Video to Laser

The Video to Laser tool has two workspaces, switched at the top of the page:

• CONVERT — upload a video, trace it frame by frame, export a deterministic ILDA file. This page's sections below cover Convert.
• LIVE — trace a camera, a screen or window (including another app like Resolume), a local file, or a BeamTracer audio visualizer in real time, layer effect modifiers over the trace, and drive a laser DAC directly. See LIVE mode.

Convert has two editor modes — a CLASSIC settings panel and a node-based PIPELINE editor — and three vectorization methods for different source material.

Three Tracing Methods — Choose the Right One

The three methods create different visible results:

Auto-Detect vs Ask Gemini

Two buttons in the Properties panel can configure the tracer for you. They work very differently — pick based on what you need:

Step-by-Step Workflow

Upload Limits

• File size: Up to 25 MB per video
• Frame cap: There is no duration limit or trim UI — the Max Frames Limit control in the left panel accepts 1–5000 and defaults to 3000. Higher limits take proportionally longer and can produce much denser laser files, so start low enough to inspect the trace and raise the limit when the result is useful; hit reload after changing it.

Source Panel and Workspace Layout

Before a file is loaded, the left SOURCE panel contains the upload target, built-in presets, and the DANCE SILHOUETTE, NOT A MOON, and KABOOM examples. NOT A MOON and KABOOM each apply their own starting method, detail, threshold, smoothing, FPS, and POV values; all controls remain editable. After loading a file, the panel shows:

The left VIDEO SOURCE pane and right PROPERTIES pane collapse independently. Use their collapse buttons, Ctrl+[ / Ctrl+], or Ctrl+\ for both; the preview expands into the released space. The same panel shortcuts work in Live.

The Pipeline Editor

Toggle between PIPELINE and CLASSIC at the top of the Properties panel. CLASSIC presents the controls in one panel; PIPELINE replaces the center preview with a fixed-order visual flow. The connections show the active processing order and cannot be rewired. Pan the graph, use its zoom and fit-view controls, and click a configurable node to open its settings. The upper-right badge shows the current filename and frame count.

Video Input is the file-and-frame starting point and is not configurable. Skeletonizer appears when a centerline trace needs it and is also informational. The remaining visible stages change with the selected tracing path, so the graph shows only stages used by the current setup.

Click a configurable stage to edit it:

Point Reduction chooses how a frame that exceeds your scanner's point budget is reduced: Detail protects corners, endpoints, and color transitions, spending the budget where the artwork needs it; Uniform spaces the retained points evenly across the whole frame, which keeps beam speed and brightness even and guarantees the frame rate whatever the content.

Input interpretation and output color are separate. The Normalizer tells Standard and SVG tracing how to read the source; the Color Handler controls the color of the resulting laser paths. Edge Tracer continues to use its own Threshold or Canny detector settings, including Edge High and Edge Low, from CLASSIC.

CLASSIC exposes the same visible output choices as Live: White draws every path at full white, Match samples the source color along the trace, and Hue assigns one color with a 0–360° slider. These choices update the laser point previews and final ILDA conversion together. PIPELINE's Preserve setting maps to Match; its palette and single-color settings remain exact when you return to CLASSIC.

Use Back to Preview to return to the comparison canvas without losing the pipeline settings. Convert with Pipeline converts with the settings currently shown in the graph.

Pipeline Presets

Five built-in presets configure the whole graph in one click:

Open Presets to choose one. Save Preset opens the SAVE PRESET dialog; enter a Preset name, then choose Save or Cancel. A successful save shows Preset saved., and the preset appears alongside the built-ins.

Preview & Comparison Canvas

Use the toolbar's 4-Up Comparison and Focus View buttons to inspect one extracted frame:

Hover either point-preview pane for Stats: Points, Paths, and a Technical percentage. Technical covers ILDA checks; compare the pictures themselves for visual fidelity. Focus View enlarges one pane and provides ORIGINAL, SVG, IMAGETRACER, and SVGPARSER tabs.

