LED EDIT SOFTWARE TUTORIALS PROGRAMMING PIXEL LED
LED EDIT SOFTWARE TUTORIALS PROGRAMMING PIXEL LED
LED Edit is a popular software among LED panel or Pixel LED programmers due to it’s features and ease of use . But for beginners it’s hard to find an English based tutorials for the LED Edit software.My mission in this article is to full fill that requirement .
If you didn’t have LED Edit software installed in your PC yet please Click Here to download it .As you may know there are many versions of this software, but all have same type of interface and features .There are two main different types of this software – The “LED EDIT” and “LED EDIT -K” software versions . “LED EDIT-K” software versions have expire dates so if you are using a old versions of “LED EDIT – K” software you must change your system date of your PC for specific dates that software versions valid for .If not you will get this error .
To fix this , Change the system date as below
For LedEdit-K 2016 – Change the system date between 2016/Jan – 2017/May
For LedEdit-K 2017 – Change the system date between 2017/Jan – 2018/May
Run your LED Edit application .Lets do it step by step
Note : This Tutorial is for “LED Edit” software versions not for “LED Edit-K” software versions
Starting a New LED Edit Project
01 In the software interface click on “Fille” and choose “New Project” from the drop down list .
 |
| LED Edit New Project window |
02 As you can see in the “Regular use of Controller” list there are few of popular controllers , If your LED Edit controller in that list , click on that .If your controller not on that list click on “Select Controller” button.
 |
| LED Edit Select Controller window |
03 In the “Select Controller” window Look for your controller name by expanding the lists by click on “+” signs and scrolling using scroll bar . The controller label is consist of Controller name + LED Chip Name ..Eg -As in the above image I have chosen “T1000-B-WS2811” because I have the “T1000-B” controller and I’m about to drive Pixel LEDs that are controlled with WS2811 RGB Drive chip .eg.- If you have controller named “X” and your LED is driven by a IC name “Y” choose X-Y .Hope you can understand that .
 |
| LED Edit Select Controller window |
04 Now you will see your controller and LED controller chip name in the “Regular use of Controller” list , select your controller form that list . As soon as you select your LED controller , the left side of that window will show you the basic controller settings. You can change them (available settings will be different from controller to controller )
In the above image –
1 – Selected controller from the “Regular use of Controller” list.
2 – Controller Type + LED Drive Chip name.
3 – Controller Supported LED Controller Chip Type.
4 – Port numbers available in the controller (In this case “T1000-B-WS2811” Controller only have one Port
5 – And the maximum LED’s that can be driven by that Port is 2048.
6 – LED data transfer speed .
7 – LED data PWM Polarity (Positive or Negative – read your LED Dive chip Datasheet before selecting this )
8 – Animation / Movie data frame rate (Frames per second ) .
9 – Data Sequence In this case (Red,Green,Blue – please read your LED Dive chip Datasheet before selecting this )
05 Click on Browse and select a path to save the project file .After that click on “OK” .
Setting LED Layout
In the previous step we talked about selecting the controller and it’s basic settings .In order to controller to send data we need to tell it how we going to connect our LEDs , amount of LEDs in the display and the layout ( The design we get when we place our LEDs).There are two basic types of layouts
1 – Regular layouts (square, rectangle,Circle,Line)
2 – Irregular layouts (other Shapes , Text ,custom shapes)
We will discuss Irregular layouts in another tutorial (Link in the next paragraph ) .where I’m going to discuss how to create Irregular layouts using LED Edit’s layout creator and Using CorelDraw and Auto-cad to design your custom layouts .
For the simplicity of this article, we use Auto layout generator option to create a regular layout .I will show you how to design a small 32×64 (HxW) LED panel (rectangular) layout .
01 . Click on the purple Gear Icon on the top-right of the LED Edit software window .This will show you the Auto layout generator window .
 |
| LED Edit Auto layout generator window |
02 .Type the number of LEDs in horizontal or width of your LED panel in the text field in front of “Horizontal Pixels:” label and the number of LEDs in vertical or height of your LED panel in the text field in front of “vertical Pixels:” label .
03 . Type the maximum number of LEDs you going to use in a port in the text field in front of “Max Number of Lights per each port . In this case it’s 32×64 = 2048
 |
| Pixel LED connecting patterns |
04 . Select the pattern you going to connect the LEDs together (if you choose different pattern from the physical pattern you made ,will cause upside – down , Right side – left or screen distortion effect when you finally program it ) . So make sure you select the method you are going to wire it. click on “OK” to finish .You will see the layout you just made as below .
 |
| Pixel LED layout |
 |
| Add Program window |
05 Now you will see “Program 1” added to the Program tab .Using the “Add” button bellow and give a name for program and click “OK” to add programs as many as you want .This will allow you to do different animations under different program labels.Use different labels for different programs .Don’t use the same label again and again .
 |
| Select LED Edit program |
06 Select the program from the list that you wants to record video or animation .
Continue from Here >>
Recording a Video or an Animation
In LED Edit programming means recording a video or an Animation that been played and editing it to get the outcome we want .
01 Click On “Video Effect” in the top main bar .First use first 3 options to open a file or use other options to select a predefined simple animation effects .
