14 Sep 2026
4 min
FINDUS: the lighting documentation that photographs itself
The lighting documentation that photographs itself
Anyone who does lighting in theatre knows the moment: the production is set, and now it has to be documented. Every state, every preset.
FINDUS automates exactly that. The software drives the lighting console, photographs every step with as many cameras as you like at the same time, and builds searchable photo documentation from it, print-ready PDF included. What used to be a tedious job now runs as an automated pass · and the result is more complete and more consistent than it would ever be by hand.
How it works: Plan, Record, View
FINDUS follows the real workflow in three steps.
1. Plan
It starts with a CSV export from the ETC Eos console. FINDUS reads all presets, cues and groups from it in one go, channel assignments included. Channels the console lists as unused can be cleared away right after the import.
Out of that comes the documentation plan, guided in five steps. The heart of it are the phases: a production rarely has just one set, so the plan is organised by scene changes. Between two phases the pass stops automatically, the team rebuilds, and if you want, each phase opens with a setup photo round: walk the stage once with a phone and record how it is built before carrying on.
For each preset you decide whether every channel is photographed on its own or the state as a whole, and at what intensity the channels are documented. Sneak time is taken into account as well.
2. Record
During the pass FINDUS takes over the desk over OSC: it calls up preset after preset, cue after cue. The software waits until even the slowest fixture has reached its position, gives the cameras time to adjust their exposure, and only then triggers. For cues it can either run the rehearsed performance time or a documentation time, so that every fixture arrives even when you work across the show order.
Photographs come from as many sources as you like, at the same time:
- Capture cards, for instance cameras with an HDMI output
- RTSP network cameras, including correction for wide-angle lenses
- Phones: scan the QR code, open the browser, done
3. View
After the pass the documentation is a searchable gallery: organised by phase and preset, filterable by camera, with all the metadata on the photo · preset number, channels, phase, time of capture. Notes can be added per state and per photo, and you can draw straight onto the photos: an arrow pointing at the spot in question says more than three sentences.
Perhaps the most important part is the retake. If a photo went wrong, if someone walked through the shot, if a door stood open, you simply mark it. FINDUS calls the state up again and replaces the photo.
At the end comes the PDF export: cover page, table of contents, colour-coded phase dividers, selectable cameras, cleanly labelled photos.
Under the hood
FINDUS is a native desktop application in Rust and Tauri · lean, fast, and everything stays local: photos, plans and documentation sit on your own machine as ordinary files and PDFs. The interface comes in German and English.
Availability
FINDUS is developed in house and is currently being tried out in real production work. If you are interested or have questions, get in touch.