← Topics FIXTURE DATA

GDTF

GDTF — the General Device Type Format — is a machine-readable description of a lighting fixture: its DMX modes and channel functions, its geometry, its movement ranges and its optical data. It exists so a console, a CAD package and a visualiser can agree on what a lamp is instead of each maintaining a private fixture library. Everything on this site that touches fixture profiles is collected here.

Features

GDTF fixture profiles — search GDTF-Share from the patch When a fixture in your file has no profile, search the public GDTF-Share library by manufacturer or model straight from the fixture panel, pick the mode you pat
Export and documentation — get the scene back out again FlexViz is built on the formats the industry already agreed on, so it can hand work back to the tool that owns the drawing. Patch data and fixture lists come ou

Articles

What is GDTF — and why do fixture profiles need a standard? 21 Aug 2026 Every lighting console has fixture profiles. That does not mean they describe the same fixture in the same way. GDTF exists to give consoles, visualisers and pl
GDTF vs MVR — fixture definition vs scene exchange 18 Aug 2026 GDTF describes the fixture. MVR carries the rig. That sentence is deliberately simplified. It is also a much better starting point than treating both formats a

Documentation

02 Get fixtures into the scene
04 Patch it
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Two things people get wrong
Glossary 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
Import an MVR MVR — My Virtual Rig — is the file format lighting design software uses to hand off a whole show: layers, fixtures, positions and 3D geometry. FlexViz can open

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