Key Articles
New UK Office
July saw the completion of a move of our UK office to new premises in the heart of London.
Please make a note of the new details:
Stardraw.com Ltd
The 401 Centre
302 Regent Street
London
W1B 3HH
T: +44 (0)20 7692 7117
F: +44 (0)20 7692 7118
Stardraw Control at Alton Towers
Alton Towers in Staffordshire is Britain's best-loved theme park. However, it's not just the thrills and spills of the ever more daring rides that brings people flocking to the venue. Alton Towers is also a sumptuous and extremely well equipped conference and events centre that is capable of hosting anything from major corporate and social events to the Mad Hatter's tea party. When it comes to creating themed attractions, you can usually count on there being a control element in there somewhere, and these days, as often as not, it comes courtesy of Stardraw Control.
Production manager for Alton Towers' Entertainment Department, Simon Horsley, was tasked earlier this year with creating a children's walk-through Easter attraction in one of the resort's hotel conference rooms. "The attraction was themed as the Easter Bunny's warren and featured several themed rooms where various characters invented, created the taste, painted and finally distributed Easter eggs," explained Simon. "Each character told a story and the children were able to taste the chocolate as it was being "made" and got given a creme egg at the end
- they loved it!"
As you might expect, the attraction was not created entirely out of papier maché and toilet roll tubes; quite the contrary in fact
- this was a fully interactive audio-visual - and olfactory - experience, which is where Stardraw Control came in. Simon used Stardraw Control to create the operator interface on a touchscreen PC monitor from which he or she could then run the attraction.
"The Stardraw PC was linked via a bi-directional RS232 cable to an Alcorn McBride V4+ Show Controller which controlled all the audio (using an Alcorn McBride Digital Binloop), lighting (controlled via an Alcorn McBride DMX machine), smoke, smell effects, bubble machines, mechanical effects etc. via sensor triggers which were connected to an Alcorn McBride IO64 input/output expander, and button-press inputs from the performance team (yes, the ones in rabbit suits!)" described Simon.
Using Stardraw Control, Simon created a general operator page designed for the host standing outside the attraction, which indicated via a flashing screen when the next party of guests should be sent through. It also relayed information from the last sensor that was triggered, allowing the host to monitor the progress of each party throughout the attraction. Finally, a technical page was included (password-protected so that the hosts or any other unauthorized personnel could not access it) from which the venue could be powered up or down and all the lighting/audio/effects could be overridden for venue checks or maintenance purposes. Individual sensor triggers could also be checked from this panel.
"I have programmed similar systems before using Visual Basic," noted Simon, "but Stardraw Control is a far-more user-friendly option. Better still, it already contains a driver for the Alcorn V4+ Show Controller, which is the hub of my entire system, so that was a huge time-saver. However, I think that the biggest plus point for me in this particular implementation was that the system-wiring component of the job all but disappeared. Instead of having to connect a physical button panel with illuminated indicators and millions of wiring terminations to the V4+ or the IO94 like I used to do, I simply created a number of graphical screens for the operator and the technical teams within Stardraw Control, all with unlimited amounts of control buttons, feedback indicators, text messages etc. displayed on screen so everyone knows exactly what is going on at any given point, and all of that using just a single RS232 cable between the computer and the show controller. Apart from anything else, it looks far more professional than having wires and cables trailing all over the place, which is an important point when the display is on view to the guests as it was here, while the massive reduction in wiring time onsite was a real boon. When you've only got three days (and nights!) to set up the whole attraction from scratch, you appreciate details like that!"
Simon concluded by noting that the whole exercise was such a success that Alton Towers will be implementing a Halloween attraction based on the same system and infrastructure that will run for three weeks in October.
Product Training at CEDIA
In addition to our main booth (#801) on the main CEDIA show floor,
we are pleased to offer a free Stardraw Control Introductory training session
on Friday September 7th. at 2pm. The 1½ hour course covers:
Topics: |
Creating powerful user interfaces Controlling products by IR, Ethernet, RS232
and more
Creating your own unidirectional RS232 & infrared drivers Deploying projects |
Date: |
September 7th 2007 |
Time: |
2pm - 3.30pm |
Venue: |
Mineral Hall C, Hyatt Regency Denver, 650 15th St., Denver, CO, 80202 |
Pre-registration is not required, but seats will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis so please arrive early to guarantee your place.
Stardraw Control Advanced Training at Computerlinks
Following the success of the first UK Stardraw Control Intermediate training seminar
in July, we are delighted to announce that an Advanced training
course will be held on September 26th. This course is ideal
for those Stardraw Control users who want to exploit the full power
of the multi-award-winning universal control platform, and is a
required element in becoming a Certified Stardraw Control Programmer.
|
Stardraw Control - Advanced Class |
Topics: |
Creating Drivers for Devices using RS232, Ethernet, DMX etc
Scripting
Events
Gateway devices
Bi-directional communications & asynchronous I/O
C# programming concepts including the following:
Datatypes, iterations, conditional execution, classes,
external references
Calculating checksums, CRCs, hex, ASCII, binary
Calling legacy code & existing drivers
|
Date: |
September 26th 2007 |
Time: |
10am - 4pm (Lunch included) |
Venue: |
COMPUTERLINKS UK
Suffolk House,
Fordham Road, Newmarket
Suffolk CB8 7AA
t: +44 (0)1638 569 600
Map and Directions |
Cost: |
£349 per person + VAT |
To reserve your seat please register
online. Note that attendees should have previously attended both
Introductory and Intermediate classes. For these and other Stardraw training events please follow the link below:
Design/Documentation Applications MVR
A Minor Version Release (MVR) was published on August 5th which patches and enhances
all design/documentation applications, namely Stardraw AV 2007, Stardraw AV Lite 2007,
Stardraw Audio 2007 and Stardraw Lighting 2D 2007.
- Symbols created using the Symbols Wizard maintain links between text objects and attributes when saved into the Library List
- Enhanced Edit Node cursor allows modification of individual nodes in a selection containing multiple objects
- Bug that randomly caused disappearance of text rotated by 180° fixed
- Creation of CS_Length attribute consistent across Dogleg and Cable objects
- Truncated text when using Tools | Add Product List to Clipboard corrected
- Cable tool modified to prevent creation of segment between adjacent nodes placed in same X, Y location
- Bug preventing copying of CS_ attributes when using Paste Array to duplicate Cable/Dogleg objects fixed
- Attribute Lists now populate attribute values across all members of a multiple selection using the Multiple Selection dialog
Users are notified that updates are available when they first run their Stardraw design/documentation application after the MVR was published.
Upcoming Events
 |
Show: |
CEDIA US |
Venue: |
Colorado Convention Center, Denver, CO, USA |
Dates: |
September 5-9 |
Stand #: |
801 |
|
 |
Show: |
PLASA |
Venue: |
Earl's Court, London, England |
Dates: |
September 9-12 |
Stand #: |
K16 |
|
 |
Show: |
ISE Roadshow 2007 |
Venues: |
Denmark, Poland Czech
Republic, Austria, Croatia |
Dates: |
October 17-26 |
|
Symbols Updates
In July the following libraries were updated
in one or more of Stardraw's design/documentation
applications (Stardraw Audio, Stardraw AV and Stardraw AV Lite). Click
on a manufacturer name to see full details of that library, or click on a
link at the bottom of the page to update your application
with the latest symbols.
|