1- Open Video (avi,swf,wmv,mpeg,mpg)
2- Open swf (swf Animation)
3- Open tol (tol Animation file )
02 I’m going to open a swf Animation from my PC So I click in “Open Swf” or “Open video” from that drop down list and select my file .
03 Now you have selected your animation or video file .Now you will see the Animation or the video you have selected is being played in both player and your LED layout window .If you need to capture the video in slow mode you can reduce the frame rate by clicking on “Project Config” and selecting “Frame Rate” and choose a low frame rate and click “OK”.Click on “Stop” Button if you need to stop the Animation.Use the “Screen record” if you need to record something in your monitor.
 |
| LED Edit recording a video |
04 Now it’s the time to start record the video .As the video played click on “Start Recording” before the beginning frame you need to record and wait until it reach the point that you need to stop the recording as soon as that frame passed in the player click on Stop.Click on “Stop” to stop the animation being played .
 |
| LED Edit plying the recorded video |
To see what we had captured ,click on “Edit preview” button in the top right corner if it’s disabled click on “close video Effect” button.
 |
| close video Effect button |
Now you will see the animation being payed in the led layout and the time slider in the top left corner is moving as the animation being played .
Edit Mode
The purpose of the Edit mode is to remove and add frames of the video that we had captured in order to create the animation or video outcome that we need .
Play button – Play the captured video after it’s being paused .
Pause – Pause the captured after it’s being played.
Next Frame – To move to the next frame in the frame slide .
Previous Frame – To move to the previous frame in the frame slide .
Frame slider – Can be used to select the frames that you wants to edit and view each frame .
Player Time Slider – Can be used to view the specific location of the Animation or video by Grabbing and moving it left to right .
Let’s edit some frames .As an example I’m going to delete the first 20 frames of this animation and then copy the frame range between 30 to 60 and paste it at the beginning.We are in the edit mode.
01 Pause the animation (if it’s playing ) by clicking on pause button .
02 To delete the frames click on “Edit Preview” from the top main bar and choose “Delete” from the drop down list. It will bring you the delete frames window .
 |
| LED Edit delete frames window |
03 Unfortunately this sub windows are in Chinese language .I have translated the content of that window for you . Type the Start frame number in the text field you are going to delete in front of “start Frame ” label and the End Frame in the text field in front of “End Frame” label .you can use “First frame” button to select the first frame and Last frame button to select the Last frame in the animation these two buttons are important when you deleting a entire animation .Click “OK” to confirm the action .
 | |
|
04 To copy a range of frames click on “Edit Preview” from the top main bar and choose “Copy” from the drop down list. It will bring you the copy frames window .Type the Start frame number in the text field you are going to copy in front of “start Frame ” label and the End Frame in the text field in front of “End Frame” label .Click “OK” to confirm the action .
 |
| LED Edit paste frames window |
05 To Paste click on “Edit Preview” from the top main bar and choose “paste” from the drop down list. In the paste Frame window give the frame position you wants to paste the frames that you copied before and then click “OK” .
Exporting The Project
Now it’s time to export the animation or the video plus controller settings to the SD memory card .Insert your memory card to your card reader (If you don’t have one please buy one .They are very cheap ) you can use your Laptop’s inbuilt card reader for this . Format your SD card in “Fat32” .
 |
| Exit Edit /Preview mode |
01 If you are in “Edit /Preview” mode exit that by clicking on “Exit Edit /Preview” button .Now go and click on “Export” in the top menu bar .
 |
| LED Edit Export options |
1 – To Export the .led file (This is what we going to put on the SD card)
2 – To create a “readme.txt” file .
3 – To Export your video in “.Swf” format .
4 – To Export your video in “.AVI” format .
5 – To Export your LED layout in “.DXF” format .
6 – To Export your LED layout in “.BMP” format .
7 – To create your video in to (.BIN) file .
 |
| LED Exit Export .led settings |
If you have not programmed Led programs in the program list ,Delete them before next step .Using delete button in the bottom.
 |
| Led Edit Delete a program |
02 Click On the first option “Export Effect(.led) .This will bring you Effect setup window .you can use this window to correct gamma (if your LED’s have incorrect gamma effects) and dim each R,G and B channel . for “RGB seq” check your LED Driver IC datasheet .Type a number between 00 – 16 in the text field in front of “Program Code:” (you can choose different number for each program). Click “OK”
03 In the “Browse For Folder” window select the path to save your .led file, Keep this on you mind every time you do this the program will delete the “led” folder and it’s content and replace it with new one .for that reason if you are doing more than one program Export that “.led ” files in to different folders in your HDD .Please refer to your controller manual for the SD Card format type and file placement .
Here is an example .
Setting for T1000 Controller .
Project settings
 |
| Project Settings for T1000 |
If you have less than 512 LEDs use 30 as frame rate ( Which will give you smooth transitions) if now use 20 as frame rate.
Export settings –
 |
| T1000 controller Export settings |
Play with gamma correction values until you get the result you satisfied with your LED colors .
If one color is brighter than other use brightness correction bars .
Use 0 to 16 for each program (maximum number of supported program files are 16)
SD card should be formatted with fat 32
 |
| SD card format |
copy and paste the program files in the root of SD card name them as below .
 |
| File placement in SD card |
That’s it .As you can see every controller have their own set of requirement,its very impotent that you refer to the user manual of the specific controller before programming it .