The scrubber below the preview shows Frame current/total and the source resolution in pixels. Drag it to inspect another frame, or focus Video frame and use the arrow keys. Home and End jump to the first and last frames. The three trace panes follow the scrubber while you drag: each frame you pass is traced as soon as the previous one finishes, and the frame you stop on is always the last one drawn. Processing Frame... appears while a frame's previews update.

Conversion Progress and Completion

The center overlay reports each long-running state:

• Extracting frame with Optimization in Progress while the video is decoded
• Converting Frame current/total with Optimizing paths for galvos... during ILDA conversion
• Exporting Frame current/total with Generating SVG sequence... during a multi-frame SVG export

The same overlay shows percent complete. A failure appears in the red message strip above the center area; media decoding, conversion, AI analysis, and SVG export errors each explain the next recovery step.

After conversion, Conversion Complete reports the number of source frames processed. When POV is enabled, it separately reports the expanded ILDA frame count. Any current export-limit note appears in the same dialog. Choose Download ILD, Open Viewer, or Dismiss. Open Viewer also handles multi-megabyte animations directly; the frame count and selected playback FPS carry into the Viewer. The converted SAFETY CHECK and OUTPUT STATS remain available in the Source panel after dismissal.

Export SVG Sequence

Beyond ILDA, you can export the traced frames as SVG files via Export SVG Sequence:

• Single Frame — the frame under the scrubber as one .svg
• Range — shows Start Frame and End Frame and packages that inclusive selection
• All — every extracted frame

Set the Filename Prefix and check Example Output before exporting. Choose Cancel to close the dialog, Export SVG for Single Frame, or Export ZIP for Range and All. Multi-frame exports are bundled into a ZIP. This is handy for taking traced frames into vector editors or into Animation Studio as individual layers.

Per-Frame Safety Report

After conversion, SAFETY CHECK labels the complete output SAFE, WARNING, or DANGER and shows its primary load message, device limit message, point-budget warning when relevant, and Additional notes. Choose the scanner profile that matches the device you will use:

For multi-frame output, SCANNER STRESS ANALYSIS plots each frame against the dashed Warning Threshold at 70% and Max Limit at 100%. Green, yellow, and red bars match the Safe, Warning, and Danger states. Hover a bar for its frame number, kpps, and a High Blanking note when applicable.

A DANGER result means the output is denser than the selected scanner profile can draw at the chosen frame rate. The report tells you what to change — simplify the geometry, lower the frame rate, or select a faster device — and the status stays visible on the collapsed panel header so it cannot be hidden by folding the section away. It does not replace scanner limits, hardware interlocks, or operator safety procedures.

Design Tips

LIVE Mode — Real-Time Video to Laser

Switch the workspace toggle at the top of the page to LIVE. Live mode traces moving pictures continuously and can drive a laser DAC — it is a source, not a converter.

Choose the live input from the SOURCE panel on the left and adjust tracing, modifiers, preview, and laser output in PROPERTIES on the right. The file drop target stays at the top in both Convert and Live. Use the collapse bars above either panel — or Ctrl+[ for the left, Ctrl+] for the right, and Ctrl+\ for both — when you want the two center previews to use more of the screen.

The workspace is organized consistently from left to right:

The sections inside PROPERTIES also collapse independently. Collapsing the left and right panels does not stop a source or laser preview; it only gives the two center canvases more room.

The 2D, Scan, Haze, and Cinema preview buttons show the same laser output at the same size as Source + Trace. Switching previews does not zoom or crop the pattern; camera, screen, file, and cropped sources keep their own aspect ratio in every view.

For complete show-ready walkthroughs — the "laser writes your logo" reveal, a laser that follows your VJ rig, beat-driven effects, and a live camera silhouette — see the Live Laser Show recipe.

