KantanMapper v2 - an approach to simple mapping

Request For Enhancement:
for large scale LEDscreen mapping, where we get an exact pixelmap in a complex pattern on a 1920x1080 image from the LED supplier which needs to be mapped, we have to enter all the exact xy coordinates for the mapping.
So now that we have the Parameter Comp, for version X in the future maybe it’s an option to use standard TD custom parameters for scale, translation and rotation in MottoKantan. They have the added benefit of great value ladder options and exact number entry. This would enable very fast&exact mapping of such a pixelmap.

Hi Idzard,

Thanks for your feedback!
Do you have a template that you could share for me to see what you usually would be handed from a supplier?
Would it be useful to be able to feed a Table DAT with all the coordinates, sizes and potentially uv lookups specified?

Cheers
Markus

about the coordinate talk…

i think a good way would be to select a key/corner and then have their position coordinates displayed and be able to edit them within kantan. Dragging around keys and placing them just by eyesight is a bit sloppy. I could see a Table DAT being used as well, especially if you want to move the keys through some remote control.

I think one way to enhance the dragging around keys or whole shapes would be to have a magnet/locking feature you can turn on, so edges or vertices can stick to a nearby edge/vertex if it’s being dragged within the vicinity. but this may not be the simplest to implement nor is it necessary if you can directly edit coordinates.

hi Markus,

I made an example of how a 1920x1080 pixelmap could look.
The VJ in the front of house needs to send out this 1920x1080 videosignal to the stage, and on stage is a LED-processor of the LED supplier which translates this video to all their ledpanels.
So video needs to be placed pixelperfect according to this pixelmap.

remarks:

  • ledscreen 1 is very wide, so to make it fit in the pixelmap it has been choppped up into 2 bars of 1800x192 and one bar of 496x192.
  • screens are often placed exactly against eachother in the pixelmap to maximize the available space (and to simplify the translation calculations) , so some something to ‘snap’ one rectangle to the other would be lovely, but otherwise entering values is fine
  • often there are multiple ledscreens of the same size (screen 3-6 in this example), so an option to copy-paste a ledscreen would be lovely
  • an option to do basic (+ - * / ) mathematics in a translate/ size parameter would be great, under pressure before show its always easier to write stuff like 192+192 for x position and the next screen 192 + 192 + 192 to avoid mistakes :wink:

I hope I made it clear, maybe it can be of inspiration to you!
cheers,idzard

ya, i mostly agree with everything said above, the snap suggestion was what i was saying about magnet/locking, so i guess other people besides me find it useful :smiley:

the math entry is a good suggestion, saves me time having to break out a calculator.

one other thing i’d like to add is perhaps an ability to make different mapping presets. what i mean by this, take idzard’s pixelmap for example. say for one preset, i want screens 3-6 to be separate images, but another preset i’d like for one image to be spread along all four screens. I suppose having multiple kantans and selecting between them would be a current solution, or if each screen was referencing a null top, and then i could just change what video i sent to that null top… does anyone else think having mapping presets that you can trigger between might be useful? i’m sure there are other use cases besides the one i described above

Thanks for the examples.

For a next version I can add:
[]Clicking ones onto the canvas when creating a rectangle would open up a dialog which let’s you set size, pivot and position
[
]A translate field which would always display and let you adjust the x/y position of the shape measured by it’s pivot
[*]Editable X/Y positions for individual keys

Snapping would be great and renderpick should help with that. camSchnappr uses that approach - I’ll see if I can implement it in Kantan as well.
I also like the edit field in Sketchup which lets you always enter an specific amount of transformation, be it when translating, rotating, scaling or creating copies. As these can work as offsets, this would simplify the way you create and place multiples of the same shape without having to do much math.

If you don’t want to wait for me to implement all of this, feel free to dive in :slight_smile:

Thanks again for all your input - this is greatly valuable.
Cheers
Markus

I think I’m seeing a bit of a bug in the current mottoKantan and the most recent 099 build ( 4580 ).

The full-span crosshair that shows on the output window seems to be scaling its vertical position from the center at a > 1.0 factor than the mouse on the control UI. So basically if I hover over a point that is in the upper half of the screen on the control window the crosshair on the output window will be above that point and below if the point is on the lower half of the frame.

Some sort of panel aspect/scaling issue I assume. When you take the mouse to the actual output window the crosshair displays in the right place…

Cheers
P

Thanks! I’ll take a look.
Just wondering - what’s your output resolution?

