I am working on a projection mapping installation with two BenQ projectors and a PC running windows 8.
More often than not I turn on the two projectors then start up touch designer and need to “transform” the projected image a few pixels to the left on one of the projectors to get the mapping back to where I saved it last. Occasionally I also need to tweak the “stoner” grid warp settings as well.
Also occasionally, Windows 8 will change the projectors’ (used as an additional monitors) locations and resolution. Of course this completely screws up all the mapping and I have to reset the windows system display settings then tweak the locations of the projections.
Has anyone else dealt with a similar issue? Any advice on getting windows to fix settings for a pair of projectors? Why do I constantly need to “move” the image to get it back to correct mapping location?
How are you doing your mapping? Stoner, CamSchmappr?
Are there any mismatches between your perform window size and your containers and components?
Check your align properties on your containers?
Does this run on a laptop or on a server? I try to keep monitors arranged left to right as 1 2 3. Unless the projectors get disconnected windows usually holds onto the EDID. In some cases I’ve used EDID savers to help ensure that windows doesn’t re-arrange display order on me.
This is running on a tower PC with a dell monitor. I am using a combination of stoner’s gridwarp and a transform object to do the mapping. Each projector gets its own video (not a single video stretched across both projectors). I am doing this mainly because I can’t export h264 from aftereffects with a resolution size greater than 2k across.
I don’t think there are any mismatches in the perform windows and the components/objects… I did have to make the stoner window 1280x1280 instead of 1280x1024. I think it was because I was getting some artifact when warping the upper edges of the content though this was a while ago and I can’t remember now.
I’ve not heard of an EDID saver. nor an “EDID”… googling! I am using display port to vga adapters and very long vga cables though. Can you recommend an EDID saver?
EDID is the protocol by which displays tell a computer what resolutions, refresh rates, etc they are able to accept. An EDID saver/emulator/etc is a hardware device that records that piece of information and passes it to the computer regardless of the connection status of the display itself. The Gefen DVI Detective is one of the better known models of this for DVI connections. Kramer and ATEN both make VGA units but if you google VGA EDID emulator you’ll find lots of options. If you are using an Nvidia Quadro card you can also set persistent output EDIDs within the GPU driver which often removes the need for a hardware EDID emulator.
How many output windows are you using? A single large output or multiple output windows?
Generally it’s best to only draw a single output window from touch.
Depending on what’s going on with your stoner set up that might account for some of this calibration weirdness. You might try adding a grid or reference image to your project’s output and then restart a few times. Is it just the calibration that’s shifting, or is it the entire texture? That should help you narrow down the issue to being calibration related, or output window related.
I am using two output windows. Each has its own “signal chain” with its own stoner/transform objects. The PC tower has an Nvidia geforce GTX 980. I could try putting together a single double width window output and then placing the two stoners signal chains together with an offset if you think this is really a better configuration.
I don’t think the grid warp points in stoner get individually screwy but I am not totally sure.
I will look into the hardware EDID. Sounds annoying but maybe necessary!
With few exceptions I always draw a single window. This provides better overall performance (sometimes there are huge gains here), and helps organize your outputs in a way that’s less frustrating to debug (at least in my opinion).
It’s also worth noting that the new stoner has a remap option that’s significantly less resource intensive - 0.2ms vs 1.2-2ms. If performance isn’t a problem for you, you can probably just ignore this. In the future if your needs change this might be worth looking into.
You might also check windows display settings to make sure your displays are either all top aligned or bottom aligned. That could also account for a shift in how the output is displayed through the projector.