Hi all,

I've been working on a POV-Ray export for LDCad 1.6

I'm not seeking to replace LDView's export I mainly want to do animation exports.

I would be very interested what the more experienced POV-Ray users have to say about the generated file I've got so far.

Attached is a zip with some test output, It renders like so:
   

I think it's not bad but it could be better, probably by tweaking the global settings / light (currently it exports the OpenGL light position) / sky sphere stuff.

One thing I don't really understand is the small black square at the bottom left, I have no idea where that's coming from.

Any help / pointers / thoughts would be highly appreciated.

Attached Files

  povTest.zip (Size: 317.48 KB / Downloads: 8)

For Beginners: LDCad 1.5 Part Bins for EV3 Education 45544-1, Part 1 of 6

I'm volunteering in a classroom that uses the Mindstorms EV3 Education kit 45544-1 and I'm making MOCs for advanced students.  I need building instructions and am using LDCad to create the LDraw model.  LDCad is an impressive part editing program!

As Philippe Hurbain has pointed out, the ability of LDCad to present six different part bins organized by type (for example beams, connectors, pins, etc. from the same set) makes the building process fast and intuitive.

I tried to use BrickUtils as described in this thread and got thoroughly confused.  It's probably a wonderful application, but as a novice I couldn't get anything to work, and had no idea how to proceed.  So I decided to follow Roland's LDCad online documentation and do some trial & error analysis.

I'm going to show I got the part bins to work, in excruciating detail, for any other LDCad novices who want to enjoy the building features of LDCad and need help with the part bin configuration.  All the files shown in screenshots below are available for download at the bottom of the last post.  Use this example to create your own part bin configurations for your favorite sets.

I'm breaking it up into six segments so corrections and comments from experienced users will be easier to manage.

For this exercise, the goal is to have two part bin options for the EV3 kit:
--- a single EV3-Edu part bin with all the parts in one bin.  It's configuration is associated with the name "EV3-Edu" as described below.
--- six part bins with similar parts together like beams, pins, axles, etc.  The configuration of these six bins is associated with the name "45544-1-sorted" as described below.

The EV3-Edu kit consists of a tub with the large parts, plus a red tray with thirteen bins for the small parts and a guide to which parts should go in which bin.  We want each of our six LDCad part bins to be one or more of these bins.

On a Windows 10 system, the image below shows where the LDCad 1.5 "partbin" folder is located, under C:\Users\Walt as shown.  The LDCad 1.5 installation creates and populates the "default" folder.  We don't want to change the "default" folder because it might be overwritten by LDCad upgrades.  We want a parallel folder with a person's name so it's clear that it isn't part of the official installation.  I chose to name it "Walt's Parts."

Edit the "sysRoot.pbg" file to add "Walt's Parts" as shown.  When you launch LDCad 1.5 and click the up arrow in the Bin Selection window, you will now see pictures corresponding to each of the two folders.  LDCad 1.5 goes into those folders and finds corresponding images (described below) to make the selection choices clear.  This pattern will repeat in the examples below:  LDCad 1.5 opens things listed in <items> to locate pictures to associate with those items. 

Walt

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
   

Hi all,

How can I make the edges more visible in transparent clear parts?
I made the edge pure black, but that is not enough to see how things are build.
See the example attached.
I need to make sure the builder can see how the 1x2 and 1x1 transparent plates are placed.

Thanks!

Attached Files

  TransTest.pdf (Size: 162.7 KB / Downloads: 18)

For an upcoming release of LPub3D, I would like to enable the ability to insert 1:1 part representations such as depicted below.

  OneToOne.png (Size: 4.99 KB / Downloads: 113)

My design idea is to render 1:1 parts relative to the selected LPub3D page units (centimeters or inches). This feature would only apply to Technic axles, beams, liftarms and some gears.

My requests for information are:

1. Is there any place I can find the size dimensions for the part types indicated above  - in mm, in or LDU ?
2. If this information is not available, is anyone willing to provide this information - for example a part author who may have this information on hand ?

Many thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Part Authors - To support future capabilities in LPub3D, I kindly request the following parts:

1. Type: Icon, Category: Helper, Description: Wright Icon, Wrong Icon, Size: As defined in official instructions

  RithtWrong.png (Size: 9.4 KB / Downloads: 68)

2. Type: Icon, Category: Sticker, Description: Plain white on black background sticker icon to indicate the application of a sticker - without number identification. Note: the example shown indicates the number 1. For LPub3D, no identification is requested.

  StickerIcon.png (Size: 6.63 KB / Downloads: 68)

Cheers,

Hi!

I just want to know if there exists an open source algorithm for the primitive generation...?

Okay... for rings and cones I have to round the sinus/cosinus to 4 decimal places (and then multiply it with a radius)...
...and round the result again to four dp (how should I round?)...

I know very well how to generate a (torus) primitive... but what are the precise numerical requirements for this task?
Is there any formal description which will lead to the same results on all machines?

What are the specified rounding modes?

Can I write a primitive generator program without a specification?

