C UE T Y MAN UAL © VISUAL PRODUCTIONS BV W W W. V I S UA L P R O D U C T I O N S .
Revision History Revision Date Author(s) Description 1 31.03.2015 ME Initial version. 8 07.01.2019 BZ Added revision history. Updated website addresses. Updated showfile and personality file location. Clarified subfixtures not being supported in Personalities chapter. Clarified wheel limitation. Added Minimal requirements chapter. Added Kiosc section to appendices. Updated API appendix. 9 22.07.2020 BZ Updated various images. Corrected and Changed API messages to be easier to understand.
Contents 1 Introduction 6 2 Protocols 14 3 Quickstart 17 4 Setting up 20 5 Cuety App 23 6 Remote App 34 7 Personalities 37 8 vManager 39 9 Minimum Requirements 41 Appendices 42 A API 43 3
©2020 Visual Productions BV. All rights reserved. No parts of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems - without the written permission of the publisher.
Declaration of Conformity We, manufacturer Visual Productions BV, herby declare under sole responsibility, that the following devices: LPU-1 LPU-2 Is in conformity with the following EC Directives, including all amendments: EMC Directive 2004/108/EG And the following harmonized standards have been applied: NEN-EN-IEC 61000-6-1:2007 NEN-EN-IEC 61000-6-3:2007 Full name and identification of the person responsible for product quality and accordance with standards on behalf of the manufacturer Date: December 12
Chapter 1 Introduction Thank you for choosing the Cuety lighting controller. This manual will discuss setting up the hardware and software as well as programming your light show. 1.1 System The Cuety system consists of the LPU hardware and the Cuety App. This App is available on iOS and Android, as well as Windows, macOS and Ubuntu Linux. In order for the LPU and the App to communicate you need to provide a Wi-Fi access point yourself.
1.2 Hardware The LPU hardware device is the brain of your Cuety system. This box takes care of all the calculation of DMX levels, cue timing and FX engine. Therefore, all the information about the patch and cues are stored in this device. In a way, the Apps are just ’user interface’. This means that when the communication between the LPU and the App is interrupted, perhaps because of a Wi-Fi problem, then your show will continue to run.
LPU-1 LPU-2 Entertainment Installation DMX Channels 512 512 Fixtures 64 64 - - Playbacks 64 64 Cues per Playback 48 48 FX Generator yes yes 3500+ 3500+ Art-Net yes yes sACN yes yes OSC - yes UDP - yes TCP - yes HTTP - yes Web-interface - yes Market Sub-fixtures Personality Files The LPU-2 web-interface is read-only. It is useful for checking the device’s status and monitoring incoming and outgoing network messages.
In some situations you might not need the ability to modify all the details of your light show; sometimes you just want a simple way of choosing between the pre-programmed cues. In this case you can use the Remote App, designed for phones. The Remote App is also useful to give to other users of your lighting that have less privileges; the Remote App does not enable the user to make any changes to the patch or cues. (a) iOS (b) Android Figure 1.
Figure 1.4: Download page The Cuety and Cuety Remote software is also available on desktop operating systems Windows, macOS and Ubuntu Linux. These releases can be downloaded from http://www.visualproductions.nl/downloads/ (figure 1.4). Please bear in mind that the Cuety app is designed for a tablet; the portrait view requires a screen with a minimum of 1080 pixels in height. 1.6 What’s in the box? The LPU packaging contains the following items (see figure 1.
Figure 1.5: LPU box contents 1.7 Versions At the time of writing this manual the Cuety App was at version 1.14, the Cuety Remote App was at version 1.09 and the LPU firmware at version 1.25. 1.8 Further Help We have prepared you several instruction videos on our YouTube channel (figure 1.6) at http://youtube.com/c/visualproductionsbvhaarlem. These tutorials address network-setup, programming cues, importing personality files, upgrading firmware, etc.
Figure 1.6: YouTube channel If you have further questions then please consult the online forum at http:// forum.visualproductions.nl/forum/ for more technical support. See figure 1.7.
Figure 1.
Chapter 2 Protocols The LPU-1 and LPU-2 support the output of DMX via the 3-pole XLR connector on the device. Art-Net and sACN output can also be enabled to transmit the DMX data over the network. The following chapter will explain what these three protocols are. The LPU-1 and LPU-2 support 1 universe, that can be output simultaneously via DMX, ArtNet and sACN. It is important to note that only output is supported. 2.1 DMX-512 DMX-512 is the standard communication protocol for stage lighting.
