Sorry, with an abbreviation like that, it just BEGS for a play on words… or letters. With the announcement of MA Lighting’s latest console, the grandMA 3, Vectorworks, Robe Lighting and MA Lighting announced the partnership to develop GDTF. In a nutshell, GDTF is a standard in files for control, device control and previz. 

If you have and experience in the design to previz to live production workflow, you know that many an hours can be spent just making sure all of the different software packages work together and produce similar results in the end. GDTF was developed to negate most of these time losing elements of the workflow.

Here are two illustrations.

The first shows the production workflow that we are use to:

Second, the benefit of GDTF:

You may be thinking that this new protocol is just for MA, Vectorworks and Robe, think again.  While they are the ones spearheading it, the GDTF is available for any manufacture in the industry.  Development is still underway, though Clay Paky and Martin have already begun device profiles to share.

It’s not just fixture manufactures either.  The open standards and technology are being to be developed by Avolites, Chamsys, Hippo and even ETC. 

Read more about the What, Why and Who of GDTF at www.gdtf-share.com.

Another good source for more details on GDTF, a recent blog post from Vectorworks, What’s New with GDTF and MVR.