• Hi IPACS,

    I experimented a lot with the light blinking feature and realized slow or fast blinking frequencies.

    However I failed to do asymmetric blinking (longer off then on) or blinking sequences.

    i.e.:

    Can you give two examples how to do so?

    1. four seconds on and seven seconds off

    2. one sec on, two sec off, one sec on, ten sec off

    This would be needed to simulate the blinking sequences of real existing light towers.

    Cheers,

    Thomas

    Had anyone a chance to look at my code and could correct it?

    So looking for

    1) -----____________________

    2) ---__---__________________

    Cheers, Thomas


  • This is best done using point lights in your cultivation TOC file. Please keep in mind that our blinking light algorithm is rather basic right now.

    To change the blinking pattern, take a look at the below example highlighting the line used for this. You need to adjust the parameters to suit your needs.

    The best way to explain this would be the first number is basically how many times the light flashes in an 'x' amount of time, the second number is the duration that the light is on, and the third number is how long it's off.

    So for your question 2, you would have something like this;

    <[vector4_float32][flashing][1.000000 4.000000 7.000000 0]>

    You need to actually play around with the numbers to get the timing that you need since all of the numbers all add up to one cycle.

    Your question 1 can't be done at this time.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Thank you Jeff.

    I do not see a clear algorithm how to predetermine the blinking frequency for the ON/OFF period, but I found some useful parameters which I like to show to other users.

    Enter below numbers into this example:

    // 1/time factor, ON factor, OFF factor

    <[vector4_float32][flashing][1 2 28 0]>

    1 2 28 0 generates 1 sec on, 5 sec off

    1 4 14 0 generates 2 sec on, 4 sec off

    2 4 14 0 generates 0.5 sec on, 2 sec off

    0.5 1 7 0 generates 6 sec on, 8 sec off

    0.5 4 28 0 generates 2 sec on, 10 sec off

    Cheers,

    Thomas

    Cheers, Thomas


  • Hi Thomas, our blinking system is just too basic to provide more that what I did unfortunately. But with a little bit of tweaking you can achieve what you are looking for.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Thomas, what's your take on the ScenProc description of the flashing attributes "period, alternate flash, and duration"?


    Is Jeff saying that if the first number is always 1 (1 flash per period), then the next 2 numbers added together determine the frequency?

    Example (1, 0.5, 0.5) = 1 flash per 1sec (0.5+0.5)

    Example (2, 0.5, 0.5) = 2 flashes per 1sec (0.5+0.5)

  • Hi Ken,

    I think this describes it better:

    // 1/time factor, ON factor, OFF factor

    Some examples:

    Example (1, 2, 14) = 2 sec ON, 5 sec OFF

    Example (1, 4, 7) = 2 sec ON, 3 sec OFF

    Example (0.5, 4, 28) = 2 sec ON, 10 sec OFF

    Example (0.5, 6, 28) = 4 sec ON, 10 sec OFF

    Example (5, 8, 56) = 0.2 sec ON, 3 sec OFF

    Finally try and error will be the strategy.

    But once you found some useful combinations, you can use it pretty well for lighthouses.

    Cheers,

    Thomas

    Cheers, Thomas


  • Thomas, after a bunch of testing I think I figured it out.

    ( A ; B ; C )

    "A" determines the period or length of the flash cycle in seconds, A = 6 / (desired flash cycle)

    If you want 1 flash every second, then set A=6

    If you want 1 flash every 3 seconds, then set A=2

    If you want 1 flash every 0.5 seconds, then set A=12

    "C" determines how fast the flash occurs

    If you want the flash to be slow and take the entire time period, then set C=1

    If you want the flash to only take 1/4 of the entire time period, then set C=4

    If you want a quick flash that only takes 1/100th of the entire time period, then set C=100

    "B" determines the position in a sequence of lights (like runway approach lights)

    If you want all your lights to flash together, set B to the same value for all lights

    If you want 3 lights to flash in sequence, set B=1 for the first one, B=2 for the second light, and B=3 for the third light

    This is why ScenProc calls "B" the alternate flash