Scenic Shop

Transmaterial

Matthew D. Jordan — 2009-08-23T22:18:32-04:00

For those of you who are interested in new materials, check out Transmaterial. I can’t describe it better than this quote from the site:

...Transmaterial online is intended to be a clear, concise, accessible, and carefully edited resource that provides information about the latest and most intriguing materials commercially available.

A little more...

As the speed of technological progress continues to accelerate, innovation threatens to outpace architects’ and designers’ working knowledge of materials thereby limiting their applicability. In order to stay at the cutting edge of design, a knowledge of the uses, properties, and sources of new materials is essential. A companion to the Transmaterial books written by Blaine Brownell and published by Princeton Architectural Press...

While most of us in theatre probably couldn’t afford any of these new materials, they do provide inspiration for solving some of our... err... unique challenges. Added bonus -- some of them are just super cool.
All in all, this here is some top notch geek porn.

CADalyzer 0.6b Update (AutoCAD Command Counter)

Matthew D. Jordan — 2009-06-29T21:18:01-04:00

This is an update to the Cadalyzer script that I posted a few months ago. It will count the number of commands you have used in AutoCAD; it does this by examining your AutoCAD log files. (You can enable log files in AutoCAD’s options dialogue box.)

Cadalyzer 0.6b download
New features are listed below

Counting mechanism has be rebuilt, the script now computes 25 times faster than the previous version!
shows the total number of commands used (Apparently I’ve invoked approx. 38,000 commands since this previous October. Ouch.)
several command line options have been implemented:

- unused - shows all the commands you didn’t use; this is helpful when you want to learn more commands
- compile - compiles all of the logs in the directory and saves them to a single file
- results - saves the results to a file
- percent - formats the each command as a percentage of the total commands used

You will need Ruby installed (tested on 1.8.6 and up.) You can find the Ruby download here. If you don’t use Ruby but would like to learn to program, I highly recommend it. Ruby is an excellent language for beginners and advanced alike.

The only other thing you will need is to tell the script where to find your log file directory. Open the Cadalyzer.rb file and look for the line path = '/Path/to/log/files/” Replace the /Path/to/log/files/ with your path and run the script.

Happy analyzing!

Flattening Cones

Matthew D. Jordan — 2009-06-29T20:21:37-04:00

“Have you ever wanted to lay out the frustum of a cone on a flat surface?”
“A what?”
“A frustum, the part of a cone that is left when you lop off the top.”
“Oh, yeah. If I had a nickel... sadly, I’m still poor.”

It can be a little intimidating if you’re not familiar with the concept of how to go about it. Our draper came to me wondering how she could accurately lay out a dress based on an actor’s measurements. (Apparently the traditional layout method wastes fabric.) So I came up with this simple excel sheet that does the calculations based on the following measurements: waist (small circumference), hem (large circumference) & inseam (height of the frustum.) It gives back the details needed to lay the cone frustum out on a flat surface. The diagram below gives the general gist of what’s what. There is a larger version of the image in the excel document.

Frustum.xls
From fabric to sheet goods, I hope this calculator finds some use.

Mirrored Flats: A Learning Experience

Matthew D. Jordan — 2009-05-29T19:52:17-04:00

Found out a couple of pitfalls when building mirror flats with mirrored acrylic skins. Our usual acrylic adhesive is a two part methacrylate based adhesive. It works incredibly well when bonding acrylic to just about any substrate (steel, wood, other plastics...) Some formulations cure to a relatively clear finish, which is quite the selling point. Unfortunately, we found that methacrylates will distort the mirror coating on mirrored plexi. Whoops. You can see the distortion in the picture below. It’s probably better to stick to liquid nails next time. As a side note, 3/16” mirror acrylic does not look great with toggles on 2’ centers; I recommend a thinner acrylic sheet contact cemented over a plywood skin to realize a flatter surface.

Dykes Mouldling - CAD Files

Matthew D. Jordan — 2009-05-28T21:29:35-04:00

If you’ve downloaded the Dykes Moulding CAD files from their website you may have noticed that the profiles are not to scale. From what I could see, the scale factor seems to be the same for all the files, approximately 0.056568174 (find the humor in that.)