Cheers
Markus

immersive update to kantan, markus.
gratuliere!
it looks like your on the way to be a madmapper killer!

Thank you for this awesome tool.

I’m having a strange issue where MottoKantan is duplicating my shapes/layers.
Somehow after working with my project a while, i end up with 10 or more copies of some of my layers. Anyone else have this experience?

I also have a very simple question that I can’t find an answer to:
How do you DELETE a shape or a group of shapes?

thank you!

UPDATE:
A shape gets duplicated when you try to move it!
Or if you try to grab it’s yellow corner and rotate it!!!

Hey,

this is rather strange, the copy transform is a function for when you hold down the ALT key and transform - i’m guessing somehow for you it always happens?

deleting shapes can be done with the delete key.

Cheers
Markus

Mühsam nährt sich das Eichhörnchen. :slight_smile:

Viele Gruesse!
Markus

Hi Markus

Would it be possible to have a “Perspective” option in the “Edit Texture” window as well? That is to say, so the UV’s from the edited texture are mapped to the quad in a perspective correct fashion?

Hey,

isn’t that doubled up if your quad is set to perspective then it should apply the texture in that fashion. If we would try to have the Texture Edit in perspective mode as well we would get perspective^2?

Best
Markus

Yes it is another perspective transform, for the purpose of “de-perspectifying” source textures before getting to your quad. That way we could use source textures that aren’t orthogonal by selecting “edit textures” and picking the corners of the source. Please see the attached example where I attempt to do it manually.
De-perspectify.toe (570 KB)

I think my previous description was a little ambiguous. By non-orthogonal I mean a shape that is orthogonal but is seen from a perspective, I hope you know what I meant. If it wasn’t an orthogonal shape to start with it wouldn’t work of course.

Hey Markus,

I’ll start out by saying this is an awesome update to Kantan mapper! Nice work.

I am having a couple issues that I will do my best to describe.

The first troubling thing, which may be completely normal is that when saving, closing, and re-opening a project using MottoKantan, the MottoKantan seems to always pick up new errors upon loading.

Another thing I’ve noticed about MottoKantan is that upon the project opening, it would be nice to have it open with all the windows toggled on. Especially in perform mode. In perform mode, it doesn’t seem like I’m able to toggle the windows on at all.

The Screen Grab function in 099 seems to be buggy in general. It seems to have trouble reading some applications and windows and seems especially buggy with MottoKantan. We are running a Java App to read interactivity and produce visuals and the screen grab function would be nice. We are using spout fine now, but it is pretty low framerate that seems to be bottlenecking at the syphon spout in top. This should be another post in 099 forums.

Thanks for developing this nice tool, I hope this helps work out some kinds, otherwise I may just still be green…

Thanks

Hi Zac,

thank you for your feedback.

Yup - the error issue I have to deal with. It’s in most cases I have come across due to load order and extension initialization which should have no impact on general performance or functionality. To get rid of all these errors, rclick on the main mottoKantan container COMP and select “Clear Children Script Errors”

The windows are all controlled via window COMPs to keep it as flexible as possible. The idea was that during editing you would most likely use the internal Window COMPs that are controlled via the Toggle Output option and the general Open/Close Kantan Window parameters.
When performing though, you would use the first output from the mottoKantan container and attach that to it’s own Window COMP. The differentiation is done to avoid unnecessary cooking in the networks necessary for editing.

Can you describe how you setup the outputs for perform mode? I’d like to check into the problem of you not being able to display the editing window.

The Screengrab TOP sounds like best to post in another topic. If you could mention your system specs and what software is causing the behavior, that would be greatly appreciated for us to duplicate the issue.

Best
Markus

bummer if ya need that specific build…my license supports updates up until early feb. dang… keep on it. thanks for sharing.

Hey Markus,

Thanks for the quick reply.

Clicking “Clear Children Script Errors” doesn’t seem to get rid of the errors for me.

The current setup I have for output is just straight through the internal window comps. I see that your system seems to make a lot of sense.

I am a bit confused on how to set up the first output to run into separate window comps to play in Perform mode. Is there any resources you know of that might help me understand this?

The screengrab top issue seemed to clear up on its own somehow.

One other issue I’ve found is that the corner pins don’t seem to move with the arrow keys in this version of Kantan. Maybe I’m missing something?

Thanks,

Zac