Dispersion Speaker & Light Shapes (beta1) - D-Tools Forum

Visio Guy · 06-11-2008, 11:32 PM

Hi Gang,

So there was Plan Speaker Shape W/Dispersion mini contest that was started last year...

I'm not sure what became of the contest, but I've finally finished the first betas of some shapes that were inspired by it.

Hopefully, you'll find them useful, but remember these are BETA shapes, and still have some rough edges! So if you like what you see, please give me feedback on what needs improving, so we can get them finely polished.

About the Shapes...

To show dispersion throughout a room, you need to be able to set the dispersion angle for the equipment and the ceiling height of the room.

With these shapes, you can enter these quantities in the Shape Data fields:

But to set the projection angle from the ceiling, I thought it would be nice to have some sort of visual interface. And for that, I've used an Elevation Projection--even though the shape is a plan-view shape.

If you right-click the shape, you can choose Configure Via Elevation View, at which point you can graphically manipulate the height and projection angle of the speaker/light via the control handles.

Below, we can see dispersion shapes in design and plan mode--for 10ft and 7ft ceilings, with straight-down and 20 degree projection angles.

In Design Mode, we can quickly pull on two yellow control handles (not shown) to change the projection angle and the height of the room. The elevation view makes it easier to understand what we're doing.

Once the configuration looks good, just right-click the Configure Via Elevation View to turn off all the design mode details.

Well, I hope you like these shapes. And please send me some feedback so that we can get them properly polished!

Head Tool · 06-12-2008, 09:07 PM

Nice...

I will show to some of our speaker manufacturers and see what they think.

avzone · 07-21-2008, 06:24 PM

Looks good Chris! Glad to see you stepped up on this one. I tried, but it was too involved for this amateur. Looks like a great beta1. Here's what I found and my opinion:

IMHO, I think the elevation view will be confusing for most, unless they read your instructions first. Most will not read them before using the shape. I understand the logic, but feel that entering the ceiling height, dispersion angle, and speaker direction angle (angle of the ceiling) will render this unnecessary by default.
Setting the scale to anything other than 1:1, the speaker becomes too small, but the dispersion pattern is okay. To effectively play with the shape, I left the scale at 1:1.
The dispersion pattern should emanate from the front of the speaker rather than the rear.

I'd love to have an elevation shape. The Sonance stencil has one, but it needs some work.

Good work Chris!

Visio Guy · 07-22-2008, 01:49 PM

Thanks for the feedback, Graham!

That's the danger with software: cool for coolness' sake. You're probably right that the neat-o UI will freak some people out.

Oh yes, I developed it at 1:1 and didn't get around to doing the proper checks for scaling. Doh!

There's an idea: one shape for elevation + plan that reacts appropriately to the view...hmmm...