LED Edit 2014 software Tutorial Pixel LED Programming: Complete Guide

Due to its functionality and ease of use, LED Edit 2014 software is a popular software among LED panels or Pixel LED programmers. However, English-based tutorials for the LED Edit 2014 program are difficult to come across for novices. In this post, my goal is to fulfill that criterion.

Please click here to get the LED Edit 2014 software if you don’t already have it installed on your computer. As you may be aware, there are several versions of this program available, but they all have the same interface and functions. The “LED EDIT” and “LED EDIT-K” software versions are the two primary variants of this program. LED EDIT-K software versions have expiration dates, therefore if you’re using an older version of the program, you’ll need to alter your PC’s system date to match the dates that the software is good for. If you don’t, you’ll get this error.

To fix this, change the system date as below 

• For LedEdit-K 2016: Change the system date between 2016/Jan – 2017/May
• For LedEdit-K 2017: Change the system date between 2017/Jan – 2018/May

Note : This Tutorial is for “LED Edit” software versions not for “LED Edit-K” software versions.

Starting a New LED Edit 2014 software Project

In the software, interface click on “File” and choose “New Project” from the drop-down list.

As you can see, there are a few common controllers in the “Regular Use of Controller” column. If your LED Edit 2014 controller is listed, choose it. If your controller is not on that list click on “Select Controller” button.

Select a controller in the “Select Controller” window. Expand the lists by clicking on the “+” signs and scrolling with the scroll bar to find your controller’s name. The controller label is made up of two parts: the controller name and the LED chip name. For example, in the above image, I’ve selected “T1000-B-WS2811” since I have a “T1000-B” controller and I’m about to drive Pixel LEDs using a WS2811 RGB Drive chip. Choose X-Y if your controller is called “X” and your LED is powered by an IC named “Y“, I hope you understand what I’m saying.

In the “Regular usage of Controller” list, you should see your controller and LED controller chip name. Select your controller from that list. The basic controller settings will appear on the left side of the window as soon as you pick your LED controller. You have the option to alter them (available settings will be different from controller to controller ), In the image above:

1. Selected controller from the “Regular use of Controller” list.
2. Controller Type + LED Drive Chip name.
3. Controller Supported LED Controller Chip Type.
4. Port numbers available in the controller (In this case  “T1000-B-WS2811” Controller only has one Port.
5. And the maximum LED’s that can be driven by that Port is 2048.
6. LED data transfer speed.
7. LED data PWM Polarity (Positive or Negative – read your LED Dive chip Datasheet before selecting this).
8. Animation / Movie data frame rate (Frames per second ).
9. Data Sequence In this case (Red, Green, Blue – please read your LED Dive chip Datasheet before selecting this).

Click on Browse and select a path to save the project file. After that click on “OK“.

Setting LED Layout in LED Edit 2014

We discussed picking the controller and its basic settings in the previous stage. We must inform the controller how we will connect our LEDs, the number of LEDs in the display, and the layout in order for it to relay data ( The design we get when we place our LEDs). Layouts may be divided into two categories.

1. Regular layouts (square, rectangle, Circle, Line)
2. Irregular layouts (other Shapes, Text, custom shapes)

Irregular layouts will be covered in a later tutorial. where I’ll show you how to make irregular layouts with LED Edit 2014 layout builder and how to design bespoke layouts with CorelDraw and AutoCad.

To keep this lesson simple, we’ll utilize the Auto layout generator option to generate a normal layout, I’ll demonstrate how to create a 32×64 (HxW) LED panel (rectangular) arrangement.

On the top-right of the LED Edit 2014 software window, click the purple Gear Icon, The Auto layout generator window will appear as a result of this.

In the text area in front of the “Horizontal Pixels” label, type the number of LEDs in the horizontal or width of your LED panel, and the number of LEDs in the vertical or height of your LED panel in the text field in front of the “vertical Pixels” label.

In the text section next to the Max Number of Lights per each port, type the maximum number of LEDs you’ll use in each port. It’s 32×64 = 2048 in this scenario.

Choose the pattern you’ll use to connect the LEDs (if you don’t match the actual pattern you built, you’ll end up with an upside-down, right-side-left, or screen distortion effect when you program it). So make sure you choose the technique you’ll use to connect it. To complete, click “OK“, The layout you just created will appear as shown below.

The Program tab now has “Program 1” added to it. Using the “Add” button below, give the program a name and click “OK” to add as many programs as you want. You’ll be able to conduct various animations under different program titles as a result of this. For various programs, use different labels. Repeatedly using the same label is not a good idea.

Select the program from the list that you want to record video or animation.

Recording a Video or an Animation

LED Edit 2014 software is taking a movie or animation that has already been played and editing it to achieve the desired result.

Click On “Video Effect” in the top main bar. First, use the first 3 options to open a file or use other options to select a predefined simple animation effect.

