How are the Auto (Colour) Palettes built?

[kgallen]

Hi Jon,

 

When you get a moment could you explain how the AutoPalettes (Colour) are assembled from the data provided in the fixture profile?

 

I've been looking at my fixture profiles (all built myself) and trying to see how the colour parameters and any "Details" translate into what is available in the Auto Colour Palettes. I can see correlation in the names, but I can see the Auto Palettes aren't the union of all e.g. Color1 parameters defined in the profile. Some colours are in the palette twice (e.g. "White" and "[W]") even though they have the same "Colour Defined" RGB in the fixture profile (R=G=B=255) whereas some are not in the Auto Palettes at all. I found an Amber (R=255,G=144,B=0) that was in the fixture profile detail but not in the palette. The closest other was an "Orange" R=255,G=128,B=0. I'm sure that of course you have to rationalise the palettes to avoid duplicates of near-identical RGB specs, but as I say above there were some apparent duplicates and some apparent omissions.

 

This is just for "interest" to some extent, but it would be good to know how to structure the "Detail" section of a fixture profile to get that entry available under a palette button!

Thanks,

Kevin

[iank99]

I don't know the actual answer but as a software person - I suspect part of the answer lies here...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_management

 

There are 'standard' modules for defining pre-mixed palettes for onscreen display and it's possible that this approach has been used. It needs a relative simple table of predefined colour names (it could even be a small SQL database so values can be altered outside of ZerOS if it were needed) and then colour values to render them. ZerOS will try to match names from the fixture against these tables so "red" would match but "reddish red" wouldn't match.

 

Depending on any min & max values for that channel in the fixture, there will be some software scaling happening i.e. a channel that goes to 128 max on a fixture would need some translation to get a not so bright red. I suspect also that 'Create Auto Palettes' creates the same list of names regardless of fixture and just does the necessary translation from the standard colour table to the fixtures capabilities.

 

The really interesting bit (as a software person) is the 'complexity' of translating the gel colour mapping across from 'standard' colours to RGB e.g. how to achieve Lee 183 in RGB Values and - how the Lime emitters in ETC Source LED fixtures affects colours.

 

Of course - when the Fixture Library system itself is updated it all changes again