Scalable and Vioso calibration TD integration

Hello guys,

I’m doing my research to complement projection solution with some kind of camera calibration solution. Don’t want to spend all my time on locations (which are less and less these days) to edge blend and calibrate.

So, I was talking (arguing actually :slight_smile: ) with sales reps of Vioso (I guess it would be the same with Scalable) about licensing and integration and perhaps someone can clarify me on this because it was utterly impossible to get any kind of sensible answer from this sales person.

The question is quite simple: can I render warped and blended media after calibration loaded in Vioso (or Scalable) TOP.

A lot of times, I need to calibrate quickly a small surface (let’s say curve) and put the warped and blended media in Brightsign in museums. The cost (and sense) of leaving a full blown TD media server is prohibitive as stability-wise too, way less troubles with brightsign for semi-permanent exhibitions where equipment and electrical distribution are mishandled :slight_smile:

The sales rep tried to tell me, that I need to buy every time a license and warp and blend simply cannot work without license. In this case, I don’t see the point using Touchdesigner at all with VIOSO (or Scalable) as they have their own desktop warping and blending capabilities.

Someone can clarify this question please?

Thnx

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Im just recently getting into the same situation as you were. Did you ever come up with a solution or get an answer?

Hi! Well, a lot of things happened since there as you can imagine.

Get way more experience and worked on a full-blown commercial studio, so I can share the experience.

First of all, let’s get the things straight: the usefulness of TD with scalable and Vioso. Basically, what you have as an out after calibration is a distortion map (like UV map) and blending map applied by multiplying color. You then just feed your texture and it’s predistorted with the calibration file (remap) loaded in the VIOSO or SCALABLE TOP.

There are couple of caveats:

  • VIOSO in TD doesn’t have a blackpoint correct. Apprerently, it’s being reworked now, but no news about this since at least 1 year. I can understand it’s not a priority for guys with so much amazing stuff to be implemented, but this is smth you should now.
  • don’t know about scalable blackpoint.

About 2 systems: if you have money - go Scalable. It’s way faster, more straightforward and less buggy. But their license system is smth to shoot yourself in the head if you need to travel with. Basically you need to pay for breathing and living on Earth :slight_smile: They have dongle system, but it’s not enough, you still need to pay for aux systems. Whatever… It’s got quite intense with their sales representative at one point. But… if you have one install to do and leave it on and have money, you will loose soooooo much less time with Scalable.

Vioso… Well, it’s way cheaper, like twice less expensive than Scalable. It’s not using the same algorithms and principles, but the results are very comparable (I preferred Scalable). It takes way longer to calibrate - for 4 projectors the whole structured light routine and processing takes around 10-15 min instead like 2 min for scalable.

The worst part about Vioso is the buggy software at least at the time. I mean there are bugs and there f****g bugs you can’t begin to explain. The interface is much more modern than Scalable and uses kind of nodes (yohooo) which helps to visualize the system. But in 9 cases out of 10 you can’t go through the calibration procedure because of crashes. Believe me, on 100th time of 10 min calibration you want to shoot someone or yourself. It’s a wizard procedure. I ended up using Manual procedure which is much more stable, but very obscure because not very well documented. Sorry, Vioso, as you know, I tried and even spent 1 full day with the lead DEV with a remote support session.

RIght now, I’m considering other solutions:

  • Fly Eng Immersive Calibration Pro - we have licence and everything but the dev guy is really not forthcoming about how to work with custom meshes.

  • Screenberry Server software - might be overkill for us, but quite a complete solution with TD engin in it.

There is an obscure native solution made in Montréal UQAM for using opencv etc… (opensourced) and I think it was then augmented in Thinkwell studios in MTL (or completely new), but the latter is private and not shared.

I guess that’s it about calibration…

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Hello,
Have you tried with the new calibration actor?
I am interested by the new Screenberry software who say to open TD tox but they have also a calibration system : screenberry calibrator.