brief report from ILDA

i recently attended the ILDA (International Laser Display Association) convention in las vegas where i was awarded first, second, and third place trophies in the "abstract laser shows" category.

what an experience! i spent three days hanging out with old school and awesome laserists. winning the awards was just icing. i played my shows live with LSX and my etherdream dac and they looked amazing on the graphics projector that was set up for the awards (i think it was a kvant).

huge thanks to tim walsh and patrick murphy. you will never meet nicer and more sincere people. and to all the other amazing and incredible supportive laserists that welcomed me and appreciated my work.

mike dunn, kyle & poncho of laseronics, tom harman, greg makhov, kvant, lobo, pangolin, lasernet, illuminati-visuals, dynamic lasers, uno laser, image engineering, just to name a few.

there had been some concern about interfacing my etherdream dac to the massive ILDA switcher lasernet built to route signals from the multiple sources to the 6 house projectors. j4cbo was quick to provide all the necessary information and by the end of the conference horacio (sr. electronics engineer at lasernet) was holding the etherdream in his hands and proclaiming: "this is some good shit!". high praise.

the was considerable interest in LSX and etherdreams. that made me incredibly proud of our little community of artists and engineers.

i took, and passed the LSO (laser safety officer) training course while at ILDA. the course plus the two hour test and breaks for lunch and lattes took about 11 hours. it was a little brutal, but covered a lot of important aspects of laser safety. the course covers the math necessary to determine safe exposure for eyes, skin, reflections (specular and diffuse) and a number of other issues. i highly recommend taking the course, even if you don't plan on doing laser shows as it strongly reinforces the risks inherent to our favorite hobby.

more information about the convention and ilda is here: ILDA - The International Laser Display Association

also, i highly recommend this site more excellent laser safety information: http://www.lasershowsafety.info/

did i mention i designed and etched my leather vest on my homemade laser cutter?

Copy pasting the same report in other foeums?
J/k never really congratulated you. Nicely done. 2 questions:
1. Were the shows of yours recorded in some way or can you shoot a video so we can see the good stuff ourselves?
2. How many of those who saw your shows decided to go buy a copy of LSX (and etherdream)?

Btw ordered an etherdream from cshih myself. I already explained how much of a problem the riya multibus has been for me.. Hope the etherdream is a good investment!

yes. i do a little crossposting between the two forums

links to older versions of the shows (i should have the current versions up later this week) are available on my website:

Christopher Short Laser Artist

the etherdream is an excellent little dac. ping me in irc if you need any assistance getting it up and running.

Elektrotechniker said:

Copy pasting the same report in other foeums?
J/k never really congratulated you. Nicely done. 2 questions:
1. Were the shows of yours recorded in some way or can you shoot a video so we can see the good stuff ourselves?
2. How many of those who saw your shows decided to go buy a copy of LSX (and etherdream)?

Btw ordered an etherdream from cshih myself. I already explained how much of a problem the riya multibus has been for me.. Hope the etherdream is a good investment!

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Wow, three awards! Can't say I'm surprised though, you do amazing work

Congratulations!

Well done! Very impressive.

It said first time anyone has swept the awards show. This is amazing for sure, congratulations sir swami

Congratulations ! thank you for sharing with us:gj:

Wow three awards at one convention Were proud of you bro keep up the good work I've seen you work and it's amazing :gj: +6

I've already done it before but let me take this oppotunity also to heap lavish amounts of praise upon you.

I probably account for quite a few of some of your videos views. these three are great, I've watched the one for "we are shangri-la" a lot too

could you quantify for us, how many hours on average you put into a single show?

Shakenawake said:

I've already done it before but let me take this oppotunity also to heap lavish amounts of praise upon you.

I probably account for quite a few of some of your videos views. these three are great, I've watched the one for "we are shangri-la" a lot too

could you quantify for us, how many hours on average you put into a single show?

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I have wanted to ask Chris and Mike Dunn that question at SELEM -
Not sure what held me back-- nosey maybe-- anyhoo

-- maybe its not something they actually keep track of.. some things prolly take longer BUT..

.. put in this context-- Mike Dunn gets as much as 350$ for ONE 6 min or shorter song module from his offerings (search Mike Dunn Laser) and that is one 'off the shelf' (of an unlimited 'supply') if you wanted a custom made one maybe 500$

Mike has many dozens of song modules and a lot of longer show with entire albums or best hits etc.. takes a LONG time to just look at his lists-Swamii is headed there I predict--aside for the obvious talent he is a sincerely nice person. ( As is Mike)

:beer::beer::beer:

congrats Chris


hak


FYI for a few here-- when one 'buys' a song module in most cases it will NOT come with the Audio Track (copywrite laws) so we buy that and sync it to the show-- in the software..just be sure to buy the right version of the song

thank you everybody!

i've been meaning to post the show videos, but real life got in the way.

here's my first place show:

Awesome stuff, Good Track to go with it too!
Thankz for Posting:beer:

swamidog said:

thank you everybody!

i've been meaning to post the show videos, but real life got in the way.

here's my first place show:

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A true work of art! What tools do you use to make frames like that? I haven't used LSX, is it mostly like function generators from scratch or are there more specialized tools that you can make use of to make patterns like that?

Grix said:

A true work of art! What tools do you use to make frames like that? I haven't used LSX, is it mostly like function generators from scratch or are there more specialized tools that you can make use of to make patterns like that?

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grix - i did it entirely in LSX. it's mostly the output of the lissajous editor combined with a few basic shape primitives like squares and circles.

i am looking forward to giving your ilda frame editor a go when i get some time.

here's my third place show.

i know i'm posting out of sequence.

swamidog said:

here's my third place show.

i know i'm posting out of sequence.

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You used lasercam in this, right?