Artistic Licence Celebrates Double Product Win at PLASA Innovation Awards 2013

	Artistic Licence team at the PLASA Innovation Awards 2013

Artistic Licence is celebrating a double win in the 2013 PLASA Awards for Innovation. eSense, the company's newly previewed Remote Device Management (RDM) controller, received a Product Award, while Art-Osc, a protocol that allows remote interfacing of lighting control data via smartphones or tablets, gained an honorable mention.

The PLASA Awards for Innovation recognize products that advance the industry by demonstrating a new style of thinking, improving technical practice, or taking a key step forward in terms of safety.

eSense is a versatile product that incorporates RDM monitoring, data storage, and sophisticated display functionality. In the live entertainment sector, eSense will remove the reliance of production engineers on lighting consoles for fixture maintenance information, while eco-buildings management will benefit from a dedicated RDM controller that can provide power consumption reports and automated fault-finding. In commercial environments such as theme parks, eSense could facilitate the concept of "push-button procurement" where, for example, a stock order is triggered when lamp-life readings exceed manufacturer recommendations.

The judges noted that "eSense would solve data management problems eloquently and practically, creating new ways of understanding the massive data produced by shows and installations in an efficient way."

The other Artistic Licence product that impressed the judges sufficiently to earn an honorable mention is Art-Osc, a new public domain, royalty-free protocol for RDM visualization.

Artistic Licence developed Art-Osc to overcome a limitation that currently exists in the lighting market. While RDM allows a lighting controller or building management computer to report on equipment status, the company says it is not designed to convey data in a user-friendly manner.

Art-Osc provides this missing link. Concise and easy-to-use, the protocol sits upon the widely used OSC standard (Open Sound Control). It is compatible with numerous free or low-cost tools such as TouchOSC for iPad and Android. Art-Osc also includes a remote control language that allows manufacturers to implement a flexible remote control framework with cross-manufacturer compatibility. Art-Osc is already supported in eSense, enabling sophisticated RDM data display on smartphones or tablets running an OSC app.

Overall, the judges expressed that "Art-Osc would be adopted across the industry because of its ease of implementation and adaptability."

The Art-Osc protocol specification document can be downloaded from a link to the Artistic Licence website. eSense will be available for shipping in the first quarter of 2014.