When you are planning your lighting design, are you ever unsure what angle you are going to need to get that perfect spot from your Source4? Should it be a 10 or 19 degree? How about what height to trim your lighting bars before focus? What you need is the latest in a line of “Calc” applications from West Side Systems, BeamCalc.
BeamCalc will help you design your rig by calculating the geometry of light beams. You enter the height of the fixture above the focus point, the distance between the fixture and the focus point and the beam angle. BeamCalc will then give you the distance the beam will travel before it reaches the focus point and more importantly the size of the beam when it reaches its target. You can experiment with these options until you find exactly what you need. You can even enter the size of the beam you need at the focus point and it will give you the beam angle required for the height and distance specified. You don’t even need to worry about the format you are using, metric or imperial, it doesn’t matter to BeamCalc. As long as you don’t mix and match everything will be just fine and work flawlessly.
I can’t really find fault with the application, what it does it does very well. It sticks to the same interface as all the other applications in the “Calc” series, you get the now familiar blue calculator layout with the display areas at the top for your results. The math checks out and you get a little help page which explains what the different options are and how to get the best results. The problem I have is seeing where this would be useful in a practical environment. When you focus you generally don’t sit down and work out the math before you trim the bars and get up the ladder. Most designers know what they need to achieve what they want and how they need to do it through experience.
The other problem is that although the theory is all good, it is just that, only theory. In practise fixtures vary and you may find that your equipment doesn’t do what this application predicts. In the help page it does state that for high accuracy a full scale test should be conducted first using the equipment. The issue with this is that I would only ever use a program like this if I needed high accuracy, if I didn’t I’d just throw a light up and focus it there and then. If I need to test everything first, why would I use the program to start with, I might as well just do it through trial and error.
Another slight stumbling block rears its head as well, previous applications have had a very low asking price which made a purchase worthwhile even though the functionality was limited. With PowerCalc for example, even though it didn’t do anything you couldn’t achieve with the built in calculator on the iPhone, the fact it was so cheap meant that you could afford to buy it regardless. This application is carrying a slightly heftier price tag of £1.19. Now while this won’t break the bank and is still arguably very cheap, the very limited appeal and the issues with the practical application of the results makes this harder to recommend.
Personally I would like to see a suite of these “Calc” programs available as a bundle, they all share the same or similar interface. I think as a sum they would add up to a greater prospect than they do as individual parts. A mode select button to choose between PowerCalc, BeamCalc and DMXCalc all bundled up into one program would be far more appealing to me.
To sum up, if you want a program to do this sort of calculation then it works and works well, you can’t argue with that. You just need to decide if you really have a requirement or practical application in which to use it.
Rating: 3/5
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