What is PIXMAP?

PIXMAP is a professional desktop application for designing, planning, and exporting LED pixel mapping layouts. It gives LED technicians, AV engineers, and production designers a dedicated visual environment to define how LED panels are physically arranged, configured, and indexed, before any hardware is installed on site.

Modern LED installations involve dozens or hundreds of individual panel modules arranged across screens, trusses, stage floors, and architectural surfaces. Each module has a specific position, pixel count, and signal assignment. Planning this structure accurately, and in advance, is what separates a smooth installation from an expensive, time-consuming problem discovered on the day.

PIXMAP solves this by replacing guesswork, spreadsheets, and generic design tools with a single purpose-built workspace that understands the language of LED pixel mapping.

Who Is PIXMAP Designed For?

Application Interface Overview

PIXMAP is organized into five distinct interface zones. Each zone has a specific role, and together they provide a complete pixel mapping design environment. New users should familiarize themselves with these zones before beginning a project.

Interface Component Breakdown

The following subsections provide detailed explanations of each interface component, what it does, where it lives in the application, and how it fits into the LED mapping workflow.

Project Setup Wizard

Every PIXMAP session begins with the Project Setup Wizard. This dialog appears automatically when creating a new project and collects the foundational parameters that define the scale, resolution, and hardware context of the entire canvas. All downstream measurements, pixel counts, and panel calculations are derived from the values entered here.

Canvas Workspace

The canvas is the central viewport of PIXMAP and the primary design environment for LED layout work. It is an infinite, pannable, and zoomable workspace where LED surfaces, masks, and reference images are placed and spatially arranged.

The canvas reflects the physical space of the LED installation. Surfaces are positioned relative to one another in the same way physical LED panels would appear on a stage or wall.

Layers Panel

The layers panel is located on the left side of the interface and provides a complete, hierarchical list of every object in the project. As surfaces, groups, masks, and imported assets are added to the canvas, they appear here as named entries that can be individually managed.

Properties Panel

The properties panel is located on the right side of the interface. When an LED surface is selected on the canvas, this panel populates with all configurable settings for that object. Properties are updated in real time, changes are immediately reflected on the canvas.

LED Surfaces

An LED surface is the primary object type in PIXMAP. Each surface represents a physical LED panel array, a defined grid of LED modules that together form a single display region. Surfaces are the building blocks of every pixel mapping project.

Projects can contain any number of surfaces. This allows multi-zone configurations, a center screen, side wings, floor tiles, and ceiling rigs, to all coexist within a single project file and be exported together in one operation.

Panel Grid Editing

By default, an LED surface is a complete rectangular grid where every cell in the row × column matrix is filled with an active panel. In physical installations, however, panels are frequently missing from the grid, removed to accommodate structural columns, rigging hardware, architectural features, or design intent.

Panel grid editing mode allows users to individually select and remove panel cells from a surface. Each cell can be toggled independently, active or inactive, allowing the surface grid to accurately represent a real, irregular LED array rather than an idealized rectangle.

Surface Styling

Visual styling controls in PIXMAP determine how surfaces appear on the canvas. These settings are for planning clarity only, they affect the visual representation of the surface during design but do not influence the pixel mapping output data.

Applying distinct colors to adjacent surfaces significantly improves readability on complex, multi-zone canvases. The One-Click Color Shifter automates this process by instantly assigning a visually distinct color palette across all surfaces.

Mask Shapes

Masks are shapes applied on top of LED surfaces to define non-rectangular active display areas. In live production and event design, LED displays are frequently circular, triangular, hexagonal, or entirely custom in form. PIXMAP's masking system allows these shapes to be precisely defined and included in all export outputs.

Only the pixels within the mask boundary are included in the pixel mapping output. Pixels outside the mask are excluded from indexing and from signal assignment.

Custom Shape Tool

The custom shape tool allows users to draw freeform polygon masks directly on the canvas using a point-by-point drawing method. It is the most flexible masking option and supports any closed shape that a specific LED installation might require.

Drawing a Custom Polygon Mask

1. Select the Custom Shape tool from the toolbar or mask type menu.
2. Click on the canvas to place the first anchor point of the shape.
3. Continue clicking to place additional anchor points around the mask perimeter.
4. Click on the first anchor point to close the polygon and complete the mask shape.
5. The completed mask is applied to the LED surface beneath it.

Canvas Tools

In addition to surface and mask editing, PIXMAP provides auxiliary canvas tools that improve layout accuracy, assist with navigation, and help prepare the workspace for export.

