LD Assistant – The New Gold Standard in Entertainment Lighting Design
Phone: 1-708-499-0107 | Oak Lawn, IL 60453 USA
Entertainment Lighting Design, Event Planning and System Integration Software - Nothing More To Buy - Nothing Else To Learn - With LD Assistant you never have to buy some 3rd party software to make it happen
LD Assistant 2010
The Closer You Look, The Better LD Assistant Looks
Overview
LD Assistant merges advanced lighting algorithms with our industry standard 2D drafting & 3D modeling tool set. Designed for the Entertainment Lighting, Event Planning and System Integration market, LD Assistant 2010’s user interface is familiar to more than 9,000,000 users in over 130 countries. The software successfully combines lighting, sound, video, set design and event planning into an ALL-IN-ONE product designed for users at any level of technical expertise.
See bottom of this page for System Requirements.
A 4 level CAD course is now include with every LD Assistant 2010. The 50 lessons are based on AutoCAD 2010 and are divided into 4 levels and teach the software in an organized, structured layout which makes it easier to learn.
What LD Assistant Users are saying
“LD Assistant gives me the ability to show the client what they can expect to see when the job is completed. The visualization with renderings really helps them understand what it is they are getting with the design.”
Click here to LD Assistant users are saying
GB Stephens
"I have been a long time advocate for using CAD applications for theatre and began experimenting with various CAD programs in the early 90’s. I became a serious AutoCAD user when AutoCAD released its Windows® version. I was thrilled to find LD Assistant, a CAD application which works on the AutoCAD platform which could be used for multiple theatre purposes. At the University of South Florida School of Theatre and Dance, LD Assistant is used as a foundation for our technical theatre drafting, lighting and design classes. It not only provides our students with an understanding of the industry standard of CAD applications but LD Assistant provides tools and applications specifically for theatre scenic designers, lighting designers and technical directors. As a Scenic and Lighting Designer, it is a program that meets all of my needs." GB Stephens USF School of Theatre and Dance, Tampa, FL
Tim Burk
"I went to the LDI 2009 exhibition confident that I was going to purchase a certain lighting design software program. I had made up my mind and was excited to take their class at LDI for a quick start. After attending a two day class on the product, I was confident on how to use the program and planned to drop by their booth to make the purchase when the show opened. But, on the way to their booth I happened to walk by the Design & Drafting / LD Assistant booth; I stopped by to see what they were up to.
I spent more that an hour at the Design & Drafting booth, asking questions about 'how to do this' and 'how to do that', and I was quickly shown exactly how to do it. At this point I decided to rethink my earlier purchasing decision. The next day I returned to the Design & Drafting booth and bought LD Assistant. For me, LD Assistant offers more benefits than any other CAD program on the market. I couldn't be happier with my purchase!" Tim Burk Lighting Designer Manhattan Beach, Ca
DJ Seibert
“LD Assistant gives me the ability to show the client what they can expect to see when the job is completed. The visualization with renderings really helps them understand what it is they are getting with the design,” says DJ.
DJ Seibert designs theatrical lighting, audio, and video for auditoriums, sanctuaries, theaters, TV studios, black box theaters, cafeterias, and gymnasiums in education and religious facilities. DJ has been with Snyder Hoffman for the past 11 years as a designer. He also has 25 years experience as an owner of his own production company. DJ Seibert, Snyder Hoffman, Bethlehem, PA
Kevin Denzel
"With LD Assistant I win more jobs and I'm able to give my clients a realistic overview of their event."
Technical Director Swank AV Grand Hyatt in San Antonio, Texas
Ben Marquardt
& Ruben Kuster
At QConcepts, designers Ben Marquardt & Ruben Kuster create and design stage settings, projections and lighting looks. They develop material and equipment lists using LD Assistant. The German duo each handle the technical administration and programming on hybrid consoles. With LD Assistant, Ben and Ruben create photo realistic visualizations of their projects. Marquardt explains, " Due to consistent deepening of our knowledge and a continuously evolving partner network, we create realistic pre-visualizations within a very short period of time using LD Assistant. These renderings, scribbles or collages are not only nice to look at but show a visual mood which in fact can be translated into reality. We provide images that will convince clients without raising expectations neither of us could fulfill."
