LONDON — Artistic Licence Engineering announced the release of Art-Net 3. Fully backward-compatible with previous versions, this free-of-charge Ethernet protocol is now capable of handling a 32,768 universes (32 “Kiloverses”) of DMX lighting control. Art-Net II, by contrast, had a data capacity of 256 universes.
Art-Net 3 retains all the features its predecessors (Art-Net I and Art-Net II), including ease of implementation, efficiency and availability in the public domain. All existing Art-Net I and II devices will operate seamlessly with Art-Net 3.
The increase in data capacity reflects growing industry needs. When Art-Net I was released about a decade ago, lighting control demands rarely exceeded a handful of universes. By the time Art-Net II arrived in 2006, the benchmark had increased to a few dozen. Today, fueled by the growth in LED technology, the largest installations have already reached the 250 universe mark.
“Given the rate at which the data volumes are increasing, the need for Art-Net 3 is absolute,” said Artistic Licence Engineering technical director, Wayne Howell. “Already, numerous Kiloverse projects are under discussion worldwide. This will still seem inconceivable to many!”
More than 200 international manufacturers currently support the protocol.
For more information, please visit www.artisticlicence.com.
