value is interpreted as the time allowed for the control change Since different gobo presets in the console can reference the same gobo but with different control settings
11. AWINGS These and other aspects of the invention will now be described with reference to the attached drawings in which FIG 1 shows a block diagram of the basic system operating the embodiment FIG 2 shows a basic flowchart of operation FIG 3 shows a flowchart of forming a replicating circles type gobo FIGS 4A through 4G show respective interim results of carrying out the replicating circles operation FIG 5 shows the result of two overlapping gobos rotating in opposite directions FIGS 6 1 through 6 8 show a z axis flipping gobo FIGS 7A 7C show overlapping gobos and then color of overlap 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 2 FIG 8 shows the black diagram of the system including a transfer controller FIG 9 shows an intensity sensitive color control ele ments FIG 10 shows control of a framing shutter and FIG 11 shows a transfer controller made from an FPGA DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT FIG 1 shows a block diagram of the hardware used according to the preferred embodiment As described above this system uses a digital mirror device 100 which has also been called a digital mirror device DMD and a digital light processor device DLP More generally any system which allows controlling shape of light on a pixel basis including a grating light valve could be used as the light shaper This light shaper forms the shape of light which is transmi
12. Third Embodiment The gobo record format described above can have two gobos therein These two gobos can be gobo planes which can be used to project one image superimposed over another image in a predefined way For example a first image can be US 6 549 326 B2 9 a pattern that emits light e g a standard gobo The second image can be totally transparent or can have holes through which the first image can be seen Analog gobos often project light through two gobos The light is then projected through the intersection between the two gobos Effectively this takes an AND function between the gobos Light will only be passed in places where both gobos are open In the present system any function between two images can be projected as an overall gobo shape The system can e g project an or operation between the two images Moreover the two images can be projected in separate colors The operation could be carried out in software A first gobo shown in FIG 7A is a square gobo For purposes of this example the square gobo is projected in red R forming a first red lighted portion The exterior non projected portion 702 is black FIG 7B shows the second gobo to be combined with the first gobo The second gobo is an off center circle 704 to be projected in blue B The AND between these two gobos would transmit only the intersection between the two gobos shown by the hatched portion 706 Moreover this portion
13. a United States Patent US006549326B2 10 Patent No US 6 549 326 B2 Hunt et al 45 Date of Patent Apr 15 2003 54 PIXEL BASED GOBO RECORD CONTROL 52 US Cl eenia 359 291 382 162 382 199 FORMAT 345 418 348 625 358 518 358 1 9 700 19 315 292 75 Inventors Mark A Hunt Derby GB William 58 Field of Search oo 359 291 382 162 E Hewlett Burton on Trent GB Ian 382 181 19 167 345 418 419 431 348 110 Clarke Walsall GB 625 358 518 1 9 700 19 315 292 294 73 Assignee Light and Sound Design Ltd r Birmingham GB 56 References Cited MENN U S PATENT DOCUMENTS Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 5 969 485 A 10 1999 Hunt oo eee ceeceeee 315 292 U S C 154 b by 0 days 6 115 078 A 9 2000 Kino 0 348 625 6 188 933 B1 2 2001 Hewlett et al 700 19 6 226 050 B1 5 2001 Lee 348 625 21 Appl No 09 949 155 6 393 146 B1 5 2002 Doll 382 162 sod 6 400 842 B2 6 2002 Fukuda 382 162 22 Filed Sep 7 2001 6 400 846 B1 6 2002 Lin et al eecsseeseseeeee 382 199 65 Prior Publication Dat 65 si er E EE AET cited by examiner US 2002 0109905 A1 Aug 15 2002 Primary Examiner Loha Ben Related U S Application Data 74 Attorney Agent or Firm Fish amp Richardson P C 62 Division of application No 09 679 727 filed on Oct 4 57 ABSTRACT 2000 which is a continuation of applica
14. al which defines gobos is used This manual has filters added to it This avoids the need for a separator user manual of filters Another aspect defined by the present system is gobos that load and execute code Some images cannot be described in terms of control For example images may be defined as some random input Some images progress with time and maintain no record of their previous state These images can be defined in terms of code and in terms of a progression from one time to another Hence the gobos that load and execute code define a gobo that includes an associated area to hold static values A gobo is requested The code and variables that are associated with that gobo are copied into RAM The vari ables are initially at a preset state The code that is in the gobo portion is executed using the portions in the variables The variables are modified at each pass through the portion Yet another feature of this system is intensity control over aspects of the image defining the gobo and dimming of the image defined thereby Returning to the example of a bit map with 24 bit color such a system would include 8 bits of red 8 bits of green and 8 bits of blue It can be desirable to fade the image while keeping the color constant with inten sity change One system uses an experimental technique i e that is one that relies on experimentation to determine how to fade in order to maintain constant color A look up table is formed be