Ben Marquardt & Ruben Kuster, QConcepts Leichlingen, Germany
2D Drafting Create Perfect Drawings & Plots
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Powerful 2D drafting tools are at the core of LD Assistant Ac 2010. LDA includes built-in database with work sheets for producing paperwork and equipment lists. The same 2D & 3D tools found in LD Assistant are used by 9,000,000 designers and architects to create their working drawings. Changes to your 2D plan will automatically be reflected in your 3D model and in the schedule.
Click here to learn more about 2D
LD Assistant Ac 2010 offers an extensive array of advanced menu commands and tools for 2D drafting, including on-screen feedback with the OSNAP, POLAR and OTRACK tools, which identifies end points, intersections, snaps and tangents as you draw.
Clear, clean plots
Produces clean plots every time. When you are ready to hand the design back to an architect, you won't have to worry about if it will open - or any other compatibility issues. LD Assistant Ac 2010 is built with Autodesk® technology, so it's 100% compatible!
Schedules
Easily define the data for a schedule. When data is modified in the schedule, it is instantly updated in the drawing. Built-in spreadsheets and databases make it simple to create schedules. LD Assistant Ac 08 allows you to import and export lighting information to and from spreadsheet programs including Microsoft Excel® and Lightwright, or use our built-in spreadsheets and database technology to generate your paperwork.
LD Reports™
This Excel based workbook gives users all the flexibility Excel offers in an easy to use workbook. While the built-in schedules in LD Assistant Ac 08 are easy to use and are interactive with the drawing, at some point the data may need to be exported to another external database program. LD Reports offers ease of use, speed and flexibility in an easy to use Excel workbook.
Contact our sales team for a live over the internet demo!
3D Modeling Explore Ideas More Intuitively In 3D
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With powerful 3D modeling and presentation tools, you can design ideas in almost any form you can imagine. Simply push/pull faces, edges, and vertices to model
complex shapes, add smooth surfaces. 3D tools include true Boolean operations, Loft, sweep, extrude, extrude along path, revolve, 3D array, helix, slice, 3D polyline 3D Orbit and other high-end 3D CAD features.
Click here to learn more about 3D
With LD Assistant 2010 you can design and shape the world of lighting with powerful and flexible 3D tools found in LD Assistant
software, one of the world’s leading Entertainment Lighting and Event Planning software products. With robust 3D tools that can create almost any shape imaginable, LD Assistant 2010 helps you intuitively explore design ideas.
3D Navigation tools allow you to view objects in a drawing from different angles, heights, and distances. Use the following 3D tools to orbit, swivel, adjust distance, zoom, and pan in a 3D view.
3D Orbit. Moves around a target. The target of the view stays stationary while the camera location, or point of view, moves. The center of the viewport, not the center of the objects you’re viewing, is the target point.
Constrained Orbit. Constrains 3D Orbit along the XY plane or the Z axis.
Free Orbit. Orbits in any direction without reference to the planes. The point of view is not constrained along the XY plane of the Z axis.
Continuous Orbit. Orbits continuously. Click and drag in the direction you want the continuous orbit to move, and then release the mouse button. The orbit continues to move in that direction.
Adjust Distance. Changes the distance of objects as you move the cursor vertically. You can make objects appear larger or smaller, and you can adjust the distance.
Swivel. Simulates panning with a camera in the direction that you drag. The target of the view changes. You can swivel the view along the XY plane or along the Z axis.
Zoom. Simulates moving the camera closer to an object or farther away. Zooming in magnifies the image.