Workflow Illustration

The following walkthrough demonstrates a complete PIXMAP project, from initial setup through to final export. Each step includes an animated demonstration and an explanation of what is happening and why it matters in the broader LED mapping workflow.

Follow these steps in order when starting your first project. Once familiar with the workflow, individual steps can be referenced independently as needed.

Advanced Output — Slicing for Video Processors

Advanced Output is where a finished pixel map becomes real, deliverable video-processor outputs. Once the physical LED layout has been designed on the canvas, Advanced Output lets you cut that layout into slices and arrange them onto one or more output screens — exactly the way a media server such as Resolume Arena maps a composition onto its outputs. Each slice defines which part of the content it takes (its input) and where that content is placed on the processor (its output).

The workflow mirrors the professional input / output model used across the industry: a single composition is sampled by many slices, and each slice is transformed independently onto the output canvas. This is what makes irregular walls, split screens, wings, floors and ceilings all driveable from standard rectangular processor outputs.

How It Works

Advanced Output sits between the design canvas and the physical hardware. The full designed canvas becomes the composition — the source picture. You then add one or more screens, where each screen represents a single video processor or output device with its own pixel resolution. Finally you cut the composition into slices, and each slice carries two rectangles: an input rectangle (the region of the composition it samples) and an output rectangle (its position, size and rotation on the screen).

Screens & Processors

Screens are managed from the list on the left of the Advanced Output workspace. Each screen is treated as one processor output — add a screen for every physical processor in the rig, set its resolution, and assign slices to it. A default reference screen mirrors the composition so you always have a starting point; additional screens are created as needed for multi-processor installations.

Input Selection

The Input Selection tab defines what each slice takes from the composition. Here the composition is shown as the source picture, and each slice is a rectangle laid over it. Move and size that rectangle to choose the exact region of content the slice will carry to its output — identical in purpose to the Input rectangle in Resolume's Advanced Output.

Output Transformation

The Output Transformation tab defines where each slice lands on the physical output. Switch to this tab to position, scale, rotate and flip every slice onto the selected screen's canvas. What you arrange here is exactly what the video processor sends to the LED wall — the same role as the Output rectangle in Resolume.

Slices & Splitting

Slices are created from the surfaces you designed on the canvas, and can be divided further to match how the content is distributed across processors and ports. A slice can be split into Left / Right or Top / Bottom halves, either automatically (an even 50 / 50 cut) or with a custom tile count on each side. Aspect-ratio lock keeps proportions correct while resizing.

Resolume XML — Import & Export

Advanced Output speaks the same screen-setup format as Resolume Arena and Avenue. Export XML writes every slice — its input crop, output position, size and rotation — as a Resolume screen setup that can be loaded directly into the media server. Import XML brings an existing Resolume setup back into PIXMAP so an already-built show can be documented and wired.

Using Advanced Output — Step by Step

A typical Advanced Output pass follows the same order every time: design first, then slice, then arrange, then deliver.

1. Open Advanced Output from a completed pixel-map project. The designed canvas becomes the composition.
2. Add a screen for each physical video processor and set its output resolution.
3. On Input Selection, position each slice's input rectangle over the region of the composition it should show.
4. Switch to Output Transformation and place, scale, rotate and flip each slice onto the screen so it matches the real output.
5. Split slices Left / Right or Top / Bottom where a wall spans multiple processor ports.
6. Export — save a PNG map of the screen and/or Export XML into Resolume, then continue to LED Wiring for cabling and power.

What's New in PIXMAP 2.1 — The Playback Update

Version 2.1 turns the patch into something you can play. Until now PIXMAP described the wall: panels, pixels, slices and exports. From 2.1 the same project can carry real show content, decode HAP and DXV files on the graphics card, publish and receive NDI® on the network, and send every output screen to a physical display — all from the Advanced Output workspace. The patch editor also gains live Design Checks, a Symmetry assistant with mirror copies, and a one-click Colour Scheme.

Visualize — Play Real Content on the Patch

Visualize is the third tab of Advanced Output, next to Input Selection and Output Transformation. It takes the composition you have already sliced and lets you load real content onto it. The content is placed on the composition once; every slice is then a window that cuts its own part out of that content, exactly the way a media server maps a composition onto its outputs. Nothing is re-mapped: whatever you see in a slice is what that slice will carry to the processor.

