ETC is releasing the Eos v3.0 software, bringing three-dimensional programming and augmented-reality control to the Eos platform. This update marks the official integration of the Augment3d toolkit into Eos. With Augment3d, users can program moving fixtures with more speed and ease, visualize cues in an imported model of the space, and position lights using an augmented-reality smartphone “focus wand.” Over 5,000 beta users tested the software in recent months, and their feedback has helped to build the new Eos feature sets.
The new software runs natively on all the latest Eos Family hardware and can be used with the ETCnomad software on Mac and PC. Educators, students, and those wishing to learn the software can download the latest ETCnomad software for free and make use of the Augment3d programming space to create virtual design projects in offline mode. ETC has also created a virtual light lab show file to help students use Augment3d to learn about lighting.
Augment3d supports over 50 different 3D file extensions for importing venue or set models, and users can import a fixture plot using a Vectorworks plugin. Without a pre-existing plot or model, the Fixture Position Estimation tool can reverse-engineer the spatial coordinates of moving fixtures from as few as four focus palettes. Loading into a new touring venue has also been made easier.
Augment3d offers new tools for focus and cueing. Users can position the beam of a moving or static fixture with a click or a touch. Turn on stick-beam visualization to drag beams into place using Focus Handles and then maintain their spacing and move multiple selected fixtures together. Focus from the perspective of the fixture allows an electrician’s-eye view. A new “Staging Mode” provides a busking-friendly alternative to “Live” and “Blind,” allowing users to preview and edit looks before recording or playing them. A new “Staging Mode” keycap for consoles is available on the ETC website.
ETC’s iRFR and aRFR focus remote apps have a new augmented-reality “Wand” function. After scanning an AR target placed in a space, users will be able to view and to select lights using the camera on a phone, swipe up or down to control intensity, pinch for zoom, and point beams with the “find me” function or by using the phone as a pointer wand.
The Graphical User Interface (GUI) now includes new display management features to drag and rearrange tabs. Additional information has also been added to the Faders, Palettes, Presets and Groups displays. Users working in video applications can now toggle optional reference overlays on the Color Picker to assist in choosing camera-friendly colors.
Updates to Magic Sheets include options for creating non-interactive, display-only objects or magic sheets, and the ability to change an object’s type while retaining all other linked information. Magic Sheet objects can now also be linked to softkeys, display a color assigned to a particular targeted macro, or allow monitoring of the status of networked relays and timecode clocks. Additional Magic Sheet features offer improved control of mechanical dowsers and of individual cells in a fixture.
The software also introduces new tools for working with effects, multi-cell fixtures, fixture parameters, and more. “Eos v3.0 also gives you more control over ‘random’ effects, allowing you to either create a ‘true random’ that is different every time or to audition different ‘randoms’ until you find one you would like you like. New controls also let you add multiple mirrors to your Offset selections, invert your channel selection when using a jump offset, or to use the channel selection order from a group to create an offset pattern. A new graphic displays an animation of the offset pattern applied to your selected channels. A new multi-cell tool lets you easily create subgroups for all of the cells in a channel, while another new feature allows the value of one parameter to be copied to other parameters. Other updates speed the processes of patching pixel maps and updating fixture profiles,” according to the announcement.
Because of the demands of the 3D-programming environment, Eos v3.0 is incompatible with some older, Windows XP-based Eos hardware. However, the new software includes an option in the shell to boot the desk in an earlier software build in case needed alongside XP-based hardware.
Learn more at etcconnect.com/eos