15. andom flying shapes Although only a few embodiments have been described in detail above those having ordinary skill in the art certainly understand that modifications are possible What is claimed is 1 A processing system for a digitally controllable light passing element comprising a memory storing a digital file that represents a shape of light to be passed a digital signal processor which carries out in operation mathematical operations on said digital file a transfer controller element separate from said digital signal processor which receives information about data to be moved including start location of the data and other information which enables the device to deter mine the data and which obtains the data directly from the memory processes it according to the requests and returns the information to the memory without inter vention of the digital signal processor and uses said information to modify said digital file and a hardware block which receives and interfaces com mands from a remote controller 2 A device as in claim 1 wherein said hardware block is formed from a configured FPGA 3 A device as in claim 2 wherein said digital signal processor configures the FPGA 4 A device as in claim 2 wherein said FPGA is formed into dynamic RAM blocks 5 A devices as in claim 2 wherein said FPGA is config ured to form input and output ports 6 A device as in claim 2 wherein said transfer controller
16. cations device is a mailbox which indicates when new mail is received Hence the new gobo information is received at step 200 by determining that new mail has been received At step 202 the system copies the old gobo and switches pointers The operation continues using the old gobo until the draw routine is called later on At step 204 the new information is used to form a new gobo The system uses a defined gobo dfGobo as dis cussed previously which has a defined matrix The type dfGobo is used to read the contents from the memory 109 and thereby form a default image That default image is formed in a matrix For example in the case of an annulus a default size annulus can be formed at position 0 0 in the matrix An example of forming filled balls is provided herein Step 206 represents calls to subroutines The default gobo is in the matrix but the power of this system is its ability to very easily change the characteristics of that default gobo In this embodiment the characteristics are changed by chang ing the characteristics of the matrix and hence shifting that default gobo in different ways The matrix operations which are described in further detail herein include scaling the gobo rotation iris edge strobe and dimmer Other matrix operations are possible Each of these matrix operations takes the default gobo and does something to it For example scale changes the size of the default gobo Rotation rotates t
17. diment is the control of an annulus or ring gobo The DMD 100 in FIG 1 is shown with the ring gobo being formed on the DMD The ring gobo is type 000A When the gobo type OA is enabled the gobo editor 110 on the console 104 is enabled and the existing gobo encoders 120 122 124 and 126 are used The gobo editor 110 provides the operator with specialized control over the internal and the external diameters of the annulus using separate controls in the gobo editor The gobo editor and control system also provides other capabilities including the capability of timed moves between different edited parameters For example the ring forming the gobo could be controlled to be thicker The operation could then effect a timed move between these preset ring thicknesses Control like this cannot even be attempted with conventional fixtures Another embodiment is a composite gobo with moving parts These parts can move though any path that ia pro US 6 549 326 B2 3 grammed in the gobo data itself This is done in response to the variant fields in the gobo control record again with timing Multiple parts can be linked to a single control allowing almost unlimited effects Another embodiment of this system adapts the effect for an eye gobo where the pupil of the eye changes its position look left look right in response to the control Yet another example is a Polygon record which can be used for forming a triangle or some
