Table of Contents

Lasershow Converter Blender

Lasershow Converter Blender Installation

Blender is being updated constantly, so at any point in time the newest version of Blender may not be compatible with our installer. Therefore it is best to use the Long Term Support (LTS) versions of Blender.

The current version of Lasershow Converter Blender supports LTS version 3.3, and 3.6, as well as newer interim versions 4.

  1. Install a Long Term Support (LTS) version Blender, which can be found here:: (https://www.blender.org/download/lts/)
  2. Run the Lasershow Converter Blender installer (LCBlender_install.exe), which can be found in the InstallSupport folder where BEYOND is located. Or located on the wiki at the Download Center.
  3. Start Pangolin BEYOND first, and then start Blender.
  4. In the main Blender window, select Edit on the main menu, and go to Preferences
  5. In the Add-ons section, in the filter dropdown list, select Render:
  6. To enable Lasershow Converter Blender, check the box located to the left of Render: Lasershow Converter Blender.

Activating and Controlling Lasershow Converter Blender

  1. On the Properties panel, open the Render tab:
  2. From the Render Engine drop-down menu, select Lasershow Converter Blender
  3. On the Render Properties panel, you will see the following panels:
    1. Lasershow Converter Blender
    2. Lasershow Converter Default settings
  4. The main Lasershow Converter Blender panel is shown and described below:

Settings

Blender Output and Laser Output

To BEYOND

Setting render default options

Default Settings are applied to all objects in a scene, unless those settings are overridden at the Object level, or, for Grease Pencil objects, the layer level.

The Lasershow Converter Default settings panel is shown below.

Render Source:

Render Source defines the type of scene objects that will be used in the rendering process:

Line Types

Filter Setting

Lasershow Converter Blender includes several filters to aid in the creation of smooth paths for the laser to follow:

Color Setting

For example:

Point Spacing

AutoBlank Points

AutoBlank Points at line beginnings and at line endings specifies the number of blanked points that will be automatically placed at the beginning and ending of lines (respectively) on square objects. These blanked points are all placed on top of each other, at the starting and ending location of the line.

AutoBlank Points at round overlaps is the number of blanked points that will be automatically placed at the beginning and ending of rounded objects. These blanked points are not placed on top of each other, but instead are drawn the same way the object is in order to hide where the drawing started and ended.

If you set this value to 0, no closed contour optimization is used. Instead, the object is always drawn using AutoBlank Points at line endings and AutoAnchor Points.

AutoAnchor Points

AutoAnchorPoints at line beginning is the number of points that are placed at the beginning of a line.

AutoAnchorPoints at line ending is the number of points that are placed at the ending of a line.

AutoAnchorPoints at round overlaps is the number of extra points that are placed at the point of overlap of a circle or other rounded object. Normally this is set to zero so that you can't see where the beam starts or ends. But if you are using scanners that are not tuned perfectly, you may actually see a visible gap on circles. Increasing this number will hide the gap on poorly tuned scanners but this may actually cause a visible overlap on well-tuned scanners.

AutoAnchorPoints at various angles, is the number of additional points placed at various angle corners. There will always be at least one point at every corner. For example, a setting of “4” means there will be a total of 5 points placed at that corner.

The Accelerate/Decelerate check box controls how the points are placed from the starting and ending of lines, and at corners. If this is checked, a special algorithm is used to accelerate and decelerate the beam from corner to corner, and from beginning to ending. When this is checked, it makes the object easier for scanners to scan, and it also reduces the number of corners and beginning and ending points needed. This can also keep objects looking good as they zoom out since it automatically controls the number of points along straight lines.

Corner detect ranges from 0 to 100 percent and controls the sensitivity to corners. At 0 percent, no corners are detected; this means the AutoAnchorPoints at various angles will be completely ignored. At 100 percent, any angular change within an object will be considered in light of the angle and AutoAnchorPoints will be placed for these particular angles.

AutoSpace Distance

AutoSpace Distance for blanked lines controls the point density of blanked lines. Lasershow Converter Blender employs a sophisticated point placement scheme for blanked lines that generally allows a lower point density for blanked lines, but also allows the scanner to easily get from one line to the next.

AutoSpace Distance for straight lines controls the point density for visible lines that are completely straight with no curvature.

AutoSpace Distance for curved lines controls the point density for very tiny circles and curved lines.

AutoSpace Curve detect

Lasershow Converter Blender senses the curvature of lines, and automatically adjusts the point density. If a line is completely straight, it uses the straight line density. If a line is highly curved, it uses the curved line density. For lines that are in-between, it will use an in-between point density; this maximizes the efficiency of point placement.

AutoSpace Curve detect controls the sensitivity to curves. The minimum setting of 0 means no curves are detected – the visible density for straight lines is always used. The maximum setting of 100, means Lasershow Converter Blender will place a high density on lines even if they are only slightly curved.

