Hello,

I'm new here. I use Max MSP a lot, but would like to do a project on a Raspberry Pi, and therefor I'd like to use Pure Data. I used Pure Data in the past, so I have some basic experience with it.

What I want to do is to control DMX equipment over Artnet, because I have an Enttec ODE (http://www.enttec.com/?main_menu=Products&pn=70305) which I used for a lot of projects before, that proved to be really stable. In Max MSP there are some excellent externals (imp.DMX) which gives you all the tools for Artnet, but I could hardly find anything on Pure Data & Artnet.

One of the things I found was http://www.openlighting.org and libartnet, which somebody used to receive Artnet in Puredata. But I have no idea where to start with this to send out Artnet.

Another thing I found, is to use an Arduino (possible with a DMX shield too) instead of the Enttec ODE. I saw a lot of information on that but nothing specific about combining this with the Raspberry Pi. But I guess it's just possible to hook them up together through USB. This way it could be even smaller which is important for me.

Does anyone have any experience with Artnet and PD? Or maybe with this specific combination of controlling DMX equipment with PD on the Raspberry Pi?

Thanks,

Kai

I've controlled DMX with Pd both with a LanBox and a DMX Master shield with Arduino.
The second case (Arduino) is much easier. If you install the library (DmxMaster) in ~/Documents/Arduino/libraries, the Arduino IDE will see the library and you'll be able to open its examples from File->Examples->DmxMaster and open the Serial to DMX example. In Pd, you just send this message to [comport], [$1c$2w( where $1 is the channel number and $2 the value of the channel.
With the LanBox I had to go another way. I opened Max and printed to its console the output of the lanbox external which was a sequence of hexadecimal values. I figured out which value is the channel and which the level and changed them to $1 and $2. I think I also used [makefilename] to convert decimals to hexadecimals.
The Arduino solution i much cheaper though and quite stable. The only problem I encountered was that most of the times I had to re-upload the sketch on the board as the shield seems to be doing something weird to the board's programmer (or whatever it is).

One correction, in the Arduino version, you have to send this message [print $1c$2w(
Forgot the put the "print" there...

Thanks! Sorry I didn't get an update notification of your reply, just found out.

Cool, did you control that Lanbox over Artnet? Or do they have their own protocol? Because I have an Enttec ODE, which is kind of like that LanBox, but way more limited, I can only control it over Artnet.

I have been trying to figure out how to translate the "imp.DMX.artnetout" external from David Butler. It looks like it should be possible, the core of what talks artnet happens all in Java. In Max MSP the "mxj" object is used to run the Java code, and in PD it's possible to run that same code through the "pdj" object. But when I send the exact same list of numbers in PD, to the "pdj" object, I get an error all the time:

"pdj: object 'ArtNetByteSend' doesn't understand list"

I know that PD handles lists differently, so there could be the problem, but I just can't figure out how then to send a list of numbers to this java script. If I change it to a symbol or something, it will say it "doesn't understand symbol". I guess it should accept a list in some way. Anybody familiar with the "pdj" object? And what it's limitations are?

Yes it sounds also good to go for that arduino/arduino shield way. That's a super cheap option. Sounds fun enough to try it out. This should just work with a simple Arduino Uno right? And is the response fast? And how do you mean you had to re-upload the sketches? The arduino was forgetting it's sketches for some reason? So a memory problem or something?

When I was using the LanBox I was sending messages to [comport] since I was communicating with it over USB. So what I did was print the message the [lanbox] object was creating in Max/MSP, which was a list of hexadecimal values in their ASCII form. So all I did was send similar lists to [comport] in Pd.
I've no idea about Artnet, I don't even know what it is.
As for Arduino, yes the response is fast, you can try even higher baud rates as the code provided with the library uses 9600.
It had problems maintaining the uploaded code when I tried to use it without the computer. If you use the computer and you face this problem, all you need to do is upload the sketch again, no big deal. No idea why this happened though, I'd sent to Arruino's forum but didn't manage to solve it.

Cool! I'll go that way then, and will buy the Arduino + Shield. Thanks for this solution! And the setup I want to use, will have the computer (the Raspberry pi) connected with the Arduino all the time anyways, so I guess that won't give me so much problems no.

But did you use the Arduino Uno? And what shield? The tinkerkit DMX shield? (Those are mad cheap I see on eBay, 10 dollars with shipping!)

Still would like to find out how to control Artnet as well. Anyone with better pdj and java knowledge than me?

Yes, it's Arduino UNO plus the DmxMaster shield http://www.tinkerkit.com/dmx-master-shield/
I bought one from an official Arduino distributor for 25 euros, which is still quite cheap.

Cool, thanks! Certainly, very cheap, compaired to these 'professional' 300/400 euro boxes to control DMX.

Like I said, anyone furthermore with any knowledge about pdj and java code? Or should I better start a new topic for that?

hi alexandros, any chance you could post the patch you used to control the Lanbox from pd? many thanks!

@dyl sure. I post only the part the sends the messages to the LanBox. I figured out what messages should be sent by checking the output of the [lanbox] Max/MSP external.
Here LanBox_ctl.pd