18. dled The transfer controller can also gen erate a table of end points carry out direct memory access and manipulate the data while transferring the data The SDRAM 822 can be used as fast image memory and can be connected for example to an image storage memory 830 The FPGA can also be configured to include serial interfaces 824 826 with their associated RAM 828 829 respectively Other hardware components also can be con figured by the FPGA Since the FPGA can be reconfigured under control of the digital signal processor 800 the FPGA can be reconfigured dynamically to set an appropriate amount of SDRAM 822 For example if a larger image or image processing area is necessary the FPGA can be reconfigured to make more of its area into image memory If a smaller image is desired less of the FPGA can be made into SDRAM allowing more US 6 549 326 B2 11 of the FGPA for other hardware functions Moreover the interfaces 832 834 can be dynamically reconfigured For example the baud rate can be changed bus width can be reconfigured and the like The video controller and line buffer 1114 can also be formed from the field programmable gate array The serial receiver 824 receives the lamp data from the controller as described in U S Pat No 5 969 485 The serial driver 826 produces a serial output that can drive for example an RS422 bus that runs the motors The C80 DSP includes the transfer controller as a part thereof An
19. eceives information about the data to be moved including the start location of the data the number of bytes of the data and the end location of the data The destination and operation is also specified by the data 809 The transfer controller 810 then takes the data directly from the memory 804 processes it and returns it to the memory or to the DLP without DSP intervention The CPU can then therefore instruct the transfer controller to take some action and then can itself do something else Hardware block 820 also connects to the bus 802 This is preferably formed from a Field Programmable Gate Array FPGA The FPGA can be configured into logical blocks as shown The DSP also sends commands that reconfigure the FPGA as needed The FPGA can be reconfigured to form fast Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory SDRAM shown as 822 DSP 800 can be a TI TMS 320C80 This device includes an associated transfer controller which is a combined 10 15 20 25 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 10 memory controller and DMA direct memory access machine It handles the movement of data and instructions within the system as required by the master processor parallel processors video controller and external devices The transfer controller performs the following data movement and memory control functions MP and ADSP instruction cache fills MP data cache fills and dirty block write back MP and ADSP packet transfers PTs Exte
20. ed to control value after scaling field modification record 2 Address 6 bits offset from start of gobo to affected field Flags 6 bits information about field size signed etc Scale 6 bits scale factor applied to control before use zPoint 6 bits added to control value after scaling As can be seen a single control can have almost unlimited effects on the gobo since ANY values in the data can be modified in any way and the number of field modification records is almost unlimited Note that since the control records are part of the gobo data itself they can have intimate knowledge of the gobo structure This makes the hard coding of field offsets accept able In cases where the power offered by this simple structure is not sufficient a control record could be defined which contains code to be executed by the processor This code would be passed parameters such as the address of the gobo data and the value of the control being adjusted Example Records The Annulus record has the following format Length 32 bits Opcode 16 bits type_annulus Pad 16 bits unused Centre_x 16 bits x coordinate of centre Centre_y 16 bits y coordinate of centre OuterRad 16 bits outside radius the radii get swapped when drawn if their values are in the wrong order InnerRad 16 bits inside radius It can be seen from this that it is easy to target one of the radius parameters from a control record Use of
21. epresenting a filter used to distort the gobo shape and using said first and second images to control an electronic device to display an image 17 Amethod as in claim 16 wherein said filter defines an object which is mathematically applied to said gobo 10 15 20 16 18 A method as in claim 16 wherein said filter comprises a scale of the image or a decay of the image 19 A method as in claim 16 wherein said filter comprises a blur of the image 20 Amethod as in claim 16 wherein said filter comprises a gobo that simulates an effect of an analog filter 21 A method as in claim 20 wherein said effect of the analog filter is an effect of optical properties of specified glass 22 A method of controlling a digital light controlling element comprising storing an image representation in a memory said image representation indicating a basic gobo modifying said image representation using a second gobo acting as a filter to form a modified image and using the modified image to control the digital light controlling element to display light 23 A method as in claim 22 wherein said filter includes a specified gobo 24 Amethod as in claim 22 wherein said gobos hold static values enabling execution of code