1. Video (avi,swf,wmv,mpeg,mpg)
2. Open swf (swf Animation)
3. Open tol (tol Animation file)

I’m going to open an SWF animation from my PC, then I go to the drop-down list and pick “Open Swf” or “Open video” and select my file.

You’ve now chosen your animation or video file. Now you’ll see that the Animation or video you choose is playing in both the player and your LED layout window. If you need to capture video in slow mode, go to “Project Config” and pick “Frame Rate“, then set a low frame rate and click “OK“, If you need to halt the animation, click the “Stop” button. If you need to record something on your monitor, use the “Screen record” option.

It’s now time to begin recording the video. As the video played, click “Start Recording” just before the first frame you want to record, then wait until it gets to the point where you want to end the recording. Once that frame has passed in the player, click Stop. To stop the animation from playing, click “Stop“.

To see what we had captured, click on “Edit preview” button in the top right corner if it’s disabled click on “close video Effect” button.

The animation is now being played in the lead layout, and the time slider in the top left corner is moving in sync with the animation.

Edit Mode

The Edit mode’s aim is to remove and add frames from the video we’ve taken in order to generate the animation or video result we want.

• Play button: Play the captured video after it’s been paused.
• Pause: Pause the captured after it’s being played.
• Next Frame: To move to the next frame in the frame slide.
• Previous Frame: To move to the previous frame in the frame slide.
• Frame slider: Can be used to select the frames that you want to edit and view each frame.
• Player Time Slider: Can be used to view the specific location of the Animation or video by Grabbing and moving it left to right.

Let’s go over a few frames and make some changes. I’ll erase the first 20 frames of this animation as an example, then copy the frame range from 30 to 60 and paste it at the start. We’re in the editing stage.

Pause the animation (if it’s playing ) by clicking on the pause button.

To remove the frames, go to the top main bar and select “Edit Preview” from the drop-down menu. It will open the window for deleting frames.

Unfortunately, this sub-window is only available in Chinese. For your convenience, I’ve translated the contents of the window. Type the Start Frame number in the text area next to the “start Frame” label that you want to remove, and the End Frame number in the text field next to the “End Frame” label that you want to delete. You may utilize the “First frame” and “Last frame” buttons to choose the first and last frames in the animation, respectively. These two buttons are useful for erasing a complete animation. To confirm the action, click “OK“.

To duplicate a group of frames, go to the top main bar and select “Edit Preview” from the drop-down menu. It will open “copy” frames window for you. In the text area in front of the “start Frame” label, type the Start Frame number, and in the text field in front of the “End Frame” label, type the End Frame number. To confirm the action, click “OK“.

To paste, go to the top main bar and select “Edit Preview“, then “paste” from the drop-down menu. Give the frame location you wish to paste the frames you copied earlier in the paste Frame window, then click “OK“.

The Project’s Export

It’s now time to save the animation or movie, as well as the controller settings, to an SD memory card, Place your memory card in your card reader (if you don’t already have one, get one), They’re inexpensive, and you can utilize the built-in card reader on your laptop to do so. Make your SD card “Fat32” formatted.

If you are in “Edit /Preview” mode exit that by clicking on “Exit Edit /Preview” button. Now go and click on “Export” in the top menu bar.

1. Export the .led file (This is what we going to put on the SD card)
2. create a “readme.txt” file.
3. To Export your video in “.Swf” format.
4. To Export your video in “.AVI” format.
5. To Export your LED layout in “.DXF” format.
6. To Export your LED layout in “.BMP” format.
7. To create your video in to “.BIN” file.

If you have not programmed Led programs in the program list, Delete them before the next step. Use the delete button at the bottom.

Select “Export Effect(.led)” as the first option. This will open the Effect Configuration window. You may use this window to lower each R, G, and B channel and fix gamma (if your LEDs have wrong gamma effects). Check your LED Driver IC datasheet for “RGB seq” In the text area next to “Program Code” type a number between 00 and 16. (you can choose a different number for each program). “OK” should be selected.

Select the path to store yours. led file in the “Browse For Folder” window. Keep in mind that every time you do this, the application will remove the “led” folder and its contents and replace it with a new one. As a result, if you are participating in many programs, Export the “.led” files to various directories on your hard drive. The SD Card format type and file location should be found in your controller’s documentation.

The setting for T1000s Controller

Project settings:

If you have less than 512 LEDs use 30 as the frame rate ( Which will give you smooth transitions) if now use 20 as the frame rate.

Export settings:

Play with gamma correction values until you get the result you are satisfied with your LED colors, If one color is brighter than the other use brightness correction bars.

Use 0 to 16 for each program (maximum number of supported program files is 16), SD card should be formatted with fat 32.

copy and paste the program files to the root of the SD card and name them as below.

That’s all there is to it. As you can see, each controller has its unique set of requirements. It is critical that you read the user handbook before programming the controller.