Figure 2.1: DMX example How many channels a lighting fixture uses will always depend on the manufacturer/model. Often a light can have different operating modes. For example, a simple RGB light can have a 3-channel mode where it uses 3 channels for red, green and blue. But it might have a 4 channel mode for red, green, blue and intensity. Maybe it even has a 5-channel mode, adding a channel for strobe. Information about DMX and operating modes can usually be found in the manual of the lighting fixture.
2.3 sACN The streaming Architecture of Control Networks (sACN) protocol uses a method of transporting DMX-512 information over TCP/IP networks. The protocol is specified in the ANSI E1.31-2009 standard. The sACN protocol supports multi-cast in order to take efficient use of the network’s bandwidth. sACN output can be enabled or disabled in the Options menu, see section 5.1.
Chapter 3 Quickstart This chapter offers you a brief step-by-step instructions on how to get your Cuety system up and running. All steps are explained in further detail in the subsequent chapters. In this Quick Start example we are using a simple 3channel RGB fixture that is set to start-address 1. 1. Connect Power up your LPU device with the accompanied PSU. Use the network cable to connect the LPU to your router. 2. DHCP We assume here that you have a router that acts as a DHCP server.
3. Cuety We assume you have an iPad that is already connected to your network. Start your Cuety app on your iPad and go to the OPTIONS screen. Select the LPU from the list. There now should be a green LED in the Cuety GUI (right next to the OPTIONS button). 4. Patch Go to the PATCH screen and select the first fixture cell (top left). Press the PERSONALITY button and go to the ’Generic’ manufacturer, where you choose a ’RGB 01x’ model.
5. Edit Exit the PATCH screen, you are now back in the main playback screen. Press the EDIT button and then select a playback cell. This opens the EDIT screen. Select the fixture and set some RGB values in the ’programmer’ below. Press ADD for >1 second to add a cue to the list and record it immediately. Now set some other RGB values and press ADD again for >1 second to create the second cue. 6. Playback Press the BACK button to return to the main playback screen.
Chapter 4 Setting up This chapter discusses how to set up the LPU. 4.1 Mounting The device can be placed desktop or it can be DIN Rail mounted. The device is prepared for DIN Rail mounting by using the ’DIN rail holder TSH 35’ from Bopla (Product no. 22035000). Figure 4.1: Bopla DIN rail adapter This adapter is - amongst others - available from: • Farnell / Newark (order code 4189991) • Conrad (order code 539775 - 89) • Distrelec (order code 300060) 4.
Figure 4.2: Kensington lock 4.3 Power The LPU device requires a DC power supply between 9 and 12 Volts with a minimum of 500mA. The 2,1 mm DC is center-positive. Figure 4.3: Polarity 4.4 Network Connect the LPU device to a Wi-Fi access point by using the supplied CAT-5 cable. You can either connect it directly to the access point (Figure 4.4a) or via a network switch. The LPU’s Ethernet port is auto-sensing so it does not matter whether you use a cross or straight cable.
You switch the LPU to a static IP address by briefly pressing the reset button on the device (Figure 4.5). When set to static, the heartbeat LED on the LPU will indicate white. Static IP addresses are useful when you have no DHCP server in your network, for instance when you make a direct peer-to-peer connection between your LPU and your tablet/computer. It is also useful in case you want to make sure that the IP address of the LPU will never change, e.g. in a permanent installation.
Chapter 5 Cuety App The Cuety App is the main tool to program your light-show and to operate it live. Please note that you first need to connect to a LPU hardware before you can create a patch or record cues. 5.1 Options To connect to your LPU hardware, first open the Options page. Figure 5.
5.1.1 Devices Here you can choose your LPU device from the list. Once your LPU is selected it will be possible to change the IP address of the unit. When changing the IP be careful to keep it within the IP range of your tablet. Moving the IP address of your LPU outside this range will result in the device disappearing from the list.
• macOS: Go to the options menu by pressing the OPTIONS button. Then press the folder button to open a file window, showing the appropriate folder. • iOS: Transfer by using iTunes or via Finder • Ubuntu linux: Go to the options menu by pressing the OPTIONS button. Then press the folder button to open a file window, showing the appropriate folder. • Android: Device/Internal storage/Visual Productions/Programmer/App data/ Read-only A show file can be made read-only as in figure 5.3. Figure 5.
Importing from Cuelux It is possible to import a show file made in Cuelux, another lighting software package made by Visual Productions. After copying the Cuelux show file to the iPad using iTunes it will become visible in the show file listing. The Cuelux show files remain read-only. Opening this file will import the patch and some playback settings. The cues, however, will not be imported as Cuelux saves this information in different style. 5.