22. es red green and blue color without loss of data and with substantially perfect fading An additional feature described herein is a framing shutter gobo A basic framing shutter is shown in FIG 10 FIG 10 shows the circular spot of the beam and the analog shutter often called a LECO Each analog shutter 1000 can be moved in and out in the direction of the arrows shown Each shutter can also be moved in an angular direction shown by the arrow 1002 There are a total of four shutters which in combination enable framing the beam to a desired shape For example the shutter 1004 can be moved to the position shown in dotted lines as 1006 When this happens the effective image that is passed becomes as shown in hatched lines in FIG 10 Another possibility is that the shutter can be tilted to put a notch or nose into the window around the image According to this system a record is formed for a gobo defining a framing shutter The framing shutter gobo allows control of multiple values including the positions of the four framing shutter edges 1000 1004 1006 and 1008 Each framing shutter is defined in terms of its value d corre sponding to the distance between one edge 1010 of the framing shutter and the edge 1011 of the original spot In this system the value d is shown representing the right hand edge of the framing shutter Another selectable value is 9 which defines the angle that the front blade 1013 of the framing shutter makes re
23. he default gobo by a certain amount Iris simulates an iris operation by choosing an area of interest typically circular and erasing everything outside that area of interest This is very easily done in the matrix since it simply defines a portion in the matrix where all black is written Edge effects carry out certain effects on the edge such as softening the edge This determines a predetermined thickness which is translated to a predetermined number of pixels and carries out a predetermined operation on the number of pixels For example for a 50 edge softening every other pixel can be turned off The strobe is in effect that allows all pixels to be turned on and off at a predeter mined frequency i e 3 to 10 times a second The dimmer allows the image to be made dimmer by turning off some of the pixels at predetermined times The replicate command forms another default gobo to allow two different gobos to be handled by the same record This will be shown with reference to the exemplary third embodiment showing balls Each of those gobos are then handled as the same unit and the entirety of the gobos can be for example rotated The result of step 206 and all of these subroutines that are called is that the matrix includes information about the bits to be mapped to the digital mirror 100 At step 208 the system then obtains the color of the gobos from the control record discussed previously This gobo color is used to set the ap
24. is formed from said FPGA 7 A device as in claim 2 wherein said transfer controller is separate from the FPGA 8 A method of controlling a digital gobo comprising forming an image representing a gobo from a plurality of polygons and using said image to control an electronic element to shape an output light 9 A method as in claim 8 wherein said polygons are vectorized polygons 10 A method as in claim 8 further comprising using said image to control a digital mirror device to display light according to information in said image 11 A method as in claim 8 further comprising filtering said image using a filter US 6 549 326 B2 15 12 A method of projecting light comprising forming an image which will be used as a gobo for said light to shape an outer edge of said light compressing said image storing the compressed version of said image and using said compressed version of said image to control an electronic element to shape said light 13 A method as in claim 12 wherein said compressed image is compressed using vectors 14 Amethod as in claim 13 wherein the vectorized image is processed using matrix arithmetic 15 A method as in claim 13 wherein said compressing comprises dividing the image into multiple polygons and defining said polygons in terms of vectors 16 A method of storing information for controlling a gobo comprising storing a first image representing a gobo shape storing a second image r
25. lative to perfect horizontal or vertical Yet another parameter which can be selected is offset O which represents the distance between the framing shutter edge 1010 and the ideal edge portion 1017 Other values can alternatively be specified By controlling all these values the Medusa shutter can in effect simulate any desired framing shutter by using an electronic gobo 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 14 Anumber of different special gobos are defined according to the present system Each of these gobos is defined according to the record format described above These include Oscilloscope This enables simulating the output value of an oscilloscope as the gobo For example any value that can be displayed on the oscilloscope could be used as a gobo with a finite width This could include sine waves square waves straight waves sawtooth waves and the like Other variable gobos include vertical lines moire lines laser dots radial lines concentric circles geometric spiral bar code moon phases flowers and rotating flowers a diamond tiling within a shape kaleidoscope tunnel vision and others Animated gobos correspond to those which execute codes described above Some examples of these include for example self animating random clouds self animating ran dom reflections self animating random flames fireworks randomly moving shapes such as honeycombs crosswords or undulations foam r
