Lighting Plots
I’m always looking for a way to get the job done well, but cheap. By that I mean, I don’t look to cut corners by sacrificing the quality of the end product, if something needs to be paid for to get the job done right, then I think you should pay for it. But, I love finding ways to do things well, and with the same efficiency, and also cheap. That is why I love open source and free software.
For several years now I’ve been creating lighting plots using a program developed by Altinex called AVSnap. You can find it on their website here. It’s a simple program for creating layouts and diagrams, specifically for AV Equipment. While the program is not open source, it is made available for free. Altinex makes their money on it by selling libraries of equipment symbols.
You can create your own libraries of symbols, so I create my own lighting library of fixtures and a symbol for the stage layout. With this I can quickly create a tool for designing a lighting plot. Below is a look at the main screen with a lighting plot I created.
On the right side you can see the library of lighting fixtures. It’s just a matter of clicking and dragging a symbol from the library to the page to begin creating your layout.
My next entry will talk about how to design a lighting plot for your space with some general guidelines that I’ve been thinking about lately.