Figure 5.5: Personality library A special ’manufacturer’ to take into consideration is ’Generic’. This collection contains many typical DMX fixtures with common traits like dimmers and RGB spots. It is likely that some of your DMX equipment will correspond with items from the Generic list. In case you have a DMX fixture that is not represented in the Cuety library then please consult page 37. 5.2.2 Addressing Each DMX fixture needs to be set to a ’start address’.
5.2.3 Invert Pan/Tilt When using moving lights like yokes then depending on the orientation of your fixture you might want to invert the pan and/or tilt movement. This way you can make sure that moving ’left’ on your controller in reality also makes the lights to go ’left’. In case you attach your moving head to a vertical truss you might want to use the Swap Pan/Tilt option. 5.2.
(that means to stop it) you can either press the playback button for longer than one second, or first enable the ’Release’ button at the top and then choose a playback button. To release all playbacks in the system press the ’Release’ button longer than one second. Figure 5.6: Playback screen To change the intensity and speed of a playback you first need to select the appropriate bank. The blue bar indicates the currently selected bank.
5.3.2 Properties Each playback has a few properties. You can change them by enabling the Props button at the top and then choose a playback button. • By enabling Background the playback will start automatically when the LPU device is powered on. Also, the playback will ignore the Release All command (a long press on the ’Release’ button). The Background feature is useful for controlling fixtures that should never turn off; e.g. some lights backstage that provide safety to artists coming on stage.
5.4 Edit This page (figure 5.8) allows you to edit the contents of a playback. Figure 5.8: Edit screen 5.4.1 Cues A cue is a step in a lighting sequence. A cue is sometimes also called a scene, it means the same. We, however, prefer to use the word cue. Sometimes you just need a single cue e.g. to create a static lighting ’look’. Sometimes you need multiple cues; perhaps when you created a look for each scene in a theatre play. In this case you step through the cues as each scene starts.
this playback. A newly added cue is still empty. Pressing the ’Remove’ button for longer than one second will remove all cues. Once you select a cue (it will indicate in blue) you can alter its properties by using the ’Rename’, ’Condition’, ’Delay’ and ’Fade’ buttons. 5.4.2 Condition The Condition property determines whether there is a pause between each cue. When set to ’Halt’ the playback will pause after the fading of the cue is finished.
Use the ’Clear’ button to remove values from the Programmer. When you have certain fixtures selected and hit ’Clear’ then only the values of those fixtures are reset. When the fixtures have no values set any more or no fixtures are selected when you hit Clear then all values of all fixtures inside the Programmer are cleared. In practice, clicking twice on the Clear button will completely erase the Programmer. The controls will indicate in red when a certain attribute is set in this playback. 5.4.
Chapter 6 Remote App The Cuety Remote App (figure 6.1) is a small tool for remote controlling the LPU device. The Remote App does not allow you to edit the settings inside the controller. It is assumed that you would have already programmed the contents of the LPU by using the Cuety App. Figure 6.
The Remote App allows you to trigger playback buttons. Figure 6.2: Settings To connect to a LPU device open the settings page (figure 6.2) and choose your device from the list.
Figure 6.3: Remote App on tablet The Remote App can also be run on a tablet, see figure 6.3. 6.1 Cuelux The Remote App can also be used to control the Cuelux lighting control system from Visual Productions. Cuelux is a DMX control system larger and more powerful than Cuety. More information about Cuelux can be found at http: //www.visualproductions.
Chapter 7 Personalities Cuety has a large library of personality files built in. It is possible, however, that a lighting fixture you wish to control does not yet exist in our library. If you like to add a new personality file to Cuety then you can request via our forum at http://forum.visualproductions.nl/forum/. Please make sure you mention that the personality is required for Cuety and include (a link to) the fixture’s manual.
• Create the personality file by adding all the channels needed for your fixture. A detailed explanation can be found in the vBuilder user manual Please note that Cuety does not support sub-fixtures. • Press the “Cuety Export” button. • Go to the folder User/Visual Productions/vBuilder. • Copy the file “user.personality” to your Cuety App: -iOS: Transfer by using iTunes or via Finder -MacOS: Go to the options menu by pressing the OPTIONS button.
Chapter 8 vManager A special software tool called vManager (figure 8.1) has been developed to manage the various network-based lighting controllers supplied by Visual Productions. This tool is available for desktops on Microsoft Windows, MacOS and Ubuntu Linux and is available via our website, free of charge. It is also available for tablets in the Apple App Store and the Google Play store. vManager allows you to perform a firmware upgrade on your LPU device.
will be disabled while working with a LPU device because they do not apply to this piece of hardware. 8.1 Blink You can set the device’s LED to blink fast for identifying a particular unit amongst multiple devices. The blinking is enabled by double-clicking on a device in the ’Devices’ list or by selecting a device and then clicking the ’Blink’ button. 8.2 Upgrade Firmware To upgrade the firmware, first select the device and press the Upgrade Firmware button. The dialogue in figure 8.
