From an MVR to moving-light gobos

Updated 8 October 2026

Most of a gobo order is geometry you already drew in your plot. Gobo Designer can read that geometry from an MVR file, work with moving lights as well as conventional profiles, and print a focus card so the rig is set up the way the artwork assumes.

Opening an MVR scene

MVR is the scene file that Vectorworks, grandMA and Capture can all export. In Gobo Designer, choose Open an MVR scene and pick the file. It is read in your browser and nothing is uploaded. You pick up to four fixtures from it, and it brings in:

• their positions, focus points and rigging position names;
• their fixture types, matched to the library or, where there is no match, made from the GDTF inside the file;
• for moving lights, the pan and tilt travel and the yoke, read from the GDTF.

Surfaces can be taken from the 3D set: walls, flats, floors and ramps. The default is the surface that fixture A's beam reaches first. If the scene has no suitable scenery you can work through the focus points instead. Check the result against your plot before you rely on it.

Curved and folded surfaces

A surface does not have to be flat. In the Surface tab set Shape to Curved for a concave cyc or curved flat, or a convex column, or to Folded for an inside or outside corner, a wall with the floor in front, or steps. On a flat wall the Add a surface buttons add a corner on either side or a floor in front in one click, keeping the image where it is. A curve has a Rotation (which way it faces) and a Lean for a raked cyc, which tips it back about its bottom edge; a folded surface can also start from a tilted plane. Positions on them are measured along the surface, around the curve or across the fold, so the sizes on the focus card are what a tape laid on the set reads. If the image should look flat from one seat instead, switch on seat correction in the Content tab: it works on curves and folds too.

From an MVR file, after choosing a surface from the set, tick the faces that share an edge with it (the flat beside it, the floor in front) to make one folded surface. The app warns when part of the image would fall on a face turned away from the fixture, or in the shadow of a corner. A maker's keystone form (throw and offsets) only describes a flat surface, so for these the drawing itself carries the correction.

Seeing what will be sharp

A lens is sharp at one depth along its beam, not at one distance from the lens, so a wall lit square-on is in focus all over, while a raked throw, a curve or a fold puts parts of the image nearer or farther than the rest. When that spread is too wide the app warns. Tick Focus above the surface view (flat or 3D) to see it: the beam is shaded green where the gobo is sharp, amber where it softens and red where it blurs, with a white line where it is pin-sharp. The Focused at slider starts in the middle, which keeps both ends equally soft (splitting the difference on the night); drag it to see what focusing on one part does to the rest. With several fixtures it shows the selected one, since each is focused on its own. Depth of field (lens aperture, iris) is not modelled, so treat it as a guide.

Several fixtures, one image

With more than one fixture picked, each gets its own gobo, worked out so the images land on top of each other. Linked focus keeps them together: re-aim one fixture and the others follow, or use "Aim every fixture at A's focus". Each sheet for the maker says which fixture it belongs to.

Moving lights and custom gobos

The library holds 84 fixtures. 32 are conventional profiles, including the ETC Source Four family and ColorSource Spot, Robert Juliat, Selecon SPX and Pacific, Strand SL, Chauvet Ovation, Martin ELP, Prolights and Arri Orbiter projection optics. The other 52 are moving lights with custom-gobo slots, from Robe, Martin, Vari-Lite, ETC and High End, Ayrton, Chauvet, Elation and Clay Paky, with their gobo sizes and zoom ranges. As ever, check the holder and wheel against your own rig before you order.

For a moving light, Gobo Designer also gives the pan and tilt DMX values (16-bit coarse and fine, and as a percentage) to hit the target, for any mounting: hung, standing, on a wall or on a boom. It shows each fixture's travel and direction, and says when a target is out of reach.

Pan and tilt direction is not standardised across makers. Before you trust the numbers, set the fixture to 50% pan and 50% tilt and check that it points where the app says it should.

The focus card

The focus card is one A4 or Letter page per fixture, to print and take to the rig. It shows:

• how the gobo goes in: seen from the lamp, top of the barrel up, and when to turn it if the fixture is rolled;
• where to aim, and the beam size to zoom to;
• tape-measure positions for the image's corners and centre, measured from the surface origin;
• straight-line distances for a laser measure;
• a focus checklist, and for moving lights the pan and tilt DMX.

Sharing a project

A project can be shared as a link. The project travels inside the link after the #, which the browser does not send to a server, so nothing is uploaded. Whoever opens the link is asked before it replaces their own work.

What the maker needs

None of this changes the artwork you send: PDF, SVG or DXF at 1:1, with the keystone figures if the maker wants them. See keystone correction and preparing artwork. No maker publishes minimum line sizes, so the maker presets use the same cautious defaults; put your maker's own figure in the Finest line override. Open Gobo Designer to try it.