This software displays winch position and status from TAIT (formerly Stage Technologies) eChameleon entertainment automation systems, built upon the Siemens Simotion architecture.
This project was developed as part of my graduation project at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where we have a TAIT PI (Permanent Install). I was fortunate enough to spend a month at TAIT, and learnt a lot about the way their automation systems are set up.
This project was originally based upon a bodged way that the school used previously when integrating automation position with other entertainment control systems, primarily D3 media integrations, to map projected content to a moving piece of scenery.
- The project is divided up into folders.
- The old GUI project is no longer being developed, and is being stored in the GUI folder.
- The new AutoRead project is split into three areas.
The original project origin - this reads Simotion automation data, and minor edits are made.
Part 1 of 2 new sub projects. This does maths to calculate azimuth and elevation, from two cartesian co-ordinates.
Part 2 of 2 new sub projects. This outputs sACN to a network, which is interpreted by ETC Net3 node, and controls lights, to follow direction from AutoRead Track.
This software is based upon a single line of code from the old code used, which was only taking specific bytes of the data packets. This project aims to be scalable to multiple installations of eChameleon and Simotion, regardless of how many axes are in use. And instead of being limited to position data, hopes also to give a larger picture to the system, including now axisSpeed, axisStatus and timeLeft.
This project hopes to be able to act as a network bridge, and output the information to the show network, as OSC data, to be interpreted (for example) by OSCRouter.
This project was developed on a Raspberry Pi 3B+, running Python 3.7, at present, it requires only a CLI, however the aim is to have this working with a Tkinter GUI in the near future.
This device connects to the eChameleon Desk Network, which talks to the eCham desks (G6, Illusionist, Nomad). The ip range on our install is 172.16.1.0/24
There is a Profinet/Profibus network which exists within the MCC's, likely using the same network switches, on a different subnet.
DHCP is not used, and your Raspberry Pi should be given a static IP in the desk network, that is not in use by Automation system, this can be determined using Wireshark or eCham Maintenance.