Aurora to LOR Converter

The DLS2 file can not be easily read with notepad, but should a programmer wish to take on the task of writing a converter, here are the data structures for getting at the Channel and Events Data:

Private Type FileHeader_Struct
    RESERVEDA                      As Double
    RESERVEDB                      As Double
    VERSION                         As Double
    EDITCOUNT_VALUE                 As Long
    WIDTH_VALUE                     As Long
    HEIGHT_VALUE                    As Long
    TOP_VALUE                      As Long
    LENGTH_VALUE                    As Long
    IMAGEBRIGHTNESS_VALUE           As Long
    NAME_OFFSET                     As Long
    NAME_LEN                        As Long
    TITLE_OFFSET                    As Long
    TITLE_LEN                      As Long
    AUTHOR_OFFSET                   As Long
    AUTHOR_LEN                      As Long
    AVFILE_OFFSET                   As Long
    AVFILE_LEN                      As Long
    ALTERNATEMEDIAFILE_OFFSET       As Long
    ALTERNATEMEDIAFILE_LEN          As Long
    PICTURE_OFFSET                  As Long
    PICTURE_LEN                     As Long
    CHANNELS_OFFSET                 As Long
    CHANNELS_LEN                    As Long
    DRAWOBJECTS_OFFSET              As Long
    DRAWOBJECTS_LEN                 As Long
    EVENTS_OFFSET                   As Long
    EVENTS_LEN                      As Long
    TIMELINE_OFFSET                 As Long
    TIMELINE_LEN                    As Long
    TOOL_OFFSET                     As Long
    TOOL_LEN                        As Long
    HISTORY_OFFSET                  As Long
    HISTORY_LEN                     As Long
End Type

Channels Offset/Len will begin with a header in this format:

Private Const F_DATA_OFFSET = 0
Private Const F_DATA_LEN = 4
Private Const F_INDEX_OFFSET = 8
Private Const F_INDEX_LEN = 12

Each row of data at the above data offset is:
NETWORK, width 4, dataLong
DEVICE, width 4, dataLong (depreciated)
CHANNEL, width 4, dataLong
NAME, width 200, dataUnicodeString
DEVICETYPE, width 4, dataLong
COLOR, width 4, dataLong
followed by 255 bytes of settings and channel state data (e.g. RGB subchannels, conversion flags, etc.)


Event data at the appropriate offset is in this format:

Private Const F_SIGNATURE = 0
Private Const F_DATA_OFFSET = 4
Private Const F_DATA_LEN = 8
Private Const F_NDCS_OFFSET = 12
Private Const F_NDCS_LEN = 16
Private Const F_SNDC_OFFSET = 20
Private Const F_SNDC_LEN = 24
Private Const F_AVAILABLEROWS_OFFSET = 28
Private Const F_AVAILABLEROWS_LEN = 32

NDCS and SNDC are the lookup indexes (sorted Network/Channel/Sample and Sample/Network/Channel respectively) and AVAILABLEROWS are row numbers which have been deleted but are not yet reused-- you will want to exclude those row numbers from your data import as they contain useless old data.

The data portion is in this format:
NDCS, 70, dataUnicodeString
NDC, 48, dataUnicodeString
NETWORK, 4, dataLong
DEVICE, 4, dataLong (depreciated)
CHANNEL, 4, dataLong
SAMPLENUMBER, 4, dataLong (position in mS)
COMMAND, 4, dataLong
STARTINTENSITY, 4, dataLong (or RGB color)
ENDINTENSITY, 4, dataLong (or RGB color)
and 12 bytes of misc. settings that I would need to check elsewhere to specify.

I've left out the index specifications since they aren't necessary to read for exporting data. I don't have the time to provide support in getting your code to work with the above information, so if you know how to use this information then great but if you don't then I'm sorry. Also, once you get to the command level you are going to have to reverse engineer a bitmask to figure out how to combine attributes (e.g. Shimmer+Ramp+Random+RGB). I can't disclose any more about that, but it isn't hard to figure out.

Oh, and use this to READ a file ONLY. Do not try to modify and/or write files with this then play them back in Aurora. If you do something wrong (which is likely), the results will not be nice.

This works for DLS2 files only (version 1.999.x Aurora files). DLS1 files too closely resemble information under NDA, so I can't help with those, but for those versions you can just use the AuroraData DLL.


Edited by LightsOnLogan - 29 Sep 2016 at 4:52pm

Sorry about that. I caught the activity in this thread in my RSS reader and not my email notifies. It appears that my email notifications have not been working (probably since the server swap earlier this year) and that is the only notification I get for PMs unless I happen to check the board (which is not often during off season). I only have one PM from you regarding a CSV export plugin for v2 from 08 Sep. I will put it in the list of feature requests, but since it isn't high priority I'm not going to promise anything.

I'm still around to answer questions.

Aurora hasn't completely died, but development has slowed to a near stop (pretty much a few changes here and there every couple months). The business is technically closed and for now I'm only developing in in my spare time as needed for my own show. If the business case returns for selling the software then I will return to full time development on it. At the moment there just are not enough potential customers in the niche market and there are too many alternatives to compete with. I certainly can't pay the bills with Aurora and other projects that do pay the bills have been the focus of my attention. Being a software only business in this market is pretty much a dead end business model at this point.

The only way Aurora could return as a commercial success is if it was there as a low cost or free product to augment a line of Aurora branded hardware-- that is something that I might do in the future, but for now we're pretty much dormant.

Anyway, I can certainly still provide some support and assistance.

Are you still active on the net.  I need some help...quick.

Thanks
Scott

Cool.  Adding exporters to Aurora has always been on the to-do list, but other things have always taken priority in development. 

I suspect [I haven't actually looked at your program yet] that you are using the undocumented AuroraData publicly exposed API to access the data.  If so, this is certainly a very valid (and acceptable) use of the API.  Feel free to contact me via private message if you have any questions about the API.

I haven't really made a whole lot of noise about the public exposed APIs since A) they're incomplete, and B) there are a few changes coming in the next two versions (backward compatibility is not yet enforced).



Edited by LightsOnLogan - 07 Jun 2010 at 11:10am