Sunday YouTube Videos

This weeks Sunday YouTube Video is actual hosted on Vimeo.  YouTube doesn’t like us uploading more then a ten minute video.  Nuts to that!  Seems like this week has been focused on Vectorworks 2011 and rightfully so.  There are some huge new features included into 2011 and thus makes the announcement and release big news.  Late this past week I put up a listing of some of the new features of Spotlight.  Vectorworks went a step further and created an introduction/tutorial video about the new features of Spotlight.

Are you excited about Vectorworks 2011 yet?  If so, head over to www.vectorworks.net/2011 and download a 30 trial version of the software as well as learn more and get some more in depth training videos.

Benghiat Lighting Introduces Source Four Savvy Section for Vectorworks

Joshua Benghiat has been hard at work again developing his latest Vectorworks Plugin, Source Four Savvy Section. You may remember Joshua’s other Vectorwork plugin, Beam Draw 3. With Source Four Savvy Section, Joshua has made it easy to tweak and adjust your lighting fixtures with in Vectorworks.  You can adjust the light fixture to any angle you want, both pan and tilt.  Say in Section View you want a source four going across stage to represent correctly on you drawing, no problem, that function is built into the plugin.

What about adding fixture accessories like sidearm tee’s, scrollers or top hats.  Simple, select the fixture, add the accessories you want from the object info window and done.  The plugin takes care of the rest. Take a quick look at what the plugin does in a short YouTube video that Joshua did with the plugin.  Oh, and don’t bother turning up your speakers, there is no sound.

The Source Four Savvy Section Plugin from Joshua Benghiat is wrapping up developement as you read this.  Joshua hopes to have the plugin avilable at the end of July. The standard version of the plugin runs $14.99.  There is also a student version that runs $4.99.  Yes, you do need a copy of Vectorworks which you can pick up from Nemetschek. To learn more about Joshua’s plugin, visit his web site at www.benghiatlighting.com.

Apollo Design Big City Bash – Hotlanta

I LOVE attending events where the latest gear is on display and I get a closer hands on view of it. Apollo Design has just announced their next upcoming event, the Big City Bash Atlanta. Apollo Design will be taking over the Overlook #1 room at the Courtyard Atlanta Vinings, on the northeast side of Atlanta to show of and let us get a hands-on feel for some of their latest products.

More from the Press Release:

Please join us for hands-on demonstrations of Apollo’s complete lineup of entertainment lighting products, including the exciting new Spotlight Architectural Fixtures, Multiform LEDs, and Smart Color PRO scroller. Combined with our color filters, clean laser produced gobos, and numerous other lighting effect accessories, Apollo now offers even more solutions for your 2010 lighting projects. Come check them all out!

If you haven’t heard, Apollo Design is the North American Distributor for Spotlight and Multiform and will have their latest products on hand to play with. if you didn’t get a chance to see these new fixtures at LDI, the Bigh City Bash is a perfect time and place to see not only the new stuff, but all of Apollo Design’s other great products.

When:

Thursday, January 14th, 2010
4 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Where:

Courtyard Atlanta Vinings
2857 Paces Ferry Road SE
Atlanta, GA 30339
Room: Overlook #1

If you can make it to the Big City Bash Atlanta, please be sure to let Apollo Design know by RSVP.  If you do attend the show, please be sure to say hi to KC for me.  If you ever have any questions about Apollo gear, KC knows it all!

New Vectorwork Spotlight Plugin – Beam Draw3

Joshua Benghiat Lighting Design announces the release of version 3 of the Beam DrawTM Plug-In package for VectorWorks SpotLight.®

Beam Draw is a lighting designer’s complete solution to pre-visualize how a light plot will focus. Beam Draw determines the position, field angle, and focus point for lighting instruments, allowing designers to walk into focus knowing they have the angles and coverage they need.

Improvements to Beam Draw 3 include:

• Easy conversion of beam objects into SpotLight lighting devices.
• Visualization of shutter cuts. You can drag the shutters right in the drawing!
• Improved data on how your light focuses, like maximum width, pan, and tilt.
• A completely redesigned Beam Draw Section object lets you visualize beam sections in a 2D view.

This is a fully interactive tool, and will even draw a figure for you, and show you what portion of the section includes the full width of your focus area.

• The ability to read photometric data from your symbol library, letting you easily try different unit types.
• A command to reverse and repeat beams, including shutter cuts and bottle rotations.
• If you are working with one system of beams at a time, you can easily channel them, and the data
  will be transferred when you convert the beams to Spotlight lighting devices.
• Quickly file away beams in a system to their own, hidden layer.
• Beam Draw Magic, which pulls position and channel data from your beams for use on a sheet layer magic sheet.
• You can even adjust your channel numbers to accommodate similarly focused or reverse-and-repeated systems.Beam Draw 3 works with VectorWorks 12 through 2010. To learn more and download a demo version, visit www.benghiatlighting.com.  There is a quick-start guide to the plug-ins that you can also download.  Beam Draw 3 is priced at $69, with discount, upgrade, and student pricing available, and includes convenient installers for both Mac and PC.

Beam Draw was developed by professional lighting designer Joshua Benghiat, who originally needed a beam visualization tool for VectorWorks that was more accurate and full-featured than other available solutions. . The latest version is the culmination of over 10 years of using the plug-ins to design and draft light plots with VectorWorks.