When you set up a new installation that uses nDisplay, partucularly with multiple viewports spread across multiple LED screens, you may sometimes have subtle display problems that are challenging to detect and diagnose when rendering a 3D virtual world. For example, you may experience tearing between adjacent viewports, display synchronization issues, seams between adjacent viewports, or slight color variations between adjacent display devices.
To make detecting these problems easier, nDisplay offers several different 2D test patterns that tile across your display devices. The regularity of these test patterns helps draw your eye to any problems. If you ensure that your nDisplay installation renders test patterns cleanly without any visible tearing or sync issues, you can be more confident that your devices will also be locked in sync when you use them to display your 3D virtual worlds.
Activating Test Patterns
-
The nDisplay Plugin includes a Display Cluster Test Patterns Actor. Find this Actor in the Place Actors panel and drag it into your Level Viewport.
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Activate your choice of test patterns by issuing the
nDisplay.Calibration.Pattern
console command, or by sending a cluster event to the network. See the Console Command Syntax and Cluster Event Syntax sections below for details.In both cases, you need to specify the name of the pattern you want to activate, the viewports that you want to show the test pattern. Each pattern also offers additional optional parameters to control aspects like the scale of the pattern and rate of motion across the viewports.
Console Command Syntax
The nDisplay.Calibration.Pattern
console command has the following syntax:
nDisplay.Calibration.Pattern [pattern ID] [viewport IDs] [material parameter 1] … [material parameter N]
with the following parameters:
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
pattern ID | Specifies the test pattern you want to activate. This name should match the name assigned to one of the test patterns registered with the Display Cluster Test Patterns Actor. If it does not match one of those test patterns, the current test pattern will be removed. |
viewport IDs | Specifies the nDisplay viewports that should show the test pattern. This must be one of the following values:
|
material parameter | A list of parameters and values that override default settings for the chosen pattern. Each parameter should be in the form
|
For example, this console command sets all viewports to show the TPSCircles
pattern:
nDisplay.Calibration.Pattern TPSCircles *
This console command shows the TPSCircles
pattern only on three viewports, named vp1
, vp2
, and vp3
:
nDisplay.Calibration.Pattern TPSCircles vp_1,vp_2,vp_3
This console command is the same as above, but also overrides the default values for the width and color of the lines in the pattern:
nDisplay.Calibration.Pattern TPSCircles vp_1,vp_2,vp_3 LineWidth:scalar:0.2 LineColor:color:1,0,0,0
Cluster Event Syntax
To activate a test pattern by sending a cluster event to your nDisplay network, set up your cluster event as follows:
Description | |
---|---|
Event category | nDisplay |
Event type | Calibration |
Event name | Pattern |
Parameter 1 |
Where |
Parameter 2 |
Specifies the nDisplay viewports that should show the test pattern.
|
Additional parameters | You can pass additional parameters to the cluster event to override default settings exposed by the chosen pattern. Each parameter you pass should be in the form
|
Test Patterns and Parameters
This section describes the test patterns that come pre-installed with nDisplay, along with the parameters you can specify for each.
If you select your Display Cluster Test Patterns Actor in the Level Viewport or the World Outliner, you'll see the list of all available calibration patterns in the Details panel under the Display Cluster > Calibration Patterns property.
TPSCircles

Name | Type |
---|---|
Repeats | scalar |
LineWidth | scalar |
LineColor | color |
TPSColoredBars

Name | Type | Notes |
---|---|---|
Shades | scalar | |
Direction | scalar | Sets the direction of the bars. Accepts the following values:
|
TPSGrayBars

Name | Type | Notes |
---|---|---|
Shades | scalar | |
Direction | scalar | Sets the direction of the bars. Accepts the following values:
|
TPSGridCircles

Name | Type |
---|---|
Repeats | scalar |
LineWidth | scalar |
LineColor | scalar |
TPAChevron

Name | Type |
---|---|
Repeats | scalar |
LineWidth | scalar |
LineColor | scalar |
Speed | scalar |
TPAGrid

Name | Type |
---|---|
Repeats | scalar |
LineWidth | scalar |
LineColor | scalar |
Speed | scalar |
TPAMirroredChevron

Name | Type |
---|---|
Repeats | scalar |
Color1 | color |
Color2 | color |
Speed | scalar |
TPARadar

Name | Type |
---|---|
Speed | scalar |
Power | color |
TPAStrips

Name | Type | Notes |
---|---|---|
Repeats | scalar | |
LineWidth | scalar | |
LineColor | scalar | |
Speed | scalar | |
Direction | scalar | Accepts the following values:
|
You can also use your own custom test pattern. Create a new Post-Process Material in your Project, and add it to the Calibration Patterns property of your Display Cluster Test Patterns Actor. Once you do this, you'll be able to trigger your own test pattern across your nDisplay cluster using either the console command or the cluster event methods shown above.