What Beam Dreams is.

Beam Dreams is compliance software for people who put lasers in the air for a living: show companies that hold an FDA variance, the safety officers who sign for them, and the operators and techs on site. It keeps the records a laser show has to keep, drafts the paperwork those records feed, and tells you when every notice is due.

It is not a laser control system. It never talks to a projector, never fires a beam, and never replaces the judgment of a laser safety officer. Think of it as the prompt book for the compliance side of the show.

Who it's for

• Variance holders. The company that owns the inventory, the variance, the shows and the annual report. Admins manage people, lasers, the variance and the filings.
• Laser safety officers. Everything an operator can do, plus signing zone checks and the pre-show checklist. Only the show's assigned safety officer can sign.
• Operators and techs. Place lasers, photograph zones and labels, log power readings, report issues — on an iPhone, with no signal, in the field.
• Freelancers. One login can belong to several companies. Your own credentials, like a New York operator certificate, live on your profile and follow you to any show you crew.
• Venues, clients, inspectors. Read-only access to a show by invitation, so they can see the paperwork without touching it.

What it does

Inventory

Laser models carry the shared specs and documents; each physical unit inherits them and can override what's different about it. Class in both FDA and IEC systems, accession and variance numbers, manufacture date, scan-fail protection, manual reset and remote interlock, and the control patch: FB4 serial, or DMX / Art-Net universe and address. Rentals and borrowed units fit the same shape. Laserworld and RTI units are flagged on entry and kept out of shows until they're reported, per the FDA safety communication of November 2017.

Shows

Dates, crew, effects, placements with position and aim, and zones with the 3 m / 6 m vertical and 2.5 m horizontal separation rules. Deadlines count from the first date a beam is on, in the venue's own time zone, not from opening night.

Evidence

Zone and label photos are hashed on the device the moment they're taken, stamped with time, GPS, user and device, and carry a snapshot of the laser's serial, FB4, IP and firmware at that instant. Originals are never altered. Imported photos are kept, but marked as imported.

The pre-show checklist

FDA's sample checklist, adapted per company: equipment checks per projector, alignment checks per show, measurements per effect, administrative checks, and a sign-off only the safety officer can give. The results roll up into the three counts the annual report asks for.

Deadlines and reminders

Every notice, permit and registration is a rule with a source and a last-verified date. Shows generate their deadlines automatically, by state, city and indoor or outdoor setting, with working-day math and holidays. Reminders reach your phone, your inbox, and a calendar feed you can subscribe to. Overdue is red everywhere, because an overdue FDA item can cost the variance.

Paperwork

Form FDA 3147 and 3640 for the variance, the CDRH cover sheet and its checklist, the annual Form 3636, FAA 7140-1 with a Laser Configuration Worksheet per projector, state notices for Texas, Illinois, Arizona and New York, and Form 3632 for projectors you've modified. Each draft lists what's missing before you file, lets you edit any field, exports a PDF, and tracks sent, acknowledged and approved. Every built-in tool is optional: upload your own drawings, calculations or forms and the app still tracks the deadline.

The calculator

NOHD and the FAA sensitive, critical and laser-free zone distances, straight from FAA Advisory Circular 70-1B and ANSI Z136.1, unit-tested against the FAA's own worked examples. Visible continuous-wave beams in this version; anything it can't evaluate it says so rather than guessing.

How it's built

A web app for the desk, an iPhone app for the field, and one backend shared by both. Every rule about deadlines, report contents and permissions lives on the server, so the two apps can never disagree. The phone keeps a local copy of your shows and queues every change until it has a connection.

What the beta is

This is an early build from one developer, tested with a handful of companies. The forms are drafting aids, not the official PDFs; you still file the real form. Rules marked unverified are shown as such and never produce a due date. If something looks wrong, it probably is: tell me.

Who makes it

Beam Dreams is built by Jamie Roderick, who also makes CUEd UP!, the cue annotation app for stage managers. Same idea: the craft deserves tools that get out of the way.

Getting started →  ·  What's new →