With the completion of the 8860 animation I think the latest build of LDCad is good enough to be the Beta 2 release.

It includes numerous bugfixes, some minor tweaks and extensions. Most of the extensions are the direct result of me working on the 8860 animation and thus mainly oriented on scripting and animation playback.

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

It also includes the backbone framework aniTools.lua, as used in the 8860 animation. So maybe others want to give animation a try too

This should be the last beta of 1.6 , so I don't plan to make any big changes anymore before releasing the final 1.6 version.

I'm going to concentrate on updating the documentation for now.

Any suggestions for the next major version (ether 1.7 or 2.0, not sure yet) are welcome though.

I finally completed my most complicated LDCad animation to date

It is a fully animated 8860 LEGO technic 'super car' set.

You can watch it here (2:15 long).

https://youtu.be/Ea1iHCSPbqo

It is an OpenGL export, I was originally planning to do a POV-Ray rendering (I've got the POV file) but it would take over 200 hours to render as it would need very high radiosity settings to prevent background flickering.

This would result in 3750 frames of this quality:



If anyone know of a way to reduce that flickering without having to crank the radiosity settings to 11 please let me know.

I just found this very interesting article about
LEGO's arch part redesigns:

http://www.newelementary.com/2014/03/you...-arch.html

After making the 27255 hexagonal (with triangular symmetry) plate, I couldn't resist...

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
       

  polyhedra.mpd (Size: 22 KB / Downloads: 7)
  rhombicuboctaedron.mpd (Size: 17.8 KB / Downloads: 5)

Figure parts:



19201pb01


19206pb01


19833


19832


FTFpb066c01


FTFpb099c01


FTFpb065c01


20377c00pb01

Stickers:


41073stk01a


41172stk01

Other parts:


19118


18970


sailbb59

Would an web based part/model checker in the vein of DATHeader be useful to anyone?

I recently came across an old project of mine for parsing LDraw code (in PHP). It seems it would be fairly straightforward to put it on the website somewhere and add some validation code.

Greetings,

I would like to get the temperature of resistance to deprecating L3P focusing new development around POV-Ray file generation using LDView ? 


L3P source is not publicly available; therefore, it is not possible to maintain or enhance going forward. On the other hand, LDView, 4.3 will provide every bit of functionality and flexibility currently available from the L3P module. So focusing my enhancements on the LDView/LPub3D integration, I believe, will be time and effort better spent.

The L3P integration code will be removed, if and after a decision is taken, at a future point in time to be determined.

Please let me know if you have any objections to this road-map direction. I will consider the poll closed and take a decision in approx 3 weeks from the date of this post.

Cheers,

Technic Racer Combi Model (8024, 8815, 8820)

Need some touch up, not all parts line up.

Hi folks,

As outlined here:

https://forums.ldraw.org/thread-21987.html

nominations for the 2017/2018 LDraw.org Steering Committee election will close at 11:59 PM GMT on 28 February 2017 and elections will start on 01.03.2017. Only those candidates who have been nominated, seconded, and have accepted as outlined, will be eligible for election. So if you are a candidate that has not yet accepted or declined, please consider deciding. The list with the candidates as well as their status can be found here:

https://forums.ldraw.org/thread-22011.html

If you feel your favourite nominee is missing on the list please use the link above to nominate him/her.

Willy Tschager
On behalf of the LDraw.org Steering Committee

To my surprise, part 45403 is not in the LDraw library yet.
Well, not really a surprise, I mean, it's only used in 2 '4 Juniors' sets from 2003, but still, it's quite a basic part.

I personally don't need it, but if anyone feels the need to make the LDraw library a little more complete. Just a tip 

EDIT: apparently, there's also this almost identical part: 45403c01.