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2001 Pangolin User Meeting report |
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| Thanks
Our appreciation goes to LSDI, who provided a plug-in-the-wall, solid state, white light laser for our first Pangolin Meeting on November 5. Also, thanks to AVI, who provided the meeting space and also provided the use of the Schneider solid state white light laser for our second Pangolin Meeting on November 12. |
The 10th Annual Pangolin User Meetings were a great success with 38 people in attendance. The attendees were from all over the world including people from as far away as Israel. And because of the Orlando location and convenient scheduling of the Pangolin Meetings, it was possible for attendees to visit the LDI and IAPPA trade shows as well as the Pangolin Meetings.
There were two meetings. The first was held Monday, November 5 the day after LDI. The second was held Monday, November 12, the day before the IAPPA trade show setup. Each meeting had the same basic components:
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Introduction to Pangolin and Staff Members
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Discussion of the new features in Pangolin software, and of Lasershow Converter MAX
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New Technology and Art-ware Presentations
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Lunch
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Presentation and judging of laser shows for the Pangolin Prize
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Pango LASE-OFF
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Door prize distribution
Since each meeting had the same basic components, we will mainly discuss the first meeting on this page.
Introduction to Pangolin and Staff
During this portion of the meeting, Pangolins president William Benner introduced Pangolin Laser Systems and the full staff of Pangolin.
Discussion of New Features and LC MAX
During this portion of the meeting, the new features of Lasershow Designer, Showtime and Lasershow Converter MAX were discussed. In particular, the concept of Projection Zones was explained, as was the concept of doing character animation with LCMax.
New Technology and Art-ware presentations
We were very fortunate to have two presenters of some brand new technology for the Pangolin Meeting. We also had several companies present new art-ware options available exclusively for the Pangolin platform.
New Technology: The Schneider Laser
Aron Bacs of Audio Visual Imagineering presented a discussion about the Schneider Showlaser. This is a new solid-state laser that delivers over 10 watts of laser light, yet consumes only a few thousand watts of power from a 220-volt AC source. The Schneider Showlaser is completely self-contained including a built-in water cooling system. For more information about the Schneider Showlaser, click here.
New Technology: The Microcolor Laser
Greg Makhov of Lighting Systems Design presented a discussion about the future of solid-state lasers for laser lightshow applications. He also showed a prototype of a laser that he will be producing called the Microcolor. The Microcolor is an amazing little laser system that delivers nearly 2 watts of while light, yet it consumes less than 1000 watts and plugs directly into a standard 120V AC outlet. The Microcolor laser ran both a graphics head and an audience scanning head (simultaneously) throughout the meeting. For more information about the products that LSDI has to offer, click here.
For more information about both solid state lasers, click here.
Art-ware: The Module Maker Workshop CDs
Chris Stuart and Carl Graves of Laser Force presented the new Module Maker Workshop CDs. The first CD in the series is a Laser Animation Sampler, which includes many animations, effects and tutorials. The cost of the Animation Sampler CD is $200 with follow-on CDs costing around $400-$500 each. Note that this isnt just another CD with high quality frames and animations, but it also contains time- and effort-saving tips, Showtime effects and design tutorials. For more information about the Module Maker Workshop CDs, click here.
Art-ware: The FantaCD Laser Image Library
Jay Heck of Laser Fantasy presented a discussion about the new FantaCD Laser Image Library. The FantaCDs are a series of theme CD's containing thousands of quality RGB frames in Pangolin format. Many of these frames have been used in ILDA award winning sequences, and the attention to detail is second to none. Each FantaCD contains around 8000 frames and the cost is $900. For more information about the FantaCD Laser Image Library, click here.
Lunch
For the first Pangolin Meeting, we made special arrangements with TGI-Fridays. All attendees of the meeting can go there and order anything on the menu that they wanted. We felt that this was much better than other meetings where the menu is predetermined and you have no choice. For the second Pangolin meeting, we brought in a six-foot sub made up of various types, again to accommodate different tastes.
Pangolin Prize Presentation
This year, we had 28 entries for the Pangolin
Prize competition. This is more than double the number of entries
received in any prior year. All entries were EXCELLENT and all were
created with the LD2000 system.
To see the
results of the Pangolin Prize competition,
click here.
To see a video showing portions of
the graphic shows, click here.
Pango LASE-OFF
The Pango LASE-OFF is a loose and open Film-Festival-like event where attendees enjoyed a broad spectrum of laser shows from a variety of laserists all around the world.
The Pango LASE-OFF featured 10 graphics laser shows and 5 audience scanning beam shows. The shows were winners of past Pangolin Prize Awards, winners of past Brewster Awards, and other shows that were selected because they were just plain fun. During the Pango LASE-OFF, we had an open bar so that people could enjoy any kind of wine, beer or mixed drink that they wanted.
Door Prize Distribution
At the end of the meeting, we distributed door prizes. This year, we had two DMX boards provided by Logic Systems both were model DMX0602-DRV. For more information, please see Logic Systems web page.
Attendees' Reactions
The attendees reacted very positively to the new format of the Pangolin Meetings. To read some of their comments, click here.
This page last updated: Thursday, May 21, 2009 12:05 AM
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