Pan. Starts the interactive 3D view and enables you to drag the view horizontally and vertically.
Contact our sales team for a live over the internet demo!
Lighting Design & Plots
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LD Assistant 2010 makes it easy to quickly create light, sound and video plots. Built with the designer in mind, LD Assistant Ac 2010 provides you with the easiest, most cost-effective way to design your lighting and production plots. With 2D drafting, 3D modeling, and powerful presentation tools, LD Assistant offers everything you need at a price you can afford.
Click here to learn more about Lighting Design
LD Assistant Ac 2010 offers an advanced What You See Is What You Get library. LD Content library makes it easy to see what you're going to get - before you insert an object into your design. With more that 2,800 2D and 3D blocks in the new LD Content library and another 3,000 in the standard Block Navigator, LD Assistant has the largest library in our industry.
With the built-in spreadsheets and database technology provided by Design & Drafting, LD Assistant updates your drawing as you update your schedules. With the Built-in-Database, there is no need to export your work to any outside database / spreadsheets to generate paperwork.
No need for two libraries!
Some programs need two libraries, one library for Imperial and one for Metric. This is not the case with LD Assistant; one professionally drawn library works for both English and Metric, saving designers from having to convert their drawing to Metric before working with a European designer, saving both time and money.
With more than 24 years of creating CAD blocks for the Theatrical and Entertainment industry, Design & Drafting leads the way with CAD block design and technology.
Contact our support team for a live over the internet demo!
Production Create Room Layouts & More
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It doesn’t get any easier than this, advanced production tools speed the creation of realistic seating arrangements, tables and chairs placement, curtains, back drops, drapery, doors, windows, stage stairs, security post and line, turn drawn lines into a truss with a simple mouse click - and much more. Track the complete event project with customized reports and paperwork.
Click here to learn more about Production
Advanced production tools speed the creation of realistic seating arrangements, tables and chairs placement, curtains, back drops, drapery, doors / windows, stage stairs, security post and line - and much more. Track the complete event project with customized reports and paperwork.
Contact our sales team for a live over the internet demo!
Renderings Create Renderings That Look Like Photographs
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Create renderings that look like photographs. With the latest in rendering technology, you can create stunning models in less time. Reflections and refractions generated way physically accurate. Indirect illumination techniques, like global illumination and final gathering, enhance the realism of a scene. With LD Assistant 2010 you will WOW your clients.
Click here to learn more about Rendering
Advanced rendering techniques allow users to render highly detailed and photorealistic images.
Ray tracing traces the path of rays sampled from the light source. Reflections and refractions generated this way are physically accurate.
Indirect illumination techniques, like global illumination and final gathering, enhance the realism of a scene by simulating radiosity, or the interreflection of light in a scene.
Final gathering is an optional, additional step used to improve global illumination (GI). It increases the number of rays used to calculate GI to smooth out and eliminate adverse lighting artifacts.
LD Assistant offers more FX Effects than any other program. Contact our sales team for a live over the internet demo!
Visualization Walk Through Designs In Real-timeIf you do not see the Flash Movies below... refresh your browser.
Visualize your ideas like never before, walk and flying through a 3D drawing. Integrate actors into your designs and see them come alive in real-time as you walk through your creation, while you control the lighting with the built-in or your console. Have audio and video all playing back at the same. Do More With LD Assistant 2010
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Fully animated flythroughs, flyovers and walkthroughs allow you to see your show from any angle. By seeing all of this ahead of time, you avoid the onsite frustration of finding out something doesn't work.
Walkthroughs are easily created through an intuitive dialog box.
With Pre-Animation, it's easy to see what your animation will look like - before you spend time waiting for the program to output your animation, only to learn there was a problem and you have to do it again!
Do it right the first time, and leave your competition in the dust as they try and try again.
Contact our sales team for a live over the internet demo!