26. osition by calling the matrix operator shift In this example the gobo is shifted to a quadrant to the upper right of the origin This position is referred to as O over 4 in the FIG 3 flowchart and results in the gobo being shifted to the center portion of the top right quadrant as shown in FIG 4C This is again easily accom plished within the matrix by moving the appropriate values At step 308 the matrix is spun by 90 degrees in order to put the gobo in the next quadrant as shown in FIG 4D in preparation for the new gobo being formed into the same quadrant Now the system is ready for the next gobo thereby calling the replicate command which quite easily creates another default gobo circle and scales it The four loop is then continued at step 312 The replicate process is shown in FIG 4E where a new gobo 402 is formed in addition to the existing gobo 400 The system then passes again through the four loop with the 10 15 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 8 results being shown in the following figures In FIG 4F the new gobo 402 is again moved to the upper right quadrant step 306 In FIG 4G the matrix is again rotated to leave room for a new gobo in the upper right quadrant This continues until the end of the four loop Hence this allows each of the gobos to be formed Since all of this is done in matrix operation it is easily programmable into the digital signal processor While the above has
27. other polygonal shape The control can be likened to the slider control under a QuickTime movie window which allows you to manually move to any point in the movie However our controls need not be restricted to timelines Even though such moving parts are used scaling and rotation on the gobo is also possible The following type assignments are contemplated 00__OF FixedGobo with no moving parts 10_1F SingleCntrl with 1 moving part 20__2F DoubleCntrl with 2 moving parts 30_ FF undefined reserved The remaining control record bytes for each type are defined as follows total Byte dfGobo2 dfGobo3 dfGobo4 gobos type memory FixedGobo ID 23 16 ID 15 8 ID 7 0 16 M type 256M SingleCntrl ID 15 8 ID 7 0 control 1 64 k type 1M DoubleCntrl ID 7 0 control 2 control 1 256 type 4k As can be seen from this example this use of the control record to carry control values does restrict the number of gobos which can be defined of that type especially for the 2__control type Console Support The use of variant part gobos requires no modifications to existing co translate directly to the values of the 4 bytes sent in the communications data packet as follows Byte dfGobo dfGobo2 dfGobo3 dfGobo4 Enc TopRight MidRight BotRight BotLeft FixedGobo ID 23 16 ID 15 8 ID 7 0 SingleCntrl ID 15 8 ID 7 0 control 1 DoubleCntrl ID 7 0 control 2 control 1 These values would be part of a preset gobo
28. propriate color changing circuitry 113 and 115 in the lamp 99 Note that the color changing US 6 549 326 B2 7 circuitry is shown both before and after the digital mirror 100 It should be understood that either of those color changing circuits could be used by itself At step 210 the system calls the draw routine in which the matrix is mapped to the digital mirror This is done in different ways depending on the number of images being used Step 212 shows the draw routine for a single image being used as the gobo In that case the old gobo now copied as shown in step 202 is faded out while the new gobo newly calculated is faded in Pointers are again changed so that the system points to the new gobo Hence this has the effect of automatically fading out the old gobo and fading in the new gobo Step 214 schematically shows the draw routine for a system with multiple images for an iris In that system one of the gobos is given priority over the other If one is brighter than the other then that one is automatically given priority The one with priority 2 the lower priority 1 is written first Then the higher priority gobo is written Finally the iris is written which is essentially drawing black around the edges of the screen defined by the iris Note that unlike a conven tional iris this iris can take on many different shapes The iris can take on not just a circular shape but also an elliptical shape a rectangular shape or a
29. red in the lamp are in a variant record format Header Length 32 bits offset to next gobo in list Gobo _1D 32 bits serial number of gobo Gobo Records Length 32 bits offset to next record Opcode 16 bits type of object to be drawn Data Variant part data describing object _ Length 32 bits offset to next record Opcode 16 bits type of object to be drawn Data Variant part data describing object __EndMarker 64 bits all zeroes indicates end of gobo data Next gobo or End Marker indicating end of gobo list Gobos with controls are exactly the same except that they contain control records which describe how the control values are to affect the gobo data Each control record contains the usual length and Opcode fields and a field containing the control number 1 or 2 These are followed by a list of field modification records Each record contains information about the offset from the start of the gobo data of the field the size 8 16 or 32 bits of the field and how its value depends on the control value Length 32 bits offset to next record Opcode 16 bits control_record constant CntrINum 16 bits 1 or 2 control number US 6 549 326 B2 5 continued field modification record 1 Address 6 bits offset from start of gobo to affected field Flags 6 bits information about field size signed etc Scale 6 bits scale factor applied to control before use zPoint 6 bits add
