Introduction

Overview

Visual Show Automation (VSA) is a visual solution to animatronics control and automation. It was designed and built in response to a need to command multiple servos, motors, and lights over a period of time in a predefined manner.

VSA interfaces with hardware control boards. These hardware controllers serve as the bridge between VSA and the servos, motors, and lights. These controllers provide access to several devices (servos, motors, relays, and dimmers) each having a discrete range of positions that require some kind of PC resident managing software. A list of supported hardware controllers can be found here.

VSA offers a simple, visual approach: All pertinent information is displayed visually and immediately available to and adjustable by the user. With VSA it is easy to see and adjust what is going on at each point in the program: What devices are moving? Where the devices are moving? How fast are they moving? When will they stop moving?

VSA visually incorporates multiple audio (WAV/MP3) and video files (Professional and Ultimate versions). Great for animatronics, audio and video can accompany each routine. Any media stream can be graphically displayed, greatly easing the task of lip sync and other audio/video dependent actions.

Visual device control, visual editing, graphic multimedia files, and extensive play control make VSA the animatronics control software of choice.

Operation

The main window consists of several main rows: the Event view, the Plot view, the Time View, and the Wave View. In the Event View, the user creates events which define the position of a device at any given moment in time. The Plot View display also displays the position data, but in an amplitude versus time graph.  In the Time Line View, the user can set the play start/stop times, called “markers,” and view relative time relationships. The Wave View graphically depict the media files, easing synchronization.

The Professional and Ultimate versions also include a Video View, which displays video frames to assist with synchronization between devices and video.

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Features

See the complete list of Features here.

System Requirements

See the complete list of system requirements here.

Program Defaults

From the Tools > Settings... dialog, the defaults button in the lower left hand corner can be used to set program defaults.

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  • Save Defaults: Save the settings for each tab. The settings will be used as the default for each newly created routine and will persist between program restarts.

  • Restore Defaults: Change this document’s settings back to the previously saved defaults.

  • Reset Defaults: Revert the saved defaults back to the settings at the first installation. The current layout of the display (e.g., Plot View, Time View, etc.) is also included in the defaults.

  • Import Defaults... : Load the settings from another document into this document.

  • Invert Enabled: Invert all enabled tracks.

  • Enable/Disable All: Enable or disable all tracks.