Stage Automation Level 2

Sculptor & Visual Creator

During Easter holidays 2009 we were once again visited by Stage technologies for the installation of the new sculptor and visual creator software as well as line diverts. This will now enable us to use things like performer flying far more easily than before.

New Engineering

To allow safe use for performer flying we had to improve the clamping method and equipment on our spreader beams. Delstar Engineering Limited provided the design and manufacturing to our specification of ne clamps and wider beam feet.

Due to the possibilities created by our new software it has become necessary to split the directions in which each axis can travel into three different coordinates; X, Y and Z.movement is also recorded as positive or negative depending on direction. X is defined as being the movement from stage right to stage left. Movement towards stage left is positive(+) and stage right negative(-). Y is a vertical move with up being positive and down negative. Finally Z is the upstage and downstage control of an axis, positive is downstage towards the auditorium and negative is upstage.

Creating a group, finding coordinates and offsets

This is done in a similar way as in the regular Chameleon software.

• First define the scenery.
• Select the required axis.
• Select the group type and a name.
• Record scenery definition.
• A box will then appear giving you the opportunity to save as a sculptor group, click this box.
• Move to the Rig/DeRig Scenery tab, select all chosen axes and auto-reference them.
• Select the group on the main screen (E.G. Group 100), double press the [rig] button, click on the coordinate and add the correct x, y and z values for every axis used. These values can be found on the grid plan.
• Set the offset value for each axis as 15,500.
• Return to the main screen and double click on the position box for each axis and set the new position as zero when each winch has been brought in to just touch the stage, or your chosen zero point.
• You can then move the axis around by opening Visual Sculptor with the [more] button and using the joystick
• You can also use the joystick to find coordinates for Visual Creator.
  • Run the desired move in Visual Creator using the joystick, make a note of the key points in the move (E.G. Start, middle and end).
  • Open Visual Creator from the sculptor window, then enter the coordinates by clicking the new option and putting them into the table which appears.