Sources

• Examples — Live starts with Dance Silhouette. Try Vector Shapes for geometric line art, the static Sample logo, or Not a Moon and Kaboom for more detailed footage. Sample selects Accuracy; the other examples keep your trace setting. If a replacement cannot open, Live clears the previous image and shows the problem beneath Active Source.
• Camera — your webcam.
• Screen — any screen, window, or tab. Point it at another application (a media player, a VJ tool such as Resolume, a browser tab) and the laser traces whatever that app renders. No plugin required in the captured app.
• Visualizer — use a BeamTracer audio visualizer as the moving source, then let Live trace its contours and match its colors. Spectrum Analyzer (as a continuous LINE spectrum — the classic laser look) and Oscilloscope Glow lead the trace-ready choices; Show hard to trace adds measured-but-heavier renderers such as Oscilloscope and Lissajous. The menu groups choices and labels anything currently unavailable. Use [ and ] or the PREV/NEXT buttons to move through the current filtered list; STARTING VISUALIZER appears while it opens. When the selected visualizer offers source options, they render right under the picker — Spectrum Analyzer starts in LINE, showing Band Slicing and Radial Mode. Choose a bar layout to reveal bar spacing, mirror, peaks, and LED Bars; LED segment and gap controls appear only while LED Bars is on. Changing an option restarts the source without touching Start. Apply Recommended changes quality, style, and color only when you press it. Open Settings → AUDIO to use Tab/System Audio, a demo track, a microphone or audio interface, an audio file, internet radio, or a virtual audio device. One selected input drives both the source visualizer and audio-bound laser modifiers.
• File — use the upload target at the top to drag in an MP4, WebM, MOV, PNG, JPEG, or WebP file, click it, or focus it and press Enter/Space to browse. A video starts playing and loops by default — switch Loop off for a deliberate one-shot. Hover or focus Source + Trace for play/pause, first/previous/next/last frame, a timeline scrubber with time and approximate frame readout, Loop, and playback rates of 0.25×, 0.5×, 1×, 2×, or 4×. Photos use a gentle drift unless the built-in still sample is selected.

Switching sources keeps Start. Choosing a different example, camera, screen, visualizer, or file mid-set no longer stops output: the laser blanks during the changeover and resumes the moment the new source traces cleanly. A source change you did not make — an ended screen share falling back to the demo scene — still stops output until you press Start, so nothing you have not chosen can ever light up on its own.

The visualizer remains the source picture. It never paints scanner paths, haze beams, sparks, or another simulated laser into Source + Trace. Those laser and projector effects stay separate and are added only by the trace, modifier chain, previews, and connected output.

For file video playback, Space plays or pauses; ← / → step one frame backward or forward; Home / End jump to the first or last frame; and either , / . or < / > halve or double playback speed. Stepping or scrubbing while paused immediately retraces the selected picture, so the source, trace, and laser preview stay together. Reaching the end holds the last frame unless Loop is on.

Source + Trace controls

The controls in the SOURCE + TRACE header affect either inspection or source preparation:

Second Screen mirrors the selected RAW, EDGE MAP, or TRACE view together with any reveal mask, source-line color, and projector-only modifier effects exactly as they appear in Source + Trace. It excludes the editor-only crop guide and controls. Replacing or losing a source sends a black frame so an old picture or finished sparks cannot remain on the projector. BLACKOUT darkens Second Screen too: while the blackout latch is active, the output window shows solid black with a "BLACKOUT — release it in the tracer tab" note (the note hides in fullscreen, so the projector shows pure black). With more than one display connected, Chrome asks once for window management permission and the output window then opens directly on the other display (the likeliest projector) at full size — one click inside it goes fullscreen. Decline the permission (or use a single display) and the window simply opens the compact way it always has. If the button stays unavailable, wait for a current trace; if no window opens, allow popups and try again.

Use Projector Setup when the projected surface needs registration or the video and laser routes have different measured delay. The setup keeps the exact Source + Trace picture as its source and applies calibration only in the projector window:

1. Move the four labeled corners onto the flat projection surface. Drag a corner, use its X/Y controls, or focus it and use the arrow keys for fine adjustment.
2. Turn on Grid while every laser Start control remains off. Crop left/right/top/bottom removes real letterbox bars, camera edges, or overscan before the picture is fitted; it is not a laser safety mask.
3. Record the projected picture and laser together with a high-frame-rate camera. Enter the measured median latency and peak jitter for the projector and each laser route. BeamTracer delays only the faster route to match the slowest entered value.
4. Open the calibrated output, move it to the video projector, and click it for fullscreen. Closing setup keeps global Blackout active; inspect every laser safe area, then release Blackout and press Start explicitly.

