Add General Device Type Format (GDTF) Plugin

[fxedel]

The GDTF is a cooperation by Vectorworks, MA Lighting and Robe to create a common open fixture format. It remains to be seen if this format actually becomes an industry standard, but we should create a plugin for it.

There's an open wiki for documentation / specification of the format, so we don't have to reverse-engineer something. The XSD schema is also publicly available.

• import plugin GDTF import plugin #592
• export plugin (will be difficult!)

[janosvitok]

Actual fixture files to download appeared on the page now.

[guyfawcus]

Last month, the General Device Type Format (GDTF) was officially recognised as a DIN standard:

• Press release
• DIN SPEC 15800:2020-07

I thought this was going to just be one of 'those situations' but it looks pretty certain that this will be the format going forward.

Obviously it's going to take a while for this to be adopted everywhere but I think this project is in a great place to help the transition. If the export plugin existed this could be the way to move from a different format to GDTF.

P.S. I know this is easier said than done but I'm willing to help out. I've only just started looking around this codebase though and plan on starting out by writing some plugins for the low-hanging fruit clear text formats. Hopefully I can be of some use shortly!

[FloEdelmann]

@guyfawcus Thanks for the update on GDTF's development. It does indeed seem like it's going to be the universal fixture format in the future.

However, the Open Fixture Library will still be useful for the transition from other formats, and for software that doesn't (and maybe will never) support GDTF.

Starting to play around with some clear text export plugins seems like a good idea; the GDTF format is complicated! (Just look at the GDTF import plugin's code, and we don't even support all of GDTF's features.)

If you need help, feel free to open a draft pull request to discuss specific topics there!

[Firionus]

Hey,

just wanted to say that I recently updated the GDTF XSD schema to GDTF 1.1 (DIN 15800:2020-07) and it is now part of the official repo (https://github.com/mvrdevelopment/spec). I've also started a PR to add some additional validation via Schematron. Let's see how that goes.

If someone wants to start working on a GDTF plugin, I'd be willing to contribute. But it's not a priority for me right now and I'd rather wait until the GDTF 1.2 release, hoping for some improvements to standard clarity and validation before attempting to write a plugin.

As a side note: GDTF 1.1 is not backwards-compatible to GDTF 1.0. So you'd have to keep around separate import/export plugins for each GDTF version if you want to do it correctly. But the changes weren't too big, so maybe one could get away with sharing some code (see Changelog: https://gdtf-share.com/forum/index.php?/topic/351-gdtf-11-din-spec-15800/)

[fgiering]

export fo gdtf would be very helpful!