Pre Visualization More Ways To Connect Your Console
Connect LD Assistant 2010 to ETC, GrandMA, Strand, Hog III, JANDS and other lighting consoles using Art-Net and say good bye to DONGLES forever.
No setup needed to connect your ETC console
With sACN, you just plug your LD Assistant computer into the same network as your console and away you go.
Click here to learn more about Pre Visualization
LD Assistant 2010 comes with built-in support for 64 DMX-512 Universes, and can both send DMX and receive DMX through a dongle. Lighting consoles and lighting systems can be connected using sACN, Pathport and ENTTEC. Both Ethernet and USB interface are supported in LD Assistant 2010. Coming soon MA-Net, HOG III.
Once a plot has been created, the design is opened (with one button click) in LD Control, a real-time visualizer for pre-cueing and testing designs. Save thousands of scenes and cues within a single DWG file. Creating AVI movies of scenes and cues with the push of a button.
Contact our sales team for a live over the internet demo!
System Requirements
LD Assistant Ac 2010 is a 32 bit program requiring XP 32, VISTA 32 or Win 7 32 bit, but will install on VISTA 64 or WIN 7 64 Bit OS and run as a 32 bit program.
MAC Users... see the bottom of this page.
For 32-bit LD Assistant 2010
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional or Home edition (SP2 or later)
Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® dual-core processor, 1.6 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology
2 GB RAM
1 GB free disk space for installation
1,024 x 768 VGA display with true color
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7.0 or later
Install from DVD
or
Microsoft® Windows Vista
® (SP1 or later) including Enterprise, Business, Ultimate, or Home Premium edition
Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon dual-core processor, 3 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology
2 GB RAM
1 GB free disk space for installation
1,024 x 768 VGA display with true color
Internet Explorer 7.0 or later
Install from DVD
or
Microsoft® Windows 7
Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon dual-core processor, 3 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology
2 GB RAM
1 GB free disk space for installation
1,024 x 768 VGA display with true color
Internet Explorer 7.0 or later
Install from DVD
Additional Requirements for 3D Modeling (All Configurations)
Intel Pentium 4 processor or AMD Athlon, 3 GHz or higher; Intel or AMD dual-core processor, 2 GHz or higher
2 GB RAM or greater
2 GB hard disk space available in addition to free space required for installation
1,280 x 1,024 32-bit color video display adapter (true color) 128 MB or greater, Microsoft® Direct3D® & OpenGL capable workstation class graphics card
LD Assistant PL System Requirements
Before you begin installing LD Assistant PL on a stand-alone computer, make sure that your computer meets the minimum recommended requirements. See the following table for hardware and software requirements.
** Win 7 and VISTA: For LD Content to work you will need to turn off the User Account Control
**AutoCAD Plug-in LD Assistant PL is a 32 bit program and requires that AutoCAD be running under a 32 bit OS. LD Assistant PL does not support 64 Bit AutoCAD.
LD Assistant Ac 2010 is a 32 bit program requiring XP 32, VISTA 32 or Win 7 32 bit, but will install on VISTA 64 or WIN 7 64 Bit OS and run as a 32 bit program.
** Macintosh: There seem to be issues for a small group of users with Win7 in
Parallels, check the MAC and Microsoft blogs and user forums for more on the
topics and suggested fixes.
Vista and XP seem to be immune from the issues.
**Work-around for Macintosh users running Win 7 on Parallel... Right click on the program link (shortcut icon) and go to properties. Then click on compatibility, then help me choose the setting. Click on the program compatibility troubleshooter on the screen that pops open. After going thru the troubleshooter, the program should open and run fine. But once you close the program you will need to re-open it using the troubleshooter...
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Partnering with Design & Drafting Through its Authorized Dealer and Support Center program, Design & Drafting is working with select companies worldwide. These companies represent a broad range of capabilities … from independent design companies to global systems integrators.
If you would like to partner with Design & Drafting, contact sales at
1-708-499-0107 for more information.
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