Microcomputer technology is rapidly integrating into all aspects of the theatre design and production process.
Computer technology has long been used for box office ticketing / accounting, lighting control. and production budgeting and accounting. Co...
Microcomputer technology is rapidly integrating into all aspects of the theatre design and production process.
Computer technology has long been used for box office ticketing / accounting, lighting control. and production budgeting and accounting. Computer aided design (CAD) programs have been used by scene and lighting designers since the early 1980's for conventional 2D drafting and generating lighting plots and associated paperwork. We now have the robust hardware and software platforms for 3D modeling and rendering, animating lighting story boards and scene change cues, and a move towards integrated show control using a single system to simultaneously control lighting, sound, special effect and motion control cues. We are now experiencing the problem where most of the theater faculty training tomorrow's designers and technologists were trained before the advent of the microcomputer.
Compounding this problem is the situation that most theater faculty integrating computer technology in their curriculum were self taught and there are virtually no texbooks covering the new methods.