Canvas2DMX

DMX Backend Integration (Adapter/Proxy Design)

Canvas2DMX is backend-agnostic. It doesn’t depend on any specific DMX library (ENTTEC, DMX4Artists, Art-Net, sACN, OLA, etc.).
Instead, it exposes a tiny callback so you can adapt any sender with one line.

Minimal contract

@FunctionalInterface
public interface DmxSender {
  void send(int channel, int value);
}

Canvas2DMX emits channel/value pairs using your current mapping + channel pattern:

c2d.sendToDmx((ch, val) -> {
  // bridge to your backend here
  dmxController.sendValue(ch, val);
});

Why this approach?
- No hard dependency on a specific DMX stack
- Plug-and-play with any backend (USB DMX, Art-Net, sACN)
- Testable: swap in a mock sender for unit/integration tests

Two integration modes

Streaming (per channel/value) — lowest friction, works with libraries like DMX4Artists:

c2d.sendToDmx((ch, val) -> dmx.sendValue(ch, val));

Batch frame — if your backend prefers a full universe write:

int[] frame = c2d.buildDmxFrame(512);     // 1-based DMX mapped into 0-based array
artnet.writeUniverse(0, frame);           // hypothetical bulk API

Examples

DMX4Artists (ENTTEC / serial)

import com.jaysonh.dmx4artists.*;

DMXControl dmx = new DMXControl(0, 512);
c2d.sendToDmx((ch, val) -> dmx.sendValue(ch, val));

Mock sender (testing / no hardware)

c2d.sendToDmx((ch, val) -> {
  if (ch <= 16 && frameCount % 30 == 0) println("ch " + ch + " = " + val);
});

Art-Net / sACN style (batch)

int[] frame = c2d.buildDmxFrame(512);
// e.g., convert to byte[] and send in one call (pseudo-code)
// byte[] bytes = new byte[frame.length];
// for (int i = 0; i < frame.length; i++) bytes[i] = (byte) (frame[i] & 0xFF);
// artnet.writeUniverse(0, bytes);

Design note: why not `BiConsumer<Integer,Integer>`?

We considered an overload that accepted BiConsumer<Integer,Integer>. However, having both sendToDmx(DmxSender) and sendToDmx(BiConsumer<…>) made lambdas ambiguous for the Java compiler. To keep the API simple and reliable, we kept only the DmxSender version. You still get one-line lambda calls, and the library stays backend-agnostic.

📚 Learn More

Canvas2DMX — repo link
Getting Started — installation and first sketch
Troubleshooting — common issues and fixes
Develop — contributing and building from source
Release — packaging and Contribution Manager

📜 License

This site is open source. Improve this page.