The calibrated window rejects crossed or collapsed corners and clears to black if fresh complete frames stop or timed playback cannot keep up. Current Chrome or Edge is required for verified complete-frame presentation and measured video delay. Software compensation does not certify physical synchronization or laser safety: repeat registration and timing checks on the actual projector, DAC, scanner rate, cabling, masks, interlocks, and scan-fail hardware before a show.

Background removal adds processing to each new source picture, so turn it back off for logos, generated graphics, or the lowest possible latency.

Trace quality, Auto, and controls

The easy settings adjust trace detail and input workload together while leaving Crop, Scale, Trace method, Color, modifiers, scanner speed, output frame rate, and device selection alone:

Auto does not keep retuning during a show, so pause a video before using it. It will not choose a decimated setting when another useful preset fits the same frame; if every useful trial is over budget, it chooses the least overloaded trace instead of forcing extra detail. Resuming, stepping, or seeking playback while Auto is analyzing cancels that result so an older frame cannot retune the picture now on screen. If the tested frame contains no usable contour, Auto reports No trace in this frame and leaves the current settings unchanged. If analysis cannot finish, the status changes to Analysis failed · Retry instead of staying busy. If a manual style/quality combination finds no contour, Live says No trace rather than presenting an empty result as a successful optimization. If you change any trace-quality value yourself, the panel identifies the result as Custom.

Every control explains itself on hover; these are the essentials:

Still PNG and JPEG sources keep their original aspect ratio. A uniform background that reaches the image edge is treated as background, so a white logo canvas should not create unrelated vertical rails at its left and right sides.

Laser preview and scene controls

All four previews use the same laser point stream and retain the source's size and aspect ratio:

Scene controls are split by how you judge them. Anything you set by eye against the picture stays in the properties panel; anything you measure against the real room lives behind the header gear, where the modal cannot cover the result.

ATMOSPHERE (properties panel, Haze and Cinema) holds Fog and Bloom for the visible beam treatment, and RESET VIEW to restore the default camera after you orbit, pan or zoom. VENUE + SCANNER… opens the DISPLAY tab directly.

Settings → DISPLAY holds the placement and simulation controls:

Every control on the DISPLAY tab changes the simulated preview only, never physical output.

Audio Input

Transport sits on the playback pill floating over the preview: play/pause, the track name, and a seek bar for anything seekable. A live capture shows a LIVE INPUT badge and elapsed time instead of a seek bar. The pill fades while audio is running and returns when you move the pointer over it.

Tab to Audio position to seek with the keyboard. Arrow keys move five seconds, Page Up / Page Down move fifty seconds, and Home / End jump to the start or end. The pill stays visible while one of its controls has focus.

The sliders icon on the pill opens Settings → AUDIO, which is also where the header gear lands on this tool. There you choose TAB / SYSTEM AUDIO, DEMO TRACK, MICROPHONE, AUDIO FILE, INTERNET RADIO, or VIRTUAL AUDIO DEVICE. CHANGE opens the chooser and CANCEL returns to the current-source summary. Depending on the source, that summary provides play/pause and seeking, a non-seekable LIVE stream readout, STOP or DISCONNECT, VOL, and AUTO PLAY ON LOAD.

Audio belongs to the whole Laser app rather than to this tool, so a track keeps playing when you move between Laser tools.

MONITOR switches between SPECTRUM and stereo VU views. For demo tracks, audio files, and streams, the playback area also reports SAMPLE RATE, FFT SIZE, BASE LATENCY, and SIGNAL PATH. If a station can play but cannot feed the visualizer, the warning offers OPEN ... IN A TAB and SHARE TAB AUDIO as recovery actions. See Audio Input for the source-specific setup screens and browser requirements.

One selected input drives both a Visualizer source and every bound modifier parameter. With audio active, press BIND beside a numeric modifier control to cycle through Low, Mid, High, Level, Beat, and Off. A paused or disconnected input leaves the modifier's base value in control.

Modifiers — effects over the trace

Modifiers are applied in the order shown and they stack: Trace Reveal followed by Beam Runners is one chain, not a choice.