Visualize — a HAP colour-bar test loop on the composition, cut by every slice; the Screen Wall below shows what each processor receives

Loading Content

Click Load Content in the left panel, or drag an image or video straight onto the composition. PIXMAP accepts images, H.264 MP4, and HAP / DXV .mov files. The panel shows the file name, its native size against the patch size, and, for HAP and DXV, a live decode readout. Replace swaps the clip; the bin icon clears it.

Content panel

Patch content on top, then the NDI® source picker, the Transform rows, and the per-slice content list.

Settings

Auto Size, magnet snapping while dragging content, and the preview resolution of the composition view.

Auto Size and Transform

Auto Size decides how the content fits the composition:

The Transform rows act like a clip transform on a media server: X, Y, Scale, Rotation and Opacity. Every row is a scrub row — drag to change, click to type. The content can also be dragged on the composition with the mouse; Snap magnets it to slice edges. Reset returns the clip to its Auto Size position. All views, screens and outputs follow the transform instantly.

Content per Slice

Besides the patch content, each slice can carry its own clip. Click the film icon on a slice in the Slice Content list to load a file for that slice alone — for example a logo loop on a DJ riser while the main loop plays on everything else. A slice with its own content ignores the patch content; clearing it returns the slice to the shared composition.

The Screen Wall

Below the composition, the Screen Wall shows one tile per output screen. Each tile is exactly what that processor will receive: the screen's slices, at the screen's resolution, cut from the running content. The tile also holds the controls that send the screen out of the computer.

Screen tile

Live preview, the status line ("Ready · sending 1920×1080"), the display picker, Go Live, Send as NDI®, and the screen's own Auto Size and 4K buttons.

Tile buttons

Off / Fill / Fit / Stretch / 4K

Each screen can fit its slices differently from the composition. 4K (Send as 4K) fits the whole screen into a 3840 × 2160 output, for LED controllers that take a single 4K input.

Sending a Screen to a Display

Choose the physical display or processor input from the drop-down on the tile, then click Go Live. PIXMAP opens a fullscreen output window on that display and renders the screen's slices into it at native resolution. The status line turns to LIVE · sending 3840×2160. Click again to stop. Several screens can be live at once on different displays. A display that is already used by another screen is marked "(in use)".

Patch Animation

Without any content loaded, Patch Animation sweeps a bar across all slices — Horizontal, Vertical, Radial or Circular, with a colour and width you choose. It plays live on every screen and display, so on site you can confirm slice order, orientation and seams before any content arrives. Stop ends the sweep.

A horizontal sweep crossing the composition — every slice shows its part at the same moment

Exports from Visualize

Export panel

The buttons act on the selected screen; the MP4 renders the whole patch.

Outputs

PNG · PNGs · MP4

Screen PNG saves the selected screen with its content. Slice PNGs saves one file per slice. All output screens PNG saves every screen at once. MP4 renders ten seconds of the patch animation at the full patch resolution.

HAP & DXV Playback

Show content for LED walls is almost always delivered as HAP or DXV: codecs whose frames are stored as GPU textures so that huge resolutions play without a CPU decoder. PIXMAP 2.1 plays these files the same way a media server does. Frames are read straight from disk by background workers, the texture is sent to the graphics card as-is, and the GPU decodes it. There is no transcode, no proxy, and no 4096-pixel limit from a hardware video decoder — a 12K-wide loop plays at its native size.

Decode readout

HAP · GPU · 30 fps · decode … · read … · file. decode and read are per-frame times inside the workers; late counts frames shown behind the clock; catch-ups counts clock resyncs after a stall.

How it plays

Read → decode → GPU

Several worker threads read frames ahead of the clock and unpack them in parallel. A late frame is dropped, never slows the clock. If decoding starves for more than 120 ms the clock resyncs to the newest frame instead of freezing.

NDI® In and Out

NDI® lets video travel over the normal network. In 2.1 the patch can be both a receiver and a sender. PIXMAP uses the NDI runtime installed by the free NDI Tools from ndi.video (Windows and macOS); install it once and restart PIXMAP, and the NDI controls appear. Without the runtime the controls stay hidden.

NDI® In — a Live Source as Patch Content

In the Visualize content panel click NDI® source. PIXMAP lists every NDI source it can see on the network — a media server, a playback laptop, a camera, a graphics machine. Pick one and it becomes the patch content: it is cut by every slice, shown on every Screen Wall tile and sent to every live display, exactly like a file. Auto Size and Transform work the same way.

The NDI® source list — here the machine's own two PIXMAP senders are visible as a loop-back test; sources are listed as machine (source name)

NDI® Out — Publish a Screen or the Whole Patch

On any Screen Wall tile, Send as NDI® publishes that output screen as an NDI source named PIXMAP · <screen name>, at the screen's resolution. The button shows the live frame rate while sending; click again to stop. In the Screen Wall header, Send patch as NDI® publishes the entire composition as one source called PIXMAP · Patch — handy for a media server, a preview monitor, or a second PIXMAP on another machine.

Send patch as NDI® while active: the frame rate and size are shown on the button

NDI® is a registered trademark of Vizrt NDI AB · ndi.video

Design Checks & Symmetry Assistant

Two buttons at the top right of the patch editor report on the design while you draw: Checks and Symmetry. Both open the same panel with two tabs.

Design Checks

Each finding says what it is and what to do. Current checks: mixed pitch (content scales differently per pitch), canvas beyond one 4K input (how many processor inputs to plan for), and screens that sit off the centre line. The button reads "Checks OK" when there is nothing to report.

Symmetry

A score for the whole patch, the mirror axis (screens centre or canvas centre), and every pair: centred, perfect mirror, or off by how much. Select jumps to the screens.

Mirror Copies and Live Symmetry

Select a surface and use the two mirror buttons in the properties header to create its partner across the canvas centre: ⟷ mirrors left / right, ↕ mirrors top / bottom. The copy gets the mirrored name automatically (LEFT WING → RIGHT WING, L1 → R1) and the pair is remembered.

Duplicate, mirror left/right, mirror top/bottom, delete

Live Symmetry (the mirror icon in the left toolbar) keeps every pair in sync: move, resize, change the layout or pitch of one side and its partner follows across the centre. The Symmetry score updates as you work. With Live Symmetry off, pairs stay paired but edit independently.

Live Symmetry on — the dotted centre line is the mirror axis; the selected LEFT WING drives RIGHT WING

Colour Scheme

The Colour Scheme button in the left toolbar recolours the whole project in one click. Pick a palette and every surface takes a colour in order from left to right; mirror pairs share a colour so left and right read as a pair on the pixel map. The scheme flows through to Advanced Output, the live displays and every export, and Ctrl+Z undoes the whole change.

Palette · Pattern · Tint

Seven palettes (Rainbow, Vivid, Pastel, Neon, Warm, Cool, Mono); 2-colour, 3-colour, column, row or solid checker patterns; hue and brightness tint applied on top.

Result in Advanced Output

The same colours carry into the slices, so a processor's output map stays readable against the patch.

Also in 2.1

Best Practices

The following recommendations reflect production-tested habits that improve accuracy, reduce rework, and produce reliable output files across a wide range of LED installations.

• 🏷
  Name every surface with a clear, descriptive label Use names that communicate the physical role of the surface,"Main Screen," "Stage Left Wing," "Floor Riser 1." Generic names like "Surface 3" cause confusion during installation and when reviewing exported files with crew members.
• 📁
  Group related surfaces into named layer groups On installations with many surfaces, organize related zones into groups in the layers panel. Grouping all floor tiles, all wing panels, or all truss rigs together significantly speeds up navigation and reduces accidental edits.
• ✅
  Verify all panel configurations before exporting Before generating export files, review each surface in the layers panel and confirm that panel counts, pixel dimensions, and pitch values match the hardware specification. Errors at this level produce incorrect patch data that only becomes apparent during installation.
• 🖼
  Run Fit Canvas to Content before every export Use this tool immediately before exporting. It confirms that all surfaces are within the visible canvas viewport and that nothing has accidentally drifted off-screen. This is a fast, reliable final check before committing to an export.
• 🎨
  Apply distinct color coding to all surfaces Use the One-Click Color Shifter or manually assign distinct colors so that no two adjacent surfaces share a similar hue. Strong visual differentiation makes the canvas easier to read, faster to navigate, and clearer when used as a printed on-site reference.
• 📐
  Use reference imagery to guide surface placement When designing for a specific venue or stage, import a floor plan, logo, or architectural schematic as a canvas guide layer. Aligning surfaces to a real reference removes spatial guesswork and ensures the digital layout accurately reflects the physical space.
• 💾
  Download all export formats in a single operation Select Mask Only, Patch Only, and Mask with Patch simultaneously and export them all at once. Having every format available prevents the need to reopen and re-export the project if a different output type is requested later in the production process.