Stock Power Supplies for Effects

Matthew D. Jordan — 2009-04-09T23:18:08-04:00

Here’s a quick post on using computer power supplies to power DC effects.

Pull a power supply out of a computer and go to town! The most common computer power supplies (ATX form factor) provide several different DC voltages, such as +3v, -3v, +5v, -5v, +12v, and -12v. Mix and match between those specific wires or the common and you’ve got most of your onstage effects covered. For example, for our current show we’re using the +12v and -12v leads to power several 24v solenoid valves.

You can tie into the bundle of wires from the power supply directly, or install terminal strips or similar connections onto the power supply housing. I have no intention of providing instructions here, but a google search goes a long way.

Be safe. Computer power supplies make use of high capacity capacitors that will give you a dangerous amount of sizzle if you are not careful. Don’t electrocute yourself if you decide to take a power supply apart, cause it’s not only embarrassing, but very dangerous as well.

A few more thoughts, not all computer manufacturers use the same color code for the voltages, so be sure to verify with a multi-meter. Also, the power supply’s maximum wattage is usually provided on the label. Do some simple math and make sure you’ve got enough juice for your effect.

Now you’ve got a stock DC power supply that will provide most of the voltages you will need.

Slick Edging

Matthew D. Jordan — 2009-04-01T19:05:48-04:00

Here’s another choice for edging a deck and other scenic elements: paper. We recently did a production of Bad Dates and the designer wanted a smooth black finish for the “cut” edges of the walls and deck. Since the audience was sitting only four feet from the set, we experimented with wallpapering with a 50# black kraft paper. The advantages were as follows.

the paper is thin enough to make the edges very clean
the texture was very flat, smooth and consistent - much like bristol board.
there was no nap to deal with
one roll of 12” x 750’ paper clocked in at 14 bucks. (without shipping)
the paper allowed us to effectively disappear the seams of the planking and luan skins

All in all I was very pleased with the result. I think it was a better, more consistent finish than if we’d puttied, sanded and painted. If you go this route, be sure to do samples first! I found the paper at Quality Paper.

The Guide to Sound Effects

Matthew D. Jordan — 2009-03-04T21:24:06-05:00

For an excellent list of foley solutions, visit David Filskov’s The Guide to Sound Effects. Great list sorted in alphabetic order, highly recommended. Thanks to Valerie for pointing this out.

Introducing A Stagecraft Wiki

Matthew D. Jordan — 2009-03-01T21:35:47-05:00

I'm starting a functional Stagecraft Wiki for theatre technicians. You will find it at wiki.scenic-shop.com

For those of you in the know, the past few years I have been wrestling with creating a community based resource for theatre technicians. Now the same software that runs Wikipedia is being used to manage a wiki by theatremakers, for theatremakers.

For those of you who worry about such things, the wiki's content is (and will remain) free to all.

Now all we need is a community of technicians to create and evolve the wiki's content. I invite you to share your cool materials, solutions, and unique perspectives. I invite you to create a valuable resource for theatre technicians everywhere. I invite you to participate.

signed,

Matthew D. Jordan

CADalyzer (AutoCAD Command Counter)

Matthew D. Jordan — 2009-03-01T01:01:55-05:00

I’ve been working on a Ruby utility to analyze AutoCAD log files. The goal is to count how many times each command is invoked. The basic functionality is all in place, I’ve plans to add more in-depth analysis and perhaps even turn it into a web based tool. For now, you’ll have to download it and run it in the command line. If you want to run this, you’ll need the Ruby programming language runtime installed on your computer. Here is a link to the Ruby download. My CADalyzer utility can be downloaded here.

Download the .zip file, and unpack it. To run the utility, you will need to tell it where your AutoCAD log files are stored. (You can find that location in AutoCAD, via the Preferences.) Open the Cadalyzer.rb file and enter the path to your log directory next to the word path, like so:

Excerpt from top of Cadalyzer.rb file:

path = "insert full path to log file directory here"

The utility will combine & analyze the data from every log file in the directory specified.

Happy analyzing.