Chapter 9 Minimum Requirements This chapter discusses the minimum system requirements for running Cuety. 9.1 Mobile devices For Cuety the minimum screen size is 7 inch, with a resolution of at least 768x1024. Alternatively, Cuety Remote can be used for devices that don’t fit the minimum requirements of Cuety. Current OS requirements as of Cuety version 1.14 Operating System Minimum iOS 13 Android 7 9.
Appendices 42
Appendix A API The following functionality is only supported by the LPU-2, not by the LPU-1. Figure A.1: Kiosc A.1 Kiosc The LPU-2 can be controlled through the OSC and UDP protocols. There are various apps available for this purpose. We recommend using Visual Productions’ Kiosc. Kiosc is available on desktop and mobile operating systems. You can download Kiosc for Windows, MacOS, Ubuntu Linux, iOS and Android via the corresponding App stores. See http://www.visualproductions.
A.2 OSC OSC (Open Sound Control) is a protocol for communicating between computers, software and various multi-media type devices. OSC uses the network to send and receive messages, it can contain MIDI and custom information. The LPU-2 uses port 8000 for receiving the OSC messages. OSC is also integrated in the CueCore, IoCore and B-Station from Visual Productions. It is the preferred way of connecting equipment like the B-Station to a LPU-2.
1 This command mimmics the button in the Cuety interface. It can be shortpressed for Go+ and long-pressed for Release. It expects a 1 first, and then 0. The time between these commands determine wheter it is a long-press or a short-press. A.2.1 OSC Feedback The following commands are used for feedback. For more information about feedback send by the LPU-2, see A.5 ”Receiving API Feedback” Description URI Parameter Type Parameter Range Playback intensity /pb/in float 0.0 → 1.
Description String Parameter Range Example Set playback intensity pb/in int 0 → 100 pb01/in=55 Get playback intensity pb/in - - pb00/in Increment playback intensity pb/in=++ int -100 → 100 pb01/in=++10 Decrement playback intensity pb/in=- - int -100 → 100 pb01/in=–10 Set playback speed pb/sp int -100 → 100 pb33/sp=-20 Get playback speed pb/sp - - pb00/sp Increment playback speed
A.3.1 UDP & TCP Feedback The following commands are used for feedback. For more information about feedback send by the LPU-2, see A.
Description URL Range Example Set playback intensity /ajax/pb/int= 0.0 → 1.0 http://192.168.1.10/ajax/pb01/int=0.55 Get playback intensity /ajax/pb/int - http://192.168.1.10/ajax/pb01/int Increment playback intensity /ajax/pb/int=++ 0.0 → 1.0 http://192.168.1.10/ajax/pb01/int=++0.05 Decrement playback intensity /ajax/pb/int=- - 0.0 → 1.0 http://192.168.1.10/ajax/pb01/int=–0.
A.5 Receiving API Feedback The LPU-2 is capable of sending messages back to the external control system when communicating via OSC or UDP. As soon as the LPU-2 receives a command via OSC or UDP it will store the IP and port of the external system in a list. When a status changes inside the LPU-2 (e.g. a playback gets released) then all ’clients’ in this list will receive a message indicating the new status. The LPU-2 can store a maximum of four OSC clients plus four UDP clients.
Index Address, 27 Android, 9 API, 43 App Store, 9 Art-Net, 15, 24 Auto-sensing, 21 Invert Pan/Tilt, 28 iOS, 9 Kensington, 20 Kiosc, 43 Lock, 24 Loop, 30 LPU-1, 7 LPU-2, 7 Background, 30 Blackout, 30 Blink, 40 Bounce, 30 Box contents, 10 Memory, 7 Network, 21 Condition, 32 Cue, 31 Cuelux, 26, 36 Operating Systems, 10, 41 Options, 23 OSC, 44 Delay, 32 Device lock, 24 DHCP, 21 DMX-512, 14 Patch, 26 Personality Files, 37 Playback, 28 Power, 21 Programmer, 32 Programming App, 23 Properties, 30 Edit, 31 E
Sub-Fixtures, 28 Swap, 29 TCP, 45 Toggle, 30 Tutorials, 11 UDP, 45 vBuilder, 37 Versions, 11 Virtual Dimmer, 28 vManager, 39 web-interface, 8 YouTube channel, 11 51