The panel opens with the same Quick Starts as Text to Laser and Animation Studio — Write, Tracer, Glitch, Sparkle, Pulse, and Neon Ink, each an ordinary editable chain — with CLEAR to empty it.

Each modifier card has the same controls: the status dot enables or bypasses it, the name expands or collapses its settings, PLAY restarts the complete chain, RESET restores that card and clears its audio bindings, and X removes it. A chain can contain up to 32 entries; + ADD changes to LIMIT REACHED at the limit. SAVE PRESET writes the complete chain and bindings to a shareable file, while LOAD restores one. A rejected preset reports the problem without replacing the current chain.

Projector-only controls are identified inside the card. They can change Source + Trace and Second Screen but never add scanner points. Likewise, a laser-only color or gobo control changes the laser without recoloring the projected source.

Trace Reveal's Keep laser trace is off by default; turn it on only when the accumulated laser outline should remain behind the leading dot. Color source line and Source line hue color the progressively drawn contour in Source + Trace and Second Screen without recoloring the physical laser. When a one-shot reveal completes, the revealed source may remain, but its drawing head and Contact FX sparks stop.

Contact FX sparks are thrown from the point the laser is lighting and are then left behind to fall, so the shower trails the moving dot instead of travelling with it. They spread along a line only where the laser genuinely lights that whole line, as a Sweep bar or contact strip does — a leading dot throws them from the dot, however few points the traced outline uses along that stroke. They follow only actively drawing groups, never completed corners. Their size stays consistent between Source + Trace and the larger Second Screen output, and they are never sent to the laser.

Contact FX reads the modifier above it, so the list keeps effect layers at the bottom: add Contact FX first and the next modifier you add is placed above it automatically.

Grid calibration

Press GRID. The same calibration pattern is drawn on the video preview and on the laser output simultaneously — warp your laser's projection zone until the two grids sit exactly on top of each other, and the laser is aligned to the projected image. No third-party mapping software required.

Color calibration

Add the Color Ramps modifier and open Color Calibration in the Laser Output panel's Advanced section. With the projector running, drag each channel's curve dots until the five brightness steps in that channel's row look evenly spaced — this compensates diode turn-on thresholds and channel-to-channel efficiency differences. The leftmost segment of each row is intentionally dark: it verifies that true black stays black even with a raised curve.

Output, the point budget, and safety

The always-visible bar beneath the previews reports the current scanner workload:

LASER OUTPUT shows two health lines before the device controls. TRACE STARTING becomes TRACE HEALTHY after a current frame succeeds; TRACE FAILED includes the error and a RETRY TRACE action. OUTPUT TIMING STARTING becomes OUTPUT TIMING READY when precise output timing is available. OUTPUT TIMING FALLBACK keeps software preview available but keeps hardware blanked; use RETRY TIMING before trying to start hardware again.

Choose a scanner speed of 20K, 30K, 40K, or 60K, then choose an output:

Your projectors stay connected while you work. Collapsing either sidebar or switching to Convert no longer ends a connection — the device, its Arm state, and Laser B's setup stay exactly as you left them, and the safety dock (with BLACKOUT) remains on screen in Convert while a projector is attached. Switching to Convert does stop output, because Convert has no live frames to send; press Start again when you return to Live.

Press Start Capture to begin and Stop Capture when the take is complete. Live capture keeps the scanner speed and output FPS that were active when the take began. If either changes during a take—or the 60-second ceiling is reached—capture pauses at the last complete frame; press Finalize Capture to prepare that valid prefix. Download ILD uses the normal clean-export allowance; Open Viewer remains available for inspecting the captured frame sequence before downloading it.

For PONK, open the receiver's PONK input first, paste the local Bridge pairing token in BeamTracer, leave Multicast selected unless the receiver needs a direct address, then press Start PONK. Sending confirms fresh frames. If browser frames stop, Cleared · Waiting means the Bridge replaced the last picture with an empty frame; this status stays visible until the next complete frame resumes output automatically. Press Stop PONK before changing its destination. PONK transfers geometry only: arming, masks, scan-fail protection, interlocks, and output limits remain in the receiving laser application and hardware.

