Using VDMX for art installations

VDMX
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So though it wasn’t what we designed VDMX for, one of the common usages we hear from people is prototyping and building interactive art installations.

If you need to set up a machine that reboots and reloads your setup each time, here are some tips to help get started:

  • In the VDMX Preferences in the ‘Misc’ section there is an “Installation Mode” setting which can be enabled. When this is enabled, the crash reporter is suppressed, the inspectors are hidden by default and there is no warning when you try to quit.
  • In the Fullscreen Output settings in VDMX (cmd+f) there is a toggle switch that can be used to specify which output mode is active on launch; the default is floating window but it can be set to fullscreen or advanced as needed.
  • If the macOS System Preferences in the ‘Users and Groups’ section you can specify “Login Items” which are opened when the system is launched. You can put a VDMX project file in here and it will open automatically.
  • Check out this article from Blair Neal on how to keep an installation running, https://github.com/laserpilot/Installation_Up_4evr (this has a great walkthrough of all the system settings you’ll want to tweak and lots of other amazing tips)
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Blair’s list is great. Highly recommend. I’ve used it for a bunch of installs. VDMX is great too for installations. Easy to script, start in full screen, and so forth. Its everything downstream from VDMX that is tricky with using the mac for installations… things like projectors getting out of series when going to multiples, or USB being flakey (looking at you Matrox Triple head!). We need a similar “up4 ever” list for keeping multiple displays in series!

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Curious if you have any documentation from any of those installs? Would love to see have some real world examples for people in this thread.

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Here’s a few examples of some long term projector installs. Some of these use VDMX, some Max, but always Up 4 Ever! In fact, I worked on all the AV installs for this upcoming Harry Potter exhibit at the NYHS, where we prepped all the mac mini’s with Up 4 Ever…

examples
Crystalline time

Reflections on Impact

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