Common-Sense is one of those products that you don't need every day, but when you do - it's the only solution! As the name suggests, it is a common point for sensors and interfaces in the world of show control and systems integration.

It provides a wealth of input and output functions including opto-isolated contacts, keypad readers, analogue sensors, real time clock, DMX512, MIDI, MIDI Timecode, RS232 and RS485. A Windows software package, Sense-Edit is used to configure the relationship between all of the inputs and outputs. This can include up to 350 discrete events such as: ‘When DMX channel 3 passes 50% send this serial data string"

Common-Sense has recently been extended to provide even more functionality. The optical inputs can now be combined using Boolean equations to provide even greater triggering sophistication. This new feature is particularly useful when interfacing to devices such as ‘beam break' sensors. It allows concepts such as: "Trigger show 3 when someone enters zone 3, but only if zone 1 is empty".

Common-Sense was recently used by AC Lighting for the Portsmouth Spinnaker Tower project. An anemometer was used to feed wind speed data to Common-Sense. Common-Sense then triggers different shows on the lighting controller by sending MIDI Show Control commands. Find out more about the Spinnaker Tower here.

The programming software Sense-Edit can be downloaded from the Artistic Licence web site. Sense-Edit can also be run on Mac OS using the Windows emulator.