Currently, I am doing reverse engineering with PrimGen2...
...it seems to be (nearly) impossible to clone.

I make very good progress, but from time to time IEEE 754 pushes me back to the ground.
The mechanics of PrimGen2 are very clear to me and I know that .NET uses a different Math.Round() function than Java...

...it is not easy to finish the implementation soon.
I need some clever advice.

Leg godt


Nils

I'm looking for a substitution part for a length of string without end studs, an undetermined length of rolled up string.
Does such a substitute part exist anywhere? I haven't seen it on the tracker, but maybe one of you knows if someone has prepared anything like this (in the same way there are other substitution parts / unofficial parts / helper parts available)

I uninstalled all my LDraw related programs and I'm slowly building up my setup again. This time round I am not using the All-In-One-Installer and I have not been able to figure out how to enable LDView thumbnail generation for Windows Explorer. 

I would like .ldr .mpd and possibly even .dat files to automatically become thumbnail images of the corresponding digital elements in Windows Explorer. How do I enable this manually?

Hi all,

I've released LDCad 1.6 Alpha 4.

As always some new things in this one:

Mirroring
This works out of the box on most parts assuming those parts are symmetrical in the X direction or not symmetrical at all. Parts having a left and right version will also usually work out of the box as the feature uses the 'left' / 'right' phrases in descriptions to locate the counter part. All other parts will need shadow information to tell the feature how to mirror and or what the counter part is. I added this information for the technic panels and some technic pins. I will add more during the beta stage. Any help on this is also appreciated

(MPD/OMR) file cleanup
This is a generic fle clean dialog which lets you handle things like prefixes, removal of unused submodels and part embedding etc

Layered grouping (EXPERIMENTAL)
Quick and dirty implementation of layering. This allows for the different group configurations of overlapping content. You can also use it to temporary disable grouping to work with the loose items without having to ungroup first.

Redirection removal
This will replace ~moved to, alias and coloured parts in the selection with their final destinations.

And many bugfixes and small tweaks.
Like usual.



This will probably be the last Alpha version as only two major things are remaining.

I think this is the most stable Alpha so far, it might even be on par with 1.5 but please realize this is still a test version so it might be (very) unstable use it separate from your normal LDCad installation and make backups of the files you want to edit.

Download it here:

http://www.melkert.net/LDCad/nextVer

As always any and all feedback is welcome.

Hey,

again, 10 bug fixes and new features with a fresh 0.8.21 release...
...in the next days I want to write more content for the wiki/manual.


As always, you can download LDPE from this page:
http://nilsschmidt1337.github.io/ldparteditor/

Changelog:
(8 new features and 10 bug fixes)

With this release you will be able to...

• ...set the second line in a angle protractor to a defined angle (with the selection tab).
  
• ...decide when "Move Adjacent Data" will be deactivated (new option).
  
• ...orientate the manipulator relative to the vertex location.
  
• ...set the vertex position to the position from a clipboard vertex.
  
• ...set the vertex position to the manipulator position.
  
• ...remove the target type from the selection (switch the object type while holding Alt).
  
• ...deselect an object with the selection rectangle (while holding Ctrl+Alt).
  
• ...benefit from more digits on some important numerical fields.
  

1. Issues regarding "Move Adjacent Data".
   
2. The red close cross on the tabs in the 3D editor did not close the correct tab sometimes.
   
3. It was not possible to measure an existing edge line / triangle because LDPE prevented the creation of a distance meter / protractor on top of an edge line / triangle.
   
4. Various usability bugs with "Open Part File" / "Save as..."
   
5. Drag&Drop a file to the text editor opened the file in the 3D window, too (when sync. tabs was off).
   
6. Drag&Drop a file to the text editor created new superflous tabs when a revert was cancelled.
   
7. "New Part File" from the text editor opened the file in the 3D window, too (when sync. tabs was off).
   
8. A change to the colour palette deleted the palette separator all editor windows.
   
9. "Open Part File" from the text editor opened the file in the 3D window, too (when sync. tabs was off).
   
10. "Save As..." from the text editor opened the file in the 3D window, too (when sync. tabs was off).
    

1. Download the zip-Archive
   
2. Extract the archive content to the location of your choice
   
3. On windows, double-click "run.bat" to start LDPE.
   
4. On linux/mac, you have to excecute the shell script "run.sh" to start LDPE.
   

1. On windows, double-click "update.bat" to search for updates.
   
2. On linux/mac, you have to excecute the shell script "update.sh".
   

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.8
  
• OpenGL 2.1 compatible Graphics Card
  
• Operating System (32/64bit): Windows [XP; Vista; 7 or newer], Mac OS X [>=10.6], Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=10.4]
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor e.g. Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon II (>2.0Ghz)
  
• RAM: 4GB
  
• Video-Memory: 512 MB
  
• Free Disk Space: 100 MB
  

• Operating System (64bit): Windows 7, Mac OS X [>=10.6], Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=10.4]
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor with 4 cores (or more)
  
• RAM: >4 GB
  
• Video-Memory: >=1 GB
  
• Free Disk Space: 512 MB