To give access to multiple DMX universes from a single device, a protocol called Art-net was designed and it quickly become very popular. Nowadays, every professional controlling system includes Art-net protocol in a list of control options. With Art-net, you can combine multiple DMX universes and send the data over single ethernet cable. This is already a huge advantage, compared to need for separate cable for each DMX universe.

Artnet & DMX are the same. Or not?

While DMX was and still is great tool to control a relatively large number of DMX fixtures, it’s design is not well suited for a large number of individually addressable pixels. One example for all – with one DMX universe which consist of 512 channels you can only control 170RGB pixels. You would then need a second device that will again add only 170 pixels.

In line with its predecessor, Art-net, unlike e.g. SPI, is a standard, thus you have different manufacturers and software developers all working on the same thing. You can combine program from one producer and hardware from another. And surprisingly, it will work.

Inevitably Art-net inherited some of DMX512 limitations. In the end, Art-net is “only” DMX over Ethernet. For example – it is considered a bad practise to use the last two channels, or jump universes. In every universe, channels 511 and 512 are not used. Because it would mean that you are using 2channels from one universe and one channel from second universe for a single pixel.

Art-net mapping fun

On an example of 2X300 pixels you can see that the mapping of individual Outputs is a bit tricky. We can start with the first Output and see how it goes…

One universe, 170 LEDs. Second universe, 170 LEDs. You are left with 120 un-used channels from second universe. You don’t want to waste that. So, your starting universe for the Second output will be 2nd universe, but the starting address (or channel) will be 390. Remember, all previous channels are assigned to the first output. And you continue – 3rd universe 170 pixels, that is 210 in total and you still need 90 pixels from 4th universe, or 270 channels. Leaving your 4th universe with 240 available channels or 80 pixels.

 

How are we utilizing Art-net?

The main advantage of Art-net – which is it’s compatibility with most control systems in the industry. We are mainly using Art-net as a trigger for animations. Predefined channels can trigger animations from SD card or from a running software and control various aspects such as speed and brightness.

Setup of 7 chnannels to trigger Animations from SD card by Art-net

If you want to read about DMX vs SPI, check out this link

If you want to reaad more about Art-net, check out the official page.

Using 3rd party software with our controller? Check out this playlist.

Is this a definitive guide? Of course not, nor it is trying to be one.