30. rnally initiated packet transfers XPTs VC packet transfers VCPTs MP and ADSP direct external accesses DEAs VC shift register transfer SRTs DRAM refresh External bus requests Operations are performed on the cache sub block as requested by the processors internal cache controllers DEA operations transfer off chip data directly to or from proces sor registers Packet transfers are the main data transfer operations and provide an extremely flexible method for moving multidimensional blocks of data packets between on chip and or off chip memory Key features of this specific transfer controller include Crossbar interface 64 bit data path Single cycle access External memory interface 4G byte address range dynamically configurable memory cycles Bus size of 8 16 32 or 64 bits Selectable memory page size Selectable row column address multiplexing Selectable cycle timing Big or little endian operation Cache VRAM and refresh controller Programmable refresh rate VRAM block write support Independent source and destination addressing Autonomous address generation based on packet transfer parameters Data can be read and written at different rates Numerous data merging and spreading functions can be performed during transfers and Intelligent request prioritization Hence the transfer controller allows definition of the limits of the message data Then the information can be automatically han
31. s Hence each two lines get the same color value but can have different intensity values Now in a system as described above two lines of red can have 5 bits two lines of green can have 6 bits and two lines of blue can also have 5 bits This provides an appropriate dynamic range for color at the expense of losing half the resolution for color Moreover this has an additional advantage in that it allows 5 bits for grey scale in such a system A possible problem with such a system however as described above is that the information would not neces sarily be aligned on byte boundaries It could therefore be necessary to take the whole image manipulate it and then put the whole image back The basic system is shown in FIG 9 The luminance Y is an 8 bit representation of the brightness level of the image The hue is then divided into dual line multiple bits Each value is used for two lines each Dimming in such a system is carried out as shown in FIG 9 For example the blue bits 900 are multiplied in a hardware multiplier 902 by the luminance Similarly the green is multiplied in a second hardware multiplier 904 by the same luminance value This controls the relative levels of red green and blue that are output on the RGB lines 910 The multipliers that are used are very simple since they simply multiply 8 bits by 3 bits Therefore a relatively simple in structure hardware multiplier can be used for this function This provid
32. this allows easily programmed timed moves between different annuli etc Internal Workings When the gobo command data is extracted from the packet at the lamp the dfGobo byte is inspected first to see if either dfGobo3 or dfGobo4 are significant in selecting the image In the case of the Cntrl variants one or both of these bytes is masked out and the resulting 32 bit number is used to search for a matching gobo image by Gobo _1D in the library stored in the lamp s ROM 109 If a matching image is found and the image is not already in use then the following steps are taken 1 The image data is copied into RAM so that its fields may be modified by the control values This step will be skipped if the image is currently active 2 The initial control values are then recovered from the data packet and used to modify certain fields of the image data according to the control records 3 The image is drawn on the display device using the newly modified fields in the image data If the image is already in use then the RAM copy is not altered Instead a time sliced task is set up to slew from the existing control values to those in the new data packet in a time determined by the new data packet At each vertical retrace of the display new control values are computed and steps 2 using the new control values and 3 above are repeated so that the image appears modified with time The image data records All images sto