Note that with all of this flexibility, you have the power to create any kind of point placement that you desire. If you desire strictly even intensity over the entire image and “linear” point placement, simply turn curve detect off by setting this to 0. However, if you don’t mind some brightness variation in return for lower point counts in imagery, set this to a value of 20 or higherBeam path for this object

Beam path for this object

This controls the path that the laser beam follows, when drawing the selected object. It is important for animations to have a beam path that is consistent from frame to frame. If the beam path changes substantially from one frame to the next, this will produce noticeable disturbances that could look like jitter, or like missing pieces of the frame, or like flicker. In Lasershow Converter Blender, there are different rules that can be applied to keep the laser path optimized:

Soft Line Setting:

Enable Soft Line must be checked for any of the other settings on this panel to have affect on the rendered object.

Soft Line at line beginning is the number of points over which fading will occur at the beginning of a line.

Soft Line at line ending is the number of points over which fading will occur at the ending of a line.

Soft Line at round overlaps is the number of points over which fading will occur at both the beginning and ending of a circle or other rounded object. Normally this is set to zero so that you can't see any line fading on circles.

Soft Line at line Angle, is the number of points over which fading will occur at the ending of a line and also at the beginning of a line that both meet in a corner. For visual consistency, this should typically be set to the same number as used in Line Beginnings or Line Endings.

Soft Line Minimum Brightness Level specifies how faded the line endings will be. A value of 0.0 means that the corners and endings of the lines are completely black.

Brightness Linearity provides an additional level of control over the fading action. When this number is set to less than 1, a logarithmic ramp is used. When this number is greater than 1, an exponential ramp is used.

Beam Brush Setting:

Enable Beam Brush must be checked for any of the other settings on this panel to have affect on the rendered object.

The Beam Brush can be derived from either Freestyle and Grease Pencil, or from the Z-axis. Each is discussed below.

When Freestyle and Grease Pencil is selected as the Beam Brush Source, the Beam Brush diameter on the laser is derived from the line width of each object. (This is only applicable for Freestyle or Grease Pencil objects.)

Max Freestyle – Limits the maximum value of the line thickness of the object calculated by Blender

Max Grease Pencil - The value of the line thickness of the Grease Pencil object when the value of the thickness parameter for the point is equal to 1.0

Brightness for Min brush % – Brightness of the laser points for very thin lines

Brightness for Max brush % - Brightness of the laser points for very thick lines

Brightness Linearity provides an additional level of control over the fading action. When this number is set to less than 1, a logarithmic ramp is used. When this number is greater than 1, an exponential ramp is used.

When 'Z-axis' is selected as the Beam Brush Source, the thickness value is calculated by Lasershow Converter Blender based on the Z coordinate value for the given point of the object line

Z coordinate of the rear is the Blender Z coordinate that will be mapped onto the far-away dynamic divergence, and also will be applied to the brightness of the object.

Beam Brush rear is the dynamic divergence value that will be used and effectively “mapped onto” the Z coordinate rear specified immediately above.

Brightness rear is the brightness value that will be used and effectively “mapped onto” the Z coordinate rear specified immediately above.

Z coordinate of the front is the Blender Z coordinate that will be mapped onto the near dynamic divergence, and also will be applied to the brightness of the object.

Beam Brush front is the dynamic divergence value that will be used and effectively “mapped onto” the Z coordinate front specified immediately above.

Brightness front is the brightness value that will be used and effectively “mapped onto” the Z coordinate front specified immediately above.

Brightness Linearity provides an additional level of control over the fading action. When this number is set to less than 1, a logarithmic ramp is used. When this number is greater than 1, an exponential ramp is used.

Setting render options for a selected object

Although the default options on the main rendering screen of Lasershow Converter Blender will create good results for most scenes, occasionally you may want greater control over the rendering process, by assigning specific rendering options to each separate object.

Within the Object panel of Blender, you will see Lasershow Converter Object settings. These settings work in exactly the same was as the Default settings described above. You simply check the box next to the respective setting, and then apply relevant settings in each panel.

For example, if you want to select Freestyle Strokes for only a single object, this would be done as shown below:

Setting render options for a selected Grease Pencil Layers

Grease Pencil objects each have a list of 2D layers for grouping and arranging strokes in a List view. Any stroke can only belong to a single 2D layer. There is always only one active layer in the list (the selected one). Custom settings can be set for this selected layer.

In Grease Pencil there are no special mask layers, any layer can act as a mask for other layers. The effect order of the mask in Lasershow Converter is always based on the location of the stroke in 3D space.

Reduce Output Resolution for best results with Lasershow Converter Blender

Setting the size of the output image and animation range Output Properties Blender Panel, we recommend the window size be set to 320-by-320 as shown below. This allows for fast rendering into the Blender Render window, and also allows this window to not take up too much space.

Lasershow Converter Blender only supports the following nodes as material color for objects

Node “PrincipledBSDF” – “Base Color” Color

Node “PrincipledBSDF” – “Base Color” - ImageTexture

Node “Emission” – “Color”

Color Management Settings for consistent color output

In order for the color of the image lines in the Blender Render window to match the color of the lines of the laser frame, you need to make sure settings are as shown below in the panel Render Properties - Color Management:

You need to change the default values to the following:

For objects Grease Pencil: