The ArtNetominator

General Indicators

When an indicator is green, that means there’s some activity. When it’s blank, there’s nothing to see. The more intense the green is, the higher the activity level is.

Network

The default ArtNet port 6454 is selected by default. You can change it to any port you want in case you’re using a custom ArtNet installation. The network adapter (or network card) box lets you select the adapter you want to use if you have multiple. For example, most laptops have a wireless and a LAN network adapter.

The IP address of your network adapters are displayed for your convenience. Note that although the ArtNet specification asks for IP addresses from the 2.X.X.X range, in practice you can use any IP you want. In a local network, it is common to use addresses in the 192.168.1.X range. In all cases, giving fixed IP addresses to your computers is a good idea.

Setting a Fixed IP

To configure your computer to use a fixed IP address under Windows, open the Control Panel and select Network Connections, then right-click on the desired network adapter and click Properties. Select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click Properties. You can then choose “Use the following IP address” and enter the address you want (for example, 2.0.0.10 or 192.168.1.101).

Net and ArtSync

Each ArtNet net contains 256 universes. The ArtNetominator lets you monitor all nets and can handle receiving thousands of universes without crashing like Wireshark.

Special ArtSync packets are sent by consoles to synchronize the outputs of all nodes. You can see whether ArtSync packets are being received by looking at the ArtSync indicator next to the net selection.

Subnets

The ArtNetominator monitors activity on all 16 subnets of the selected Net. Hover with the mouse to see the number of packets/s. Click on a subnet to select it and see in more detail the activity in its 16 universes.

Universes

Here you see the detected activity in the 16 universes of the selected subnet. A merge indicator lets you know when multiple nodes are outputting to the same universe. Hover with the mouse to see the number of packets/s. Click on a universe to select it and see the corresponding DMX data.

Nodes

Detected nodes appear in this list automatically. You can force a refresh by clicking the refresh button. A node can be a lighting console, a computer running an ArtNet application, an ArtNet-to-DMX converter, or any other device receiving or sending ArtNet data. Usually all nodes have a unique IP — however, multiple ArtNet applications on the same computer will appear as a single node.

Under the node’s name and IP, you see which universes the node is outputting to. Click on a universe to isolate the DMX data from that node only — useful when multiple nodes are sending to the same universe.

DMX Data

This monitor shows the current DMX values of the selected universe. Hover with the mouse to see the exact value from 0 to 255. Click on a channel to select it and view its history.

DMX Channel History

You can see the DMX values of the selected channel from the last couple of seconds. This is very useful to check whether values are smooth, without unwanted jittering or erratic changes.