Inspired by the (very similar) threads here and here by kevlamar, I wrote a tiny viewer that displays a model and checks which triangle is currently shown and which triangle is shown since loading/reset. This is done to calcualte some statistics and to give some sense of how many triangles are really used ("#E" in screenshots) and how many could be removed ("#T-#E").
For the 10218 model, I would assume one could remove about 80% of the triangles without loosing significant detail even if the user is allowed to rotate freely. Screenshot of the rendered original model (934441 triangles):
Screenshot of the 148853 triangles identified in some previous rotations (ok, very similar, but not overwhelming for the same perspective):
Screenshot of the 785588 removed triangles (mostly studs and face-to-face-triangles):
Looking at the 8868 Airtech Claw Rig, about 50% of the triangles are really shown sometimes (587814 of 1104183 after trying really many camera positions):
Looking at a tiny 3x3 brick wall, as expected the studs in the lower two rows can be removed and the inner boxes of the upper two rows can be removed, resulting in about 60% savings:
Since we had only 5 confirmed nominees, no election was necessary.
Therefore, the 2022/2023 LDraw.org Steering Committee [1] is:
Gerald Lasser
Philippe Hurbain
Max Martin Richter
Orion Pobursky
Willy Tschager
[1] Try not to confuse the LDraw.org Steering Committee (SteerCo) with the LDraw.org Standards Board (LSB). The Steering Committee sets the course for the LDraw Organization while the Standards Board deals with the LDraw File Format.
Congratulations to the reconfirmed and new members!
Willy Tschager
On behalf of the LDraw.org Steering Committee
I just updated the MLCad.ini file accordingly to the latest LDraw.org parts update 2022-02. The .ini file defines (among other things) the parts available in MLCad's, LEOCad's and Bricksmith's minifigure generator.
The attached script (just change .txt to .lua) lets you write words in a Duplo or Lego font.
Just change the part and factor variables in addLetter to get the different versions. For brevity, the letters are defined using positions by studs and brick height and are multiplied by the factor to get coordinates. As such, they will work for any brick that is 2 studs wide with height 1.
Code:
function addLetter(color, studOffset, letter)
-- Duplo
-- local part = '3437.dat'
-- local factor = ldc.vector(40, -48, 40)
-- Lego
local part = '3003.dat'
local factor = ldc.vector(20, -24, 20)
Question: Is it possible to add a group in an an LDCad script? I'd like to add the parts in each letter to a group, and then add a group for the entire word. The best example I have seen is in the Add Wall example script, but that just adds the new parts to the selection.
The 2022-02 LDraw Parts Update has been now been released. This update adds 366 new files to the core library, including 196 new parts and 12 new primitives.
Thanks are due to all the part authors who created or corrected parts for this release. The small, but dedicated, band of reviewers also play an important role in keeping files moving through the Parts Tracker and deserve just as much credit.
You can preview the new parts in 2022-02 here, and download the zip-file update or Windows install package here. Alternatively you can use the LDView menu option File | Check for Library Updates... to install the update.
Once again, I'm relatively new to this game and am still trying to live up to the standards Chris set. If you note any errors or problems, please do not hesitate to point them out.
Special thanks to Magnus Forsberg and the rest of the core reviewers. We pushed out a massive fix to the axlehole primitives with this update and it wouldn't have been possible without their dedication and attention to detail.
The 3000 series parts were done by a KJM (who's identity I haven't been able to sleuth out) and release in the 2002-03 release. Most of the rest were done by a CSC. 4741 will probably end up being reverted since the editor was undocumented.
I was asked to describe the workflow I use to convert my LDraw models to Studio (with unofficial parts not in Studio) in order to render them. Here it is...
Choose a folder in "Directory for Extracted Files". Note that MPDWizard is an old tool, and doesn't play well with complex folder trees! I use a simple folder in the root of my hard disk, eg. "C:\newparts"
Press Extract button. All the subfiles contained in the mpd are now extracted.
Now go to Studio custom parts location. On Windows it's located here:
C:\Users\<your user name>\AppData\Local\Stud.io\CustomParts. If there is no CustomParts folder in Stud.io folder, create it.
in CustomParts folder, create a "parts" subfolder and a "p" subfolder.
Copy all parts files (eg. 80271.dat or u9560.dat) from C:\newparts to (...)CustomParts\parts
Copy "S" subfolder from C:\newparts to (...)CustomParts\parts (thus creating a "s" subfolder in CustomParts\parts)
Copy all primitive parts (eg. 3-16con14.dat) from C:\newparts to (...)CustomParts\p
Copy "8" and "48" subfolders from C:\newparts to (...)CustomParts\p (thus creating a "8" and a "48" subfolder in CustomParts\p). Note that "8" and "48" folders may be absent if there's no hires or lores primitives.
Launch Studio and open Custom Parts palette. You should see all the new parts there.
You can now import your original model.
...hopefully that's all. But there may be more to do manually, because some Studio parts are incompatible
![[Image: 87375.png]](https://img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/PN/15/87375.png)
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