How Do I Prepare an ILDA Animation for an SD-Card Laser?

To prepare an ILDA animation for SD-card playback, check your projector's supported format and point limit, then open the animation in BeamTracer's ILDA Viewer. EXPORT ILDA → SD Card selects indexed Format 0 with a 750-point limit. Review the conversion warnings and reopen the downloaded .ild before copying it to your card.

Hi, I'm Trina with BeamTracer.com. A point limit can change the drawing when you export a laser file. This example follows one original animation through conversion, then reloads the finished file so you can see what was retained and what was removed.

The converted animation in Cinema, shown as a software simulation. Camera motion and fog do not certify a projector or physical installation.

What should I check before choosing the SD Card preset?

Read the documentation for your exact projector or SD-card player. Confirm the ILDA formats it accepts, its point limit, and any instructions for card formatting, folders, filenames or a playback list. Use those requirements when preparing the file; the name SD Card is not a guarantee that every device accepts the same settings.

The built-in preset selects Format 0 (3D Indexed Color) and Max Points per Frame → 750. If your device specifies something else, change the export settings accordingly. A filename ending in .ild alone does not tell you which format is inside.

The ILDA export guide explains the preset and format choices. For the difference between indexed and true-color files, see which ILDA format to export.

How do I convert an existing ILDA animation?

Open the original in ILDA Viewer, inspect FILE INFO and FILE HEALTH, then open EXPORT ILDA. The dialog summarizes the source before conversion. Keep the original file so you can compare against it after downloading a converted version.

The original Orbit Weave has 36 frames and three colored curves. It uses true-color Format 5 and 1,095 points per frame.

This demonstration explicitly chooses Shape-Aware Only. Read the warning summary before accepting the download.

Can a point limit remove part of my drawing?

Yes. Shape-Aware Only fits the limit by retaining complete shapes and removing others. For this sample, the converted file keeps two of the three curves. All 36 frames remain, but each frame has 731 points, and the third curve is gone.

The default Optimize & Truncate strategy tries to remove redundant points first. Its result still needs inspection: in an earlier version of this test drawing, that optimization removed enough detail to make the output unusable. Play the converted file and compare it with the original before accepting the result.

How do I check the exact file I am about to copy?

Load the downloaded .ild into ILDA Viewer as a new file. Check its reported format and frame count, play through the animation, and inspect the visible drawing. The reloaded sample below is the actual converted download, with two curves remaining.

FILE HEALTH reports file and point-count information; it does not measure your physical scanners. The same applies to the 3D → Cinema view shown at the top of this article. Use the 2D picture for checking the retained paths and Cinema for a different view of the simulated beams.

Once you are satisfied with the file, copy that inspected download using your device's required card layout and naming instructions. Keep the original and the converted copy separately so a later edit does not replace your reference. Physical projection requires its own laser safety preparation.