CAST Releases WYSIWYG R33

CAST Software releases its WYSIWYG version R33, with more than 10 new features, giving lighting designers, multimedia, and production professionals the ability to create and previsualize new lighting design like never before.

"This is the biggest release since WYSIWYG was introduced twenty years ago" said Gil Densham, president of CAST Software Ltd. "R33 delivers new features including LED video wall glow, shaded view optimizations and profiles, templates, and double the number of universes. R33 certainly raises the bar for industry professionals so they become more productive, more professional, more profitable. It's all about our members."

In creating WYSIWYG R33, many new features result from extensive beta testing by some of CAST Software's most experienced WYSIWYG users. One such lighting designer who has previewed the R33 beta version is Miguel Ribeiro: "I'm gob smacked with the whole beta WYSIWYG R33 version and some aspects have really got me excited. These days I do more than lighting and my work is centered around video. With the release of R33, I have finally got the JPEG compression that I've been asking for and the screen glow will be extremely useful on multimedia projects I am working on. We'll be using these features in some upcoming projects. It's great to see that WYSIWYG has finally become a grown up video tool."

José Travassos, senior lighting designer for Qatar National Convention Center, Doha has used WYSIWYG for over ten years. "During all these years WYSIWYG enabled all my lighting design and ideas to be communicated visually to clients as well as AV rental companies and crews. The new version R33 will further assist my work and creativity in making even more realistic previsualiziations. The LED video wall glow feature helps to create even more realistic performance and TV environments. I also really like the improvements to shaded view features. R33 from CAST is as real as you can get."

New features that the company saysmaximize creativity and ROI include:

CITP (v1.1) content protocol -- An advanced feature designed for lighting designers working with video and multiple media sources, the CITP content protocol uses JPEG compression enabling designers to display higher resolution videos in WYSIWYG at up to 400 x 400 pixels. Accommodating various display aspect ratios including 1:1, 4:3 and 16:9 WYSIWYG accurately reproduces screens in their previsualized environments.

LED video wall glow -- We continue to add more realism to WYSIWYG's visualization. LED video wall glow allows users to enable / disable screens and LED walls glow that will interact realistically with the lighting setup, performers, and objects on stage.

Shaded view optimizations and profiles -- Taking rich graphics to a whole new level, R33 optimizes graphics to increase performance and visualization. A combination of shaded view settings can be saved for different scenes/sequences and toggled on/off for the user's convenience.

Cloning subsource templates -- A major time saver, screens and LED wall arrangements can be cloned and applied to new projects at the click of a button.

Over 200 universes -- WYSIWYG R33 has now doubled the universes which gives access to 200 universes or 102,400 DMX channels.

On the fly -- new mini console 512 -- The mini console has been seriously upgraded to give users more control -- now up to 512 channels -- so the user can test and previz fixtures and lighting equipment on the fly.

New library additions -- New library additions include 70 highly requested fixtures including the G-Spot by SGM Lighting and the new K10/20 B-EYE from Clay Paky.

Additional new features include wireframe view optimizations for smoother viewing, added AutoCAD support for importing, and device manager patching improvements.

Members can download WYSIWYG R33 today at: https://cast-soft.com/cast/member/index.php. R33's Demo version will be available by the first week of July for those industry professionals who are not members.

R33 Beta LED video wall glow video: http://youtu.be/rQaoazMZ7dI