Glossary — the words this documentation uses
Short definitions of the terms that turn up throughout FlexViz, each pointing at the page that explains it properly. If a word in the manual is doing more work than you expected, it is probably here.
Everything below is defined the way FlexViz uses it. Where a term has a page of its own, the definition links to it rather than repeating it badly.
GDTF
General Device Type Format. A machine-readable description of one fixture type: its DMX modes and channel functions, its geometry and moving parts, its movement ranges and its optical data. It describes what a device is, not where it hangs. Longer version: what GDTF is and why fixture profiles need a standard.
GDTF-Share
The public library of GDTF profiles. Manufacturers publish official device definitions there; users and software search it for profiles. FlexViz can search GDTF-Share from inside the patch. Reading the library requires a GDTF-Share account.
MVR
My Virtual Rig. A scene-exchange format: which fixtures and objects are in a project, where they are, how they are patched, and the hierarchy around them. Where GDTF describes one device, MVR carries the whole rig. See GDTF vs MVR for where the line falls, and export and documentation for what FlexViz can write back out.
DMX mode
One of several channel layouts a single fixture can run in. A 16-channel mode and a 32-channel extended mode belong to the same lamp but are not interchangeable in a patch — channel numbers move and functions appear or disappear. Choosing the wrong one produces results that are wrong without producing an error. You pick the mode when you patch the fixture.
Patch
The mapping from a fixture in the scene to a universe and a DMX start address, together with the mode it runs in. If the patch disagrees with the console, everything downstream looks broken in confusing ways. See Patch it and two things people get wrong.
DMX universe
A block of 512 DMX channels. A rig of any size uses several, numbered and routed across the lighting network. Universes are what Art-Net and sACN actually carry.
Art-Net
A protocol for carrying DMX universes over an ethernet network. The FlexViz Bridge discovers Art-Net nodes on your network and forwards their output into a browser tab.
sACN (E1.31)
The other common way to move DMX over ethernet, standardised as ANSI E1.31. It is multicast by default, which is also why it is the one that quietly fails to arrive on a switch that is not expecting it — see when sACN universes will not arrive.
Fixture profile
The description a piece of software uses to understand a lamp. In FlexViz that description is a GDTF file. Adding a profile to a fixture changes what it can do, not where it is or how it is drawn.
Gobo
A patterned disc in the optical path of a fixture, projecting a shape rather than an open beam. Drawing them believably in a browser is harder than it sounds: why rendering gobos in a browser is harder than it looks.
Plan mode
The 2D view of the rig: top, front, left and right on a metric grid, with fixture symbols and truss rather than a rendered beam. It is the view you check a rig in before it goes to site. See plan mode and check the plan.
Live link
A URL that opens the current state of a scene in any browser, with no licence and no install for the recipient. Useful for showing a client a rig without exporting anything. See shareable live links and share it with a client.
Version
A marked state of a scene, so you can tell which arrangement of the rig somebody actually looked at. See mark a version.