grandMA3's onPC software previews cues before the rig exists

The picture

grandMA3 is the lighting-control platform from MA Lighting International, based in Paderborn, Germany. The vendor's own grandMA3 product page states that the console software includes an integrated 3D visualizer for pre-programming, and that onPC versions, running on Windows or macOS, can be used for preprogramming, as a stand-alone designer station, or as a back-up to a physical console, connecting to accessories such as the onPC command wing, fader wing and DMX-key for systems of up to 4,096 parameters. The company's homepage, a living page as retrieved on 16 September 2026, lists current deployments including the opening of Abu Dhabi's Zayed National Museum and Download Festival 2026.

What the documents show

MA Lighting's own page establishes that the previsualization capability lives inside the console's own software rather than a separate application: the same grandMA3 codebase a programmer uses to build cues also renders the 3D preview. The product page also states that the My Virtual Rig format, which onPC can use, shares scene data between, in the vendor's words, a lighting console, a visualizer, a CAD program or similar tools, on the General Device Type Format standard. That sentence shows how MA Lighting frames the relationship: it names the console and a separate visualizer as distinct categories of tool exchanging data through a common format, not as interchangeable products. Neither page makes a direct capability comparison between onPC's visualizer and a dedicated 3D previs suite such as Depence or WYSIWYG, so this entry does not assert one beyond what that shared-format language implies.

What it is allowed to decide

On these sources, onPC's console-native preview can plausibly support decision class 5, technical execution, since its stated purpose is preprogramming and back-up for a real control system, not a client-facing render. It holds Auditability, since a show file built in onPC is the same file the physical console will run, removing one translation step. It does not, on this reading, establish Photometric authority on its own: the page does not state the visualizer's rendering is checked against manufacturer photometric data, and the MVR sentence above shows the vendor treats fixture data as exchanged with, not verified by, the visualizer.

The disclosure label

A disclosure for a cue preview built in grandMA3 onPC, dated 16 September 2026 and asserted by the programmer who built it, would read: this is a class 5 technical-execution preview generated in the console's own software; it holds Auditability, since the previewed file is the file the physical console will run; it does NOT HOLD independently confirmed Photometric authority for the fixtures involved.

• Was this preview built in onPC alone, or cross-checked in a dedicated 3D previs application as well?
• Does the MVR file carrying fixture data to onPC originate with the manufacturer or with an in-house edit?
• Is the onPC session standing in for a physical console, or backing one up that is already patched?

A console that can preview its own cues closes the gap between programming and previewing, but not the separate gap between a fixture's data sheet and the unit hanging on the truss.