Question: Choreographed wearables for dance show?

[jeff]

Hi @DocNaes!

I think you understand most tradeoffs correctly. A few clarifications:

@DocNaes

From what I read am I right in assuming that running a single unit as an AP can coordinate the timing of patterns on multiple client devices, triggered by something like a button push, or a signal from a connected computer?

The easiest way to do much of this is to have a computer (or RPi, if you can find one right now) run a a Firestorm server. This allows you to clone the pattern code from one to all the others, and trigger new patterns activating at the exact same time on all your costumes. It’s easiest with a human following a cue sheet to activate different patterns by click/tapping them once in Firestorm; you can automate the “next pattern” action though if you’re familiar with JS web development and comfortable using APIs.

(Edit April 2023: This can now be accomplished without a separate computer running Firestorm. The new sync feature built into firmware v3.40 and above allows a single Pixelblaze to sync patterns and playlists across multiple Pixelblaze (as well as to send sensor board data wirelessly to other Pixelblazes). See how to use the sync feature in the announcement. In addition, any Pixelblaze in the group can advance everyone to the next pattern in the playlist by pushing its button.)

If you need more fine grained control, for example, sending an identical pattern on all Pixelblazes a event signal like a button tap, or selecting a color, this can be done with the websockets API. (Edit April 2023: This is best accomplished by sending sensor board data from the group leader to all the followers. You could detect a button press using the ADC pins.)

@wizard - Without Firestorm, if one is in AP mode and the rest are clients, do the timebases for time() sync?

@DocNaes

It looks like PB is not directly compatible with xlights. Is there a way to make them play together

I don’t think so, unfortunately - the paradigms and assumptions are fairly different.

@DocNaes

that would make it easy to time a pattern sequence to a song, and quickly visualize it during development?

I wrote a pattern that tries to do this, but many people find it a little cumbersome to understand, tune, and run. There’s no UI to choreograph events on a timeline.

@DocNaes

Can the PB software isolate specific portions of the LEDs attached to it (if I want to light up just the right leg for example) and apply a pattern only to that specific segment?

Yes - see the Multisgement Demo pattern, currently near the bottom of page 4 of the pattern library.

@DocNaes

I’m comfortable copying someone’s code and making minor tweaks to it, but do not want to take on any heavy coding in this.

I think you’re right on the edge with some of the requirements. If you can have a human tap a pattern on Firestorm as part of the performance, the code will be much lighter.

Best of luck to you!