Virtual Console XY Pad

An XY Pad is for manually controlling the pan and tilt channels of intelligent lighting fixtures, namely scanners and moving heads. The pad is a resizable canvas with a handle and two sliders that you can grab to obtain direct access to the attached fixtures' mirror/head position.

Controls

(1) Main area This is the area where the movement occurs.
(2) Handle The gray point is the handle. You can move it either with the mouse or with the keyboard.
(3) Range sliders These sliders limit the working area.
(4) Value sliders These sliders can be used to change value in one axis only.
(5) XY Pad name The name can be changed in properties, see below.
(6) DMX Coordinates This part displays current DMX coordinates in format (Pan course.Pan fine : Tilt course.Tilt fine).
(7) Horizontal and vertical angle If the fixtures controlled have proper pan and tilt range filled in in their definitions, and the range is same for all fixtures, then this field will compute angle from DMX coordinates.
0° is in the middle of the range (DMX value 127.127). For example, if pan range for a fixture is 540°, the displayed angle will be between -270° and 270°.
Note: this may not work properly, when a fixture has limited axis range in configuration, or reversed axis.

Range limiting

Starting from QLC+ version 4.5.0, two more sliders -- (3) in the picture above -- have been introduced to give you the opportunity to set a working range window in which your moving heads will operate.
Note that from the GUI the movement of the handles will be limited to the green window area, while with an external controller all the values will be scaled to the window, so you will be able to have more sensitivity in the control your fixtures.

In addition, it is possible to set limits for individual fixtures in the properties dialog, see Configuration section. This setting maps the whole range of the area (the grey area) to the sub specified range.

Example: set fixture X Axis (=pan) mininum to 20% (DMX value 51), maximum to 80% (DMX value 204). When the handle is at the left edge (value 0), actual DMX output is 51. Similarly, handle at the right edge will output 204 (=80%). For values in between, DMX output is scaled proportionally.

It is possible to have both limits enabled (using the range sliders and limits per fixtures).

Configuration

XY Pads can be configured with the properties button found in the toolbar or by double clicking on the XY pad itself.

XY Pad name Set the name of the XY Pad. The name (5) is shown in the upper left hand corner of the widget on Virtual Console.
Y-Axis slider movement The appearance of the vertical slider (the Y-Axis control) can be set to Normal or Inverted.
In the first case the maximum value will be reached at the bottom of the pad, while in the second case it will be reached at the top.
Fixture tab Shows the fixtures that are currently controlled with the XY Pad.
  • Fixture: The names of each fixture
  • X-Axis: Shows the value range (and reversal if applicable) of the horizontal (pan) axis for each fixture
  • Y-Axis: Shows the value range (and reversal if applicable) of the vertical (tilt) axis for each fixture
Add Fixtures to be controlled by the XY Pad, using the Select Fixture dialog. NOTE: only those fixtures that have pan and tilt capabilities are shown in the dialog.
Remove the selected fixtures from the XY Pad's control list.
Edit the selected fixture's behaviour as controlled by the XY Pad.

Fixture movement configuration

You can change the extent of movement and reverse fixtures' movement with the XY Pad Fixture Configuration dialog.

Horizontal X-Axis
  • Minimum: Set the minimum pan limit for the fixture
  • Maximum: Set the maximum pan limit for the fixture
  • Reverse: Reverse fixture's movement on the horizontal (pan) axis
Vertical Y-Axis
  • Minimum: Set the minimum tilt limit for the fixture
  • Maximum: Set the maximum tilt limit for the fixture
  • Reverse: Reverse fixture's movement on the vertical (tilt) axis

Keyboard control

It is possible to control head position with arrow keys on the keyboard. Each keypress increases/decreases coarse value by 1. With Shift key pressed, fine channel is changed by 1. With Ctrl, the step is 10 instead of 1.

Arrow keys Coarse step=1
Shift + Arrow keys Fine step=1
Ctrl + Arrow keys Coarse step=10
Shift + Ctrl + Arrow keys Fine step=10

External input configuration (Input Tab)

You can attach an external input channel from an input device (like a tablet) to XY pads so that you don't always have to use the mouse to control your fixtures.