New BlackTrax Beta 2.0 makes tracking even easier, faster to calibrate, program and use. Developed for over a year, 2.0 has the largest number of new features, GUI and workflow improvements in any BlackTrax release yet.
“A lot of these improvements were developed from customer suggestions, requests and general feedback,” explains Marty Cochrane, BlackTrax Product Manager. “This includes better system reporting, real-time chapter programming and more control over fixtures during the calibration process.”
Highlights include:
· All-new GUI design for BlackTrax, BTWyg, Tracker, and Follower - with full-screen mode for BlackTrax and new simpler basic mode for Tracker and Follower. BTWyg sports a new GUI design inspired by wysiwyg R36 lighting design and previsualization software, with blue highlights, icons, and a welcome screen.
· New Fixture Calibration mode improvements ensure faster calibration. Multi-person calibration is included. Several people with several different beacons calibrate their own selection of lights. Fixtures will clear their colour and gobo automatically, as well as BlackTrax having control over zoom/iris. This allows the user to jump in and start calibrating right away, without needing to create a special BlackTrax calibration pre-set on the console, thus freeing up the console programmer to continue their work.
· Rigid and soft frames for more flexible tracking operations and objects. Frames combine a collection of Stringers (aka LEDs) from multiple beacons that make up an object and BlackTrax is no longer restricted to three Stringers for a system. Rigid frames allow the orientation of an object to be calculated and tracked. A soft frame allows a flexible centroid to re-calculate position based on the visible Stringers at the same time.
· Improved fixture programming. Unified multi-fixture settings and the ability to quickly view, select and apply settings to several fixtures from across multiple chapters. New icon and table views for fixtures and trackables display fixture setting information much faster than ever before.
· Copy and paste trackables and fixtures between chapters and within chapters - if applicable.
· Ability to create a new BlackTrax Project without first requiring wysiwyg information.
· Send BlackTrax/wysiwyg changes directly without needed to export.
“BlackTrax was all about functionally, getting the system to do some cool and amazing things. Now that we have reached the milestone of a stable and functioning product that has been working flawlessly in the world’s most demanding shows, we wanted to turn our attention to ease of use, simplicity, and unification,” adds Cochrane.
