DMX Fixture converter

🚫 DISCONTINUED!

➡ See Open Fixture Library for successor project.

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Creating fixture files is relatively easy for most DMX control software, as they offer graphical editors for their proprietary formats. But what if you want to try another program?

For this purpose, I created this little script that uses a JSON file to store all fixture data. Other files may be generated from this format or imported into it.

Supported formats

Internal JSON

See fixtures_defaults.js or look at the fixtures/ directory to learn how the JSON structure used by this script looks like.

e:cue (ecue)

Import: Yes
Export: Yes

Website: http://www.ecue.com/

Where do I find my previous fixture definitions?
Main Library: C:\ProgramData\ecue\Library V7.0\MainLibrary.xml
User Library: C:\Documents and Settings\[Your User]\AppData\Local\ecue\Library V7.0\UserLibrary.xml

QLC+ (qlcplus)

Import: Yes
Export: Yes

Website: http://www.qlcplus.org/

Where do I find my previous fixture definitions?
Main Library: /usr/share/qlcplus/fixtures (Linux)
User Library: ~/.qlcplus/fixtures (Linux)

Dependencies

• Node.js (>= v4)

Node.js Modules:

• node-getopt
• mkdirp
• xml2js
• color-names
• semver

npm install

Usage

./fixtures_convert.js --help lists all possible options.

Note: This script uses destructuring. For older versions of Node.js, you will have to use node --harmony_destructuring fixtures_convert.js --help.

Examples

Typical use: ./fixtures_convert.js -f qlcplus
formats fixtures.json as QLC+ and writes the resulting fixture definition .qxf files to out/qlcplus/

Import: ./fixtures_convert.js -i UserLibrary.xml -f ecue -o out/%FORMAT%/%MANUFACTURER%.json
imports UserLibrary.xml as e:cue format and writes the resulting JSON files (separated by manufacturer) to out/ecue/%MANUFACTURER%.json

Contributing

Feel free to add your own output formats and / or fixtures. Just create a pull request!

New fixtures

Possibly, the best way is to create a fixture definition in QLC+'s fixture editor (try to fill in all possible information) and then import it using ./fixtures_convert.js -i myfile.qxf -f qlcplus. The resulting JSON file in the out directory will probably contain some errors (especially when importing 16bit channels), so check it against the fixtures_default.js. Please also include a manual URL so that somebody can check your new fixture.

New formats

Each format module may look like this:

// required
module.exports.defaultFileExt = 'xml';
module.exports.defaultFileName = '%MANUFACTURER%-%FIXTURE%.xml';

module.exports.formatName = 'e:cue'; // optional

// both functions are optional
module.exports.export = function(manufacturers, fixtures, optionsOutput) {
    // optionsOutput contains the -o command line parameter with %FORMAT% already replaced
    ...
}
module.exports.import = function(str, filename) {
    // str is the string to be parsed, filename is just for helpful error messages
    ...
    // use a promise to allow asynchronous return values
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        ...
        resolve(objectToConvertToJSON);
    });
}

// optional
function privateHelperFunction() { ... }

Save it as formats/[formatname].js. Your module will automatically hook into the main fixtures_convert.js, so you won't have to bother with command line arguments.