planning stages

I recreated my display on a 2 feet by 4 feet board. Each set of light is recreated by putting a regular C7 lightbulb. They are all plugged in my controllers. That way, I have a better visual idea of what will go on once I go "live".

The voices in my head tell me where to put the lights.

I get a little anal about mine and take a panoramic pic of the yard/house with survey flags placed every 5' at the front/middle/back of the yard for locating various "props"; then add things via photoshop. Also use graph paper for an "aerial" view".

I tried once to do it that way.. Kept movng things around too much.  Got tired of redrawing and ran out of eraser. Even tried using Visio.  I pretty much mapped the 'yard' by using the visulizer in Aurora. Since the picture of the house I used  was pretty much from the same place an angle that folks would be seeing things I got a pretty good idea of what things might look like from the visitors point of view. But there were still a few elements that took most of the month+ long show to fine the exact place for them in the '08 display. Plus the 'extras' that got added when things went on sale that weren't originally planned.