Hello! I am a graphics programmer and mathematics enthusiast. I am trying to sort of figure out search terms that might get me to articles talking about the math and physics behind a somewhat specific issue with laser show drawing.

I have a lasercube. Eventually I am hoping to get it to draw programmed visuals over its IDLA port. I haven't chosen a software but I am going to try to drive it as programmatically as possible.

Now just playing with it a bit it is clear to me that there is a lot of "physics" involved in how the mirrors on the lasers move in order to draw what you want. Some shapes are clearly easier to draw than others and I am guessing that is because shapes have to be expressed in terms of how the mechanics of the machine actually work.

Clearly some shapes are easier to draw than others. I can tell by the "refresh rate" and how well the start and ends of lines connect and look. I also dont have a good idea what's needed to change the color of the line during drawing either.

If I do get to the point where I can programmatically tell the laser "draw this line here" or "draw this curve here" or "draw these points" I would love to understand more how much I am "taxing" the laser to actually draw this geometry and whether there are tricks I can have in mind to make it easier for the laser to draw what I want.

For example if I can modify my geometry to make it smoother for the hardware to draw it, use a lower order approximation of the shape, etc. I would definitely do so.

I tried searching for tutorials on Youtube for this but I clearly do not have the right search terms. I am looking to get into the math and physics and understand truly what is necessary to draw any visual I might want to draw.

What is this portion of laser show creation called?