Open Lighting Architecture - OLA
The Open Lighting Architecture (OLA) is a framework for controlling
entertainment lighting equipment. Within the entertainment lighting industry,
the Digital Multiplex protocol
(DMX-512) and IP variants such as Streaming
ACN
(sACN) are used to control lighting fixtures.
OLA provides the distribution layer that abstracts away the various protocols
used. This allows authors of lighting control software to focus on generating
the control information, rather than having to implement support for different
hardware devices & network protocols. OLA runs on Linux & Mac OS X, some
features will also work on Windows.
OLA can also be used to convert between different network protocols. With the
use of a USB to DMX512 device, OLA can act as a DMX-over-IP to DMX512 gateway.
OLA consists of three parts, the daemon olad, the olad plugins and the client
library, libola.
Documentation on OLA, including examples on how to get started, are
provided on the Open Lighting Architecture
Docs
site. The pages are
automatically updated from the git repository.
Downloading OLA
OLA is distributed in a number of formats, including
Debian / Ubuntu Packages
and MacPorts. The OLA
Downloads
page has more information.
Tagged releases in the git repository are signed. To import the public key, run:
$ git cat-file blob simon-pubkey, gpg --import
and then to verify the release:
$ git tag -v 0.9.6
Support
Support for OLA is provided via the mailing list and IRC channel. The
Getting Help page has more
details.
Components
Plugins
The OLA plugins are located in ./plugins. For a walkthrough of an example see
plugins/osc/README.developer.md.
C++ Library
The C++ Client is in ./ola. The C++ DMX Client API
Tutorial
has various examples on how one can use the client.
Python Module
The Python module can be built by running configure with
--enable-python-libs. There are examples on how to use the Python API in
python/examples.
Java Library
There is an experimental Java library which can be built by running configure
with --enable-java-libs.
Credits
The AUTHORS files contains a list of code contributors. A full list of
supporters
is published on the website.