Laser & ILDA Glossary

Quick-reference definitions for terms used throughout BeamTracer's documentation and the laser industry.

A

Anchor point — A repeated point at the same position, used to give galvo mirrors time to settle at corners and sharp direction changes. Also called a dwell point. See Point Types.

ADSR — In the context of laser DAC protocols, sometimes used to describe signal envelope shaping. In OSC-1, refers to the synthesizer's Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release envelope.

B

Blanking — Turning the laser beam off during scanner travel between shapes. Controlled by bit 6 of the ILDA status byte. See Blanking Explained.

Blank point — Any ILDA point with the blanking flag set (laser off). The scanner still moves to this position, but no light is emitted.

C

Collinear point — A point that lies exactly between two neighbors on a straight line, adding no visual information. Usually redundant and removable during optimization.

D

DAC — Digital-to-Analog Converter. In laser context, a hardware device that translates ILDA point data into analog voltage signals for galvo control. Common DACs: Helios, Ether Dream, LaserCube.

Dwell point — See Anchor point.

F

Format 0 — ILDA 3D coordinate format with indexed (palette) color. 8 bytes/point. Maximum hardware compatibility. See ILDA Format Versions.

Format 1 — ILDA 2D coordinate format with indexed color. 6 bytes/point. Smaller files, no Z coordinate.

Format 5 — ILDA 2D coordinate format with true RGB color. 8 bytes/point. Modern standard, not supported by SD card projectors.

FPS (Frames Per Second) — How many animation frames are displayed per second. Combined with points-per-frame, determines total PPS demand.

G

Galvanometer / Galvo — An electromagnetically-driven mirror that deflects the laser beam to precise angular positions. The fundamental output mechanism of all laser projectors.

Guide point — A blanked point inserted along a long travel path to break one large coordinate jump into multiple smaller steps. See Point Types.

I

ILDA — International Laser Display Association. The standards body that defined the .ild file format in 1991. See ILDA Format Specification.

K

kpps — Kilo-points per second. 1 kpps = 1,000 points per second. A scanner rating such as 30K needs its stated test pattern and scan angle for context.

O

Overshoot — A scanner-response artifact where galvo mirrors travel past an intended position before settling. It can appear as corner or circle distortion during a hardware test.

P

Persistence of vision — The optical phenomenon where the human eye perceives a rapidly moving laser point as a continuous image. The basis of all laser graphic display.

PPS — Points per second. How many X-Y coordinate updates your laser system processes each second. Laser scanner hardware is rated in PPS. See Understanding PPS.

R

Ringing — A scanner artifact where mirrors oscillate slightly around the target position after a direction change. Visible as wavy or vibrating lines. Caused by under-damped servo response.

S

Scan angle — The total optical angle covered by the projected image. ILDA file coordinates describe positions within the available coordinate range; the projector and output settings determine the physical angle. The familiar 8° figure is a test condition commonly paired with the ILDA 30K test pattern, not a fixed coordinate-to-angle mapping.

Scanner load — BeamTracer's point-rate comparison: points in the largest frame, including blanked points, multiplied by playback FPS and divided by the selected device-profile rate. It is not weighted by movement complexity. See Scanner Load.

Scan rate — Synonymous with PPS in most contexts.

Stress heat map — BeamTracer's visualization that colors each point-to-point movement by its relative jump distance. The colors compare movements within the scan field; they do not certify hardware safety. See Stress Heat Map.

Z

Z coordinate — The depth axis in 3D ILDA formats (Format 0). Used for multi-projector depth staging. Typically set to 0 for flat 2D content.