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The 90’s Shortly after the first series of plastic templates were produced, Shelley showed Fred how the designs were created. Shelley’s method was to create and shift fixture outlines in a MacPaint document. Fred immediately saw the possibility of selling symbol collection software, but Shelley wanted none of it. Shelley had witnessed, first-hand, his friend Ted Mather act as technical support for Ted’s product, Advantage Symbols. What Shelley saw was a huge time-consuming project that he would have to tackle by himself, and then become technical support as well. In 1993 Shelley created a small collection of symbols and flyers trumpeting ”Soft Symbols in MacDraw”. They were distributed at a USITT convention. This resulted in one sale, and Shelley shelved the project. In 1997 Shelley signed the contract to write what would become A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting. This sucked his brain for a number of years; eventually he would re-write the book five times. USITT 2003 In his words: ”I had presumed that the Spotlight symbols would be comparable, if not better, than anything I had created. To my surprise, the symbols were shockingly different than what i expected; although many of the symbols used the same nomenclature as Field Template symbols, they were constructed by a team of folks. As such, the symbols had a variety of line widths, shading, and colors, and some amount of the data was missing. They were a good start, but in some cases the data was incomplete, in some cases, the graphics were not very pretty.” ”From a practical point of view, many of the ERS symbols had internal lines that were placed precisely in the symbol where a lighting designer would indicate templates, irises, and so forth. In other cases, the symbols had so many additional lines and shades, it would inevitably impact the amount of ink required to print any light plot. On top of that, when you opened any Spotlight object library, the document was blank. There was nothing on the page. In order to see the symbols in a document, the end user first had to paste the symbols, one by one, into the document.” By the time they left the convention, Shelley had decided take the plunge. He set LDI as the target date to launch the new product. After completing his contract as the Lighting & Scenic Coordinator for the Spoleto Festival USA, Shelley sat down and really learned VectorWorks and Spotlight. Then he learned how to make symbols, and created SoftSymbols Version 1. Initially, he duplicated the same object library structure as Spotlight but replaced all the graphic symbology. Gradually he added new symbol libraries for ancillary symbols, including generic foggers and other hardware, as well as imperial and metric scales. Shelley designed SoftSymbols with a universal set of line weights and shades. Alternates to color symbols were provided so that, in the absence of color printing, information would not be lost. Plots could be printed or faxed without loss of information. All of his symbols were designed so that they could be traced from a plastic template. Not only did they then have a cleaner look, it allowed for more alphanumeric data to be contained in each symbol, it used less ink, and the light plot to be easier to read.
At the same time Shelley was also writing the additional html pages for the web site. And there was still the question of how best to deliver the product to the end user. While the common transfer process was physical CD’s, Shelley saw the implied need for additional product design, not to mention the headaches and costs of shipping. After some consideration, Eventually Shelley decided to make SoftSymbols™ a download-only product, eliminating costs and the need for additional CD cover or direction designs. By November, shopping cart appeared to be ready in time for download orders from the 2003 LDI convention. LDI 2003 LDI 2003 was a fiasco. Shelley arrived in Orlando thinking the web site would be able to launch before the show floor opened, but it was not to be. Some say there were technical difficulties. Others claim that basically the webmaster had a nervous breakdown. Shelley and Fred ended up in the wrong hotel, couldn’t get internet service in their room, the shopping cart didn’t work, and the pair spent the entire convention handing out flyers and having to say ”no, not yet, but we hope you should be able to download it soon”. By mid-December, Fred had found a new webmaster, and the shopping cart was up and running. And then the flood of downloads came pouring in. If by ”flood”, you mean ”two”. 2005
In 2005 Shelley released Version 2. This included new LED manufacturers and Shelley’s Section Collection.
2006 As 2006 came to an end, Field Template and SoftPlot came to an agreement. Shelley provided Bill Kirby with exported symbols, which Bill then included in SoftPlot 9. Shelley reviewed all of the manufacturers that Bill had requested, in order to be sure that the symbols were accurate and up to date. 2007 SoftPlot 9 was released at the 2007 USITT convention in Phoenix. Shelley then realized that he had updated over half the libraries. He decided to continue the updating process. Then he added a bunch more. Then Sam Jones wrote the Data Conversion Macros. That fall Shelley and Fred traveled to PLASA in London to release Version 3. Boy, the dollar was weak. The boys ran through money like water. But the software was a hit, and is selling very well.
2008 SoftSymbols™ are designed by Steve Shelley, and distributed on this fine web site. Contact
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SoftSymbols™.
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