33. tion No 09 495 585 w filed on Feb 1 2000 now abandoned Techniques for use in a digital mirror device based lumi 60 Provisional application No 60 118 195 filed on Feb 1 naire The techniques include using a filter as a gobo for 1999 definition 51 Unt Cl orosei G02B 26 00 GO6T 1 00 HO4N 5 21 GO3F 3 08 GOSB 11 01 24 Claims 9 Drawing Sheets MEDUSA ELECTRONICS GOBO EDIT ICON 110 N 120 REE 101 CONSOLE U S Patent Apr 15 2003 Sheet 1 of 9 US 6 549 326 B2 MEDUSA ELECTRONICS 120 noe 104 CONSOLE FIG 1 U S Patent Apr 15 2003 Sheet 2 of 9 US 6 549 326 B2 REV NEW GOBO INFO 200 202 COPY OLD GOBO 204 FORM NEW GOBO USE AFGOBO TO FORM GOBO TYPE IN MATRIX MATRIX OPERATIONS 206 SCALE ROTATION IRIS EDGE SHIFT REPEAT_COUNT STROBE DIMMER REPLICATE SPIN_MATRIX AUTO_SPIN PERSP 210 1 IMAGE MULTI IMAGE OR IRI FADE OUT OLD PRIOR 2 FADE IN NEW 212 214 THEN PRIOR 1 THEN IRIS FIG 2 U S Patent Apr 15 2003 Sheet 3 of 9 US 6 549 326 B2 CREATE A CIRCLE OF SIZE D 1000 PIXELS AT 0 0 MULTIPLY CIRCLE BY 50 SCALARY FACTOR 304 FORN 1 104 306 SHIFT TO N 4 308 SPIN MATRIX BY 90 U S Patent Apr 15 2003 Sheet 4 of 9 US 6 549 326 B2 FIG 4A FIG 4B 402 FIG 4E FIG 4F US 6 549 326 B2 Sheet 5 of 9 Apr 15 2003 U S Patent 9 Old 8 Z 9 G
34. tted FIG 1 shows the light being transmitted as 102 and shows the transmitted light The information for the digital mirror 100 is calculated by a digital signal processor 106 Information is calculated based on local information stored in the lamp e g in ROM 109 and also in information which is received from the console 104 over the communi cation link The operation is commanded according to a format The preferred data format provides 4 bytes for each of color and gobo control information The most significant byte of gobo control data dfGobo indicates the gobo type Many different gobo types are possible Once a type is defined the gobo formed from that type is represented by a number That type can be edited using a special gobo editor described herein The gobo editor allows the information to be modified in new ways and forms new kinds of images and effects The images which are used to form the gobos may have variable and or moving parts The operator can control certain aspects of these parts from the console via the gobo control information The type of gobo controls the gobo editor to allow certain parameters to be edited The examples given below are only exemplary of the types of gobo shapes that can be controlled and the controls that are possible when using those gobo shapes Of course other controls of other shapes are possible and predictable based on this disclosure First Embodiment A first embo
35. tween the constant color and the look up table In this way value B G B represents color 1 at intensity X Ry Gy By represent the color at intensity y Another system directly maps the bits to color by defining the map as chrominance using techniques from color tele vision For example this takes the bits and converts the values indicating image to color or chrominance C and image luminance Y of the image The conversion between RGB and Y C is well known The values of Y and C which correspond to the chrominance and luminance are then stored The image gobo can then be dimmed by reducing the Y while keeping C the same If desired the Y C can be converted back to RGB after dimming The dimming however may change the look of the color being pro jected This system allows the color to be changed based on intensity Another system allows reducing the number of bits for a bitmap Say as an example that it is desired to use a total US 6 549 326 B2 13 of 8 bits to represent each pixel of the image This could then be apportioned between the desired bits with red having 3 bits green having 3 bits and blue having 2 bits This limits the amount of information in any of these colors Since there are only 2 bits for blue there are only four levels of blue that can be selected This is often insufficient In this system therefore the bits are compressed by assuming that each two adjacent lines have exactly the same value
36. two control records each with one of the radii as a target would provide full control aver the annulus shape Note that if the center point coordinates are modified the annulus will move around the display area independent of any other drawing elements in the same gobo s data The Polygon record for a triangle has this format Length 32 bits Opcode 16 bits type_polygon Pad 16 bits vertex count 3 Centre_x 16 bits x coordinate of vertex Centre_y 16 bits y coordinate of vertex Centre_x 16 bits x coordinate of vertex Centre_y 16 bits y coordinate of vertex Centre_x 16 bits x coordinate of vertex Centre_y 16 bits y coordinate of vertex It is easy to modify any of the vertex coordinates pro ducing distortion of the triangle The gobo data can contain commands to modify the drawing environment by rotation scaling offset and color control the power of the control records is limitless 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 55 60 6 Second Embodiment This second embodiment provides further detail about implementation once the gobo information is received Gobo information is at times being continuously calcu lated by DSP 106 The flowchart of FIG 2 shows the handling operation that is carried out when new gobo information is received At step 200 the system receives new gobo information In the preferred embodiment this is done by using a commu nications device 111 in the lamp 99 The communi
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