Communications: Control Your Whole Show Together

Communicate with Any Machine or Device

With Navigator, your lighting, sound, or video equipment can be controlled by one system, regardless of which vendor it comes from, alongside any machinery—new or existing—that will form part of your show. Any machine can be controlled, whether it was designed for entertainment or other purposes (e.g., pumps).

Navigator can coordinate and synchronize all devices, with fully customizable live status feedback for your operator(s) (see customizable panels below). Navigator can simultaneously use different low-level protocols and facilitate vendor-specific application layers through its customizable features, known as serial devices (see below).

It can also act as a translator, enabling communication between previously incompatible devices using different protocols. This is particularly powerful when combined with the rules logic features.

Connectors and Serial Devices

Software connectors facilitate Navigator’s communications with other devices. Each license for Navigator provides a number of connectors, determined by the number of devices with which communication is required. Further connector types include MIDI, LTC and industrial-ethernet-based I/O devices, such as fieldbus modules with multiple channels.

Navigator’s communication tools, including the serial device allow for the control of any third-party equipment or receipt of status data by sending commands through TCP/IP, UDP/IP, or serial protocols, such as RS232. The serial device allow you to:

• Use scripts to generate and parse packets of bi-directional communication data
• Encapsulate messages to be sent as commands
• Use multiple protocols on the same device

Navigator’s Serial Protocol Manager (SPM) supports the sending, receiving, processing, and transmitting of data necessary for different communication protocols with any device.

Navigator enables lighting and video systems to send commands to machinery. It’s essential for safety that fault conditions trigger an automated stop and that the console has an E-top feature, which is lacking in standard lighting and video consoles (see the diagram on pages 12-13 for a partial list of protocols supported by Navigator).

Navigator already contains many common OEM-defined protocols, including:

Other protocols are defined in customizable scripts within the Navigator show file defined by the integration requirements of the equipment selected for each project and implemented using the SPM. Navigator can therefore control your existing machinery as well as new machinery you might acquire in the future.