Two-laser dispatch

Press Add Laser B before connecting the second projector. The assignment preview draws Laser A in cyan and Laser B in magenta, with path count, emitted points versus budget, predicted blank travel, decimation, and completed-send skew. BeamTracer keeps a path on one output by default and waits through small frame-to-frame changes before moving ownership. If one armed output disconnects, its content is held dark; it is not silently moved to the other projector.

Native two-laser dispatch and the single-stream handoff tools are intentionally alternate routes. While Laser B is enabled, Live ILDA Capture and PONK Network Output are paused so an export or receiver cannot silently omit one assignment. Remove Laser B to record one ILDA stream or send the full composition to a PONK receiver, where the receiving application can perform its own dispatch.

Use Preview while arranging the split, or Simulator to exercise Laser B's output controls without hardware or a trial session. Select Laser A or Laser B under Alignment + Safety Area, then adjust position, scale, rotation, flips, and the centered safe width/height. Below the sliders, the alignment editor gives each output two more tools. Corner Pin projects that output's scan field onto four draggable corner handles, so the image fits a real wall, screen, or surface instead of a perfect square — drag each corner until the drawn field matches the venue; if the handles cross or collapse, the editor names the problem and leaves the pin unapplied. + No-Light Zone adds a red rectangle the laser must never draw through: drag its body to move it, its corner grip to resize it, and use Delete Zone to remove the selected one. Lit paths that cross a zone are cut and rejoined with blanked travel, never drawn across, and zones apply after the corner pin — a pin cannot move light into a zone. Any alignment, mask, scanner-rate, or output-FPS edit stops that hardware output and blanks it; inspect the preview, then use Start again. Connect and arm each physical output separately only after both previews and safe areas are correct. Remove B blanks and retires Laser B before returning to the original single-output path.

Two outputs can preserve more detail when one scanner is overloaded, but they do not create unlimited capacity. If the combined drawing is still too heavy, the panel reports overload and each output remains capped to its own scanner budget. Simplify the source or reduce detail until both assignments are acceptable.

Physical DAC output is a Studio feature with three included trial sessions. Sign in before connecting; a failed or cancelled connection does not consume a session. The connection row reports Not connected, Connecting…, Connected, or the reason a connection failed.

Hardware activation is deliberately separate from connection:

The moment a hardware DAC connects, a safety dock appears along the bottom edge of the app — one reserved strip carrying the device status, ARM, BLACKOUT, and START. It is part of the app frame, not a panel: collapsing a sidebar, closing a section, or opening a dialog can never hide it, and it stays on screen even if the connection is unexpectedly lost, showing the fault until you disconnect. The same dock appears in the same place in OSC-1 and Text to Laser. No projector, no dock: in Preview, start/stop stays inside the Laser Output panel.

1. Press ARM in the safety dock, read the safety confirmation, then press CONFIRM ARM. The button changes to ARMED, but no beam starts.
2. Wait for TRACE HEALTHY and OUTPUT TIMING READY, then press the green START button in the dock.
3. Press BLACKOUT or Esc to blank immediately while keeping the software preview available. RELEASE BLACKOUT clears the latch but does not resume output; inspect the preview and press START again when the hardware remains connected, armed, and healthy.
4. Press ARMED to disarm and stop sending frames.

BLACKOUT and START never trade places: blackout is always immediately left of start/stop, so a control never becomes a different control under your finger. STOP ends output and leaves the preview running; BLACKOUT blanks every connected laser, cancels each started state, and stays latched until you release it. Releasing blackout always leaves the lasers stopped until you press their START controls again.

START remains unavailable until the DAC is connected, the output is armed, blackout is released, trace analysis is healthy, and output timing is ready. If any of those conditions changes while output is active, STOP remains available.

Changing or losing the source, losing trace health, losing output timing, changing device, unplugging the DAC, or hiding the tab blanks hardware. Recovery never silently starts a laser: wait for the current trace and timing states, then press START again. Direct Helios frames also play once instead of repeating the last frame if browser delivery stops.

Further Reading