It all starts with a great idea in your head. Maybe you were at the bar, and you drew your thoughts out on a cocktail napkin. Isn’t that how all great designs begin? That beer-stained napkin may have helped you preserve that initial flash of inspiration, but when it comes to presenting our amazing visual ideas in all their detailed glory to the people who will be paying your fees, it’s a good idea to seek out a more professional-looking alternative.
Capture Sweden’s Polar software is one of those programs that make it easier for us, as designers, to share our vision for how the show could look with our production partners.
What It Is
Capture Polar 3D Visualizer is a program that lets LDs build, design, render and control their design without hanging a single fixture, displaying looks, effects sequences and more. It’s available in versions for computers running with Windows and Mac operating systems.
Capture Polar is more than just a visualizer, however. It is a drafting/CAD and paperwork manager. Instead of opening and closing multiple software products to organize and build a design, Capture combines all of these functions into a single manageable program.
Versions
Along with ongoing updates — the latest version at presstime was Capture Polar 2.10 — the software is available in Student, Solo, Basic and Extended formats. The student version offers basic functions to create and visualize. The Solo version adds support. Basic adds report functions, and Extended includes DWG import/export and advance motion controls.
Although it is based in Sweden, Capture users can avail themselves of the company’s website (capturesweden.com) and its support forums, video manuals, posted instructions and email and phone contacts as they become acquainted with the company’s software. In addition, Elation Professional, which signed on as Capture’s distribution partner, has pledged its support to the product on this side of the Atlantic. (For details, go to plsn.me/153yuAG).
Plotting and Rendering
What is different about the software is the way it handles the drafting and visualizing. You have three windows to work with — Alpha, Beta and Gamma. All three can link to a single file, yet display different views.
The Plot (a.k.a. plane) view, for example, is particularly useful for positioning objects from the fixture library (with more than 6,000 fixtures) using a familiar 2D top view. You can also opt to view your virtual rig as it develops using the CAD View and fully rendered 3D (a.k.a. live) view.
The software also offers a fourth view — the Project Window, which reveals the extensive contents of Capture’s virtual toolbox. This includes Project Contents, the fixture library and a host of other functions that can help users organize and configure the various elements within their designs.
Along with the Project Window, which is always available at the user’s fingertips, the Alpha, Beta and Gamma views can appear on the screen simultaneously. Select a fixture in the Plot view, a.k.a. plane view, and you’ll see it selected in the other windows as well.
At first, it may seem odd to see those three different views at once, but that odd sensation quickly evaporated for me as I jumped back and forth from the Plot to Live views, quickly selecting fixtures in 2D and then, almost as quickly, tweaking their levels and attributes in 3D.
DMX Controller Options
While Capture Polar isn’t radically different from the CAD programs I’ve used before, its visualization and manipulation capabilities seem a bit different. If you are looking to create your design and present still shots or simple movies of the design to sell or explain your design, Capture Polar lets you do that with or without an external DMX controller.
It is a little time consuming to manipulate each fixture within the design, but the payoff is in the ability to quickly demonstrate what you are trying to achieve without the need for an external controller.
On the other hand, if you prefer to control your design via a DMX console, Capture Polar says, “Bring it on” (for Solo and above). The software offers a number of control protocols to communicate with the design.
While Capture Polar lets you share your designs without paying a steep price for labor, rental and venue costs, it doesn’t work like magic. You still need to invest some time in networking configuration and setting up the patch on the console.
But I found that the renderings based on the default parameters looked pretty good, and after tweaking the settings, they got even better.
Let’s be honest, the best possible rendering of your looks will always be in a real venue with a real rig. Nothing beats seeing your creation come to life on stage with aerials sweeping through haze, or the excitement of a well-programmed effect. Capture Polar can’t quite match that sensation, but it comes close.
Capture Polar 3D Visualizer: Quick Facts
COMPANY INFO
Offered by Capture Sweden (capturesweden.com) and Elation Professional (elationlighting.com)
OPERATING SYSTEMS?
Windows?Apple Mac OSX
SOFTWARE FEATURES
• Real-time lighting design and ?visualization ?
• Work with layers & scenes ?
• Create custom gobos ?
• Customize wheels and strings ?
• Import and export CSV files
VERSIONS
Student: FREE
Solo: $599.95
Basic: $2,399.95
Extended: $3,799.95
