I have been looking through the various META commands (such as LPub commands for PLI and Callouts) but I have yet to find a META command that informs an instructions renderer of how to properly orient parts for parts lists and BOMs. 

A nice way of orienting parts is to position it with the center at (0,0,0) and placing the camera somewhere along the vector (10, -7, 10). It seems like MLCad does it this way, and I believe this gives a nice view of most parts.

This approach does not work with technic plates (where you can't see the holes), panels with stickers (where the stickers face away from the user), 1x1 bricks with 1 or two studs on sides, and many more, where this normal orientation makes it hard to determine the part.

I have made a crude hack and placed the camera along (10,-15,10) to help out with some of the situations, see this example BOM where 98087 and 47905 can be distinguished (The page currently loads slowly due to lack of optimizations for line type 5 - I am looking into that), but a better approach is needed.

Is there already a commonly used META command for this purpose? I have not been able to find it, but I might have looked the wrong places.

And is there already a library for this kind of positioning of parts? And how does LPub get around this issue. Does it handle this internally?

Hi all,

I've been looking into Studio 2.0 and fiddling around a bit with the instruction maker.
Now I am looking for something like rotation steps.
Is this possible? Can't seem to find it.

Thanks.

Jaco

Hi all,

I came across some cheap sets Dimenstion startpack 7117x.
For PS4, WiiU and Xbox.
Is is worth investing? Partspack / minifigs?

Tnx

Jaco

Guys I noticed that ldcad has permanent helpers and not permanent helpers.

I did not.find how to modify it to use it as a single arrow and not  X y z arrow.

By the moment I have made a bin with arrows .dat files to add to the models for buffer exchange.

Is there any tutorial out there?

guys i was wondering if someone could let me knwo if there is any way not to overlap the rubberbands in ldca when they are in a crossing section

Box with 4 Faces (2 Parallel Pairs) without 4 parallel Edges
Would most likely be useful for lattice type parts such as 3185 and 2529

Attached Files

  box4o4p.dat (Size: 545 bytes / Downloads: 4)

With the release of Bricklink's Studio 2.0 and seeing its increased popularity I decided to have a closer look at it, here is a quick summary of my experience using it.

1 - Installation
Nothing much to say: download the installer and launch it... Nothing to configure, it just works.

2 - Building
I tested building with a small Technic model, 42001 Mini Off-Roader. Not the most general purpose test case, but it is my favorite domain, and probably the most demanding style for CAD capabilities.

Here is the result...

The Studio file is available here, and a raw Ldraw export is here.
Random notes:

• Studio has a great feature, the possibility to import inventories of official sets from Bricklink (of course!) and create a specialized palette. This feature is also available in LDCad, but requires a few manual operations.
  
• Creation of submodels is easy, but works a bit like groups in other programs: you have to select several bricks from current model then "Create into submodel". True submodels are created nonetheless (or at least they are exported as such in Ldraw format). This is possible only with at least two bricks, so if you need a submodel with only one part (useful to highlight a particular part in building instructions as a callout), you need to edit the submodel and remove extraneous parts...
  
• I have not experimented a lot the coloring of parts (since the imported 42001 palette contained parts already in model colors), but I appreciated the filtering of colours, allowing to show only the shades of basic colors (eg. "show all green colors").
  
• Finding parts is always tricky in most LEGO CAD programs. Studio does a rather good job by sorting parts in categories and with a text/part number search box. The drawback for me is that it uses BL names and categories, while I am more used to LDraw ones. I guess this is not an issue for most people that have the opposite training.
  
• Overall, snapping and collision detection works well... but not always. Usage of Technic axles was especially cumbersome, as it is very difficult to place precisely parts on it. This gives some slight misplacement errors, as can be seen when looking at coordinates in exported LDraw file. This may not be seem a big deal as it mimicks real life behaviour, but flexibility of parts helps, and manual adjustements are easier to do with physical parts than with virtual models. LDCad has a neat feature for that, as position of parts on an axle depends on current grid, I missed that a lot.
  
• Noneneless, there must be inaccuracies in snapping/collision definition: the panels for the doors were not placed correctly on pins (2 ldu too high), and the technic bush properly stopped against a beam on the round side, but was able to collide inside that beam on the notched side. The good thing (contrary to LDD) is that you can fine tune position and orientation of parts using "manual mode". Unfortunately I couldn't see any parts coordinates to make sure of what I was doing. Less user intimidating, but sorely missing for me!
  
• Studio has no flexible parts generator. I had to use LDcad to generate a custom part for the rubber bands used as shock absorbers in this model. More on this in a separate thread.
  

• Studio has an integrated photo-realistic rendering tool. Depending on the quality you need and rendering time you want to wait, you can choose between two engines (POV and Eyesight), each with several quality levels and tweakable parameters. Seamless integration to Studio is very convenient! One trick: Studio seems to use the bounding box of parts to derive the floor level. As the wheels are rotated, their bounding box extend below the base of tire, and I got "floating in the air" effect. This can be seen in the last image below. I had to "unrotate" the wheels to get proper results.

• POV renderer, "Low" setting, 17 seconds on my ageing machine
  
  
• POV renderer, "Medium" setting, 20 seconds
  
  
• POV renderer, "High" setting, 1.20 minutes
  
  
• POV renderer,  Custom settings, 2.30 minutes
  
  
• Eyesight renderer, Medium setting, 4 minutes
  
  
• Eyesight renderer, High setting, 7 minutes
  
  
• Eyesight renderer, Very High setting, 15 minutes
  
  

Attached Files

  42001 - Mini Off-roader_BIs.pdf (Size: 279.87 KB / Downloads: 43)

I will be giving a session at BrickCon, being held in Seattle, WA from October 4-7. My session, on Friday the 5th, is geared towards beginners curious about LDraw but I'll be attending all 4 days. I encourage anyone who is attending to feel free to track me down if you want to have a discussion.

- Orion

I was wondering about 30191 as the result of this thread on eurobricks:

So I made a little test resulting in:

  30191.png (Size: 38.72 KB / Downloads: 98)

It's a bit of a puzzle as you need to register a few new donors and a template.

You do that by ether copying them into
%appdata%/LDCad/donors
and
%appdata%/LDCad/templates

or by registering a user template folder and additional donor folder in the prefs menu.
needed files are in the attached zip.

It also includes snapping info to make constructing the whole easier.

Attached Files

  30191.zip (Size: 11.79 KB / Downloads: 16)

Hi all,

I am looking for this brick:
https://brickset.com/parts/design-15647

Can´t seem to find it neither as official or unofficial, but the element has been around since 2013?

Part 15647, LEGO-ID 6069014

P.S. should ROOR in "BEAR.ELEM. INV. ROOR TILE 45°" not be ROOF with an F? ;-)