Welcome to today’s episode! We have a special guest, Bob Mentele of Elations to discuss using visualizers and if that’s a tool you should consider. Let’s dive in! Main Segment (0:37) David: Today, we have with us Bob Mentele from Elations to discuss visualizers. Why should we use a lighting visualizer? There are a couple of different aspects as to why users or potential users may want to use a visualizer for. One would be the ongoing practice for programming lights from anywhere or even practicing the art form of working with lighting. Practice is always goin to improve your skill set. Another aspect is to save money during the process of creating and designing a show. It can be very expensive to have a large lighting rig set up in a practice arena. So, by investing in a visualizer this can ultimately save time and money. For multiple applications, visualizers offer the opportunity to show your work in action to protentional clients. Sometimes, trying to explain ideas and designs would be easier to display in a 3D model. David: A few pieces have shifted over the past few years. One example, is that some are using visualizers for a conceptual purpose only. With ONYX and Capture, it paves a way for visualizers. While this is still in beta, we’re working with Capture to build a smooth integration between Elation products and the Capture visualizer with production teams that have a strong background in building solid visualizers. The overall goal is to make it very accurate, realistic, and improving the overall processing for your computer. While it does have some ways to go, it’s very exciting to see the visualizers being built. While you want the experts to focus on building a strong visualizer it allows companies such as Elation to focus instead on optimizing the processing and integration between the controller and visualizer. David: It’s really neat to see the 2 way communication between Capture and the console. Absolutely, while there is still a lot of different features in beta, it has come a long way. With the bi-communication option, it definitely can give creators and lighting designers more options. David: To wrap this up, the key takeaway is that visualizers are no longer for just the professional users anymore. It’s great for those that want to pre-program, design unique stage layouts, and looks. It’s becoming very inexpensive. Where they were 10 years ago and I started with the ETC Expression3 compared to where they are now is just amazing. It’s focused on the capability, saving time, and so many different users. I believe we’re going to see some positive impacts in our industry as more and more people begin to use them. Closing (24:52) Thank you for joining us today and we hope you enjoyed the discussion about visualizers. As always, thank you Bob for joining us and be sure to join us for the next episode.