The LDraw.org Steering Committee is pleased to announce that the 2016 James Jessiman Memorial Award (JJMA) recipient is Nils Schmidt.

Like last year the SteerCo reached consensus very fast over the recipient for the this year's James Jessiman Memorial Award.
Nils left his Dark Ages in 2009 when he used the LDraw System of Tools for the first time. Later on, he missed nearly all patterned parts from his favourite space theme UFO (1997–1998). He decided to built them all alone with a complex tool chain involving a commercial 3D editor from a Gaming-IDE, MLCad, SlicerPro and the LDDesignPad.
While he progressed on his apprenticeship as a professional software developer, he developed LDPC - the LD Pattern Creator, nowadays commonly used by part authors all over the world to create patterned LDraw parts.
Also the next program came immediately a standard application for LDraw part authors: LDPE or LDraw Part Editor, a platform independend CAD editor written entirely in Java, which turned a laborious fiddling with various programs into a piece of cake. Suddenly manipulations could be done with the a mouse-click, which previously required complex maths.

More information on the JJMA can be found at: http://www.ldraw.org/article/222.html

Willy Tschager
On behalf of the LDraw.org Steering Committee

Hi, everyone!

I'm a software developer and spent the last couple of months programming a new tool for viewing LDraw models on the Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

It's called Brickworks and was just launched a few days ago.

You can find out more about it at <http://matuslab.net/en/apps/Brickworks>.

It uses Apple's high-performance Metal rendering framework, so beware it might not work on some older devices (should work on all post-2012 Macs and 64-bit iOS devices - more complete list in the link above). 

If you try it, let me know your thoughts about it!

Thanks!

Matusalem Marques

I use the MLCAD to do a new component, using LDView export POV format, in the POV-RAY rendering, the edge is not smooth, can help me?
What should I do?

Attachments are part files.

Attached Files

  888001.dat (Size: 2.3 KB / Downloads: 7)

Hello all,

I'm very proud to, finally, present the first Beta version of LDCad 1.6

It has been the slowest development cycle so far and I still need to dot some I's and such concerning the scripting stuff. But I relalize not many people use that anyway so I pushed it to Beta 2 in order to get a version out before the holydays.

Version 1.6 introduces the following major features:
- Macro scripting
- Many script api extensions
- Mirroring
- Region select
- MPD tools
- POV-Ray export (including animations)
- full ROTSTEP and BUFEXCHG support.
- Hotkey configuration
- Layered groups (still a bit experimental though)

It also includes many small tweaks and extensions, like:
- non integer grid stepping
- extend header editing
- some visual changes
- improved GUI templates

Even the downloads are improved as all of them now include both the 32 and 64 bit versions. The windows setup will install the correct one based on your system. I've also tried to automate this for this Linux version (setup.sh) but it might need some tweaking on some systems (feedback/improvements are highly appreciated)

You can get the version of your choice here:
www.melkert.net/LDCad/download

The Linux version is still compiled with (fully updateded) Debian 7.5, as this seems to ensure maximal compatibility. If the Linux experts on this board think I should upgrade to 8.x for some valid reason please let me know.

Documentation update and extensions (like always) are pending

   

How long will it be before the 9Volt switches are included in the official parts. Getting them from unofficial takes a really long time and hurts production.

I finished a larger LDraw project: Shackleton's Endurance in minifig scale

Endurance was the name of the ship in which Sir Ernest Shackleton sailed for the Antarctic in 1914. This voyage is also known as the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. On board were 28 men and 69 dogs. Shackleton planned to cross the Antarctic on foot. But shortly before its arrival in the Antarctic the Endurance became locked in ice and was finally crushed. Thus the legendary survival of Shackleton and his crew began.....

Model data: Length 166 studs (131 cm) / Width 50 studs (39 cm) / Height 103 studs (81 cm)


Shackleton's Endurance by papacharly24

It was mainly built with LDcad 1.6 Alpha 4 and rendered with POV-Ray.

As advised by Roland in a post, I misused his sticker generator to generate some Endurance sketches within the LDcad editor:



This was an enormous assistance for getting proportions and dimensions scaled right.

As I like the surface structure of string hose segment LS60.dat I used Lsynth to generate the ropes.

Besides the fact that my laptop struggles a bit by handling so many parts, it was a great pleasure to built this model with LDcad.

Hope you enjoy it.

Some more images:

I was working on the new Plate 2x2 without Corner (26601) using the exisiting larger plates 2450 and 30503 as a starting point.

I noticed that the existing parts are designed around the cutouts on the 45-degree corner in such a way that some editors, LDCad among them, show holes in the surface of the part. Is this a problem with LDCad or the existing parts? Are they still viable as a base for the new 26601 part?

I attached my current design to this post.

Attached Files

  26601.dat (Size: 1.41 KB / Downloads: 7)

I'm hoping someone could possibly please make the Boat Hull Unitary 52 x 12 x 6 1/3 - http://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/cata...at4c01#T=C I would love to recreate my old 4030 Cargo Carrier set, plus I'm sure many users would also enjoy having a larger boat available to use for their creations!

Shouldn't there be cond-lines across the shaped surface on texmap parts, like we now have on shaped stickers?


Looking at these again made me wonder. Would that make them look even more smooth and better?

Hi,

unfortunately, I am still offline with limited internet access due to technical problems with my internet provider

LDPatternCreator 2.0: I did some promising tests with a prototype version. I was able to build a 64bit version and a 32bit version with legacy support for Windows XP.
LDPartEditor 0.8.27: There will be a release at the end of December 2016 or within the first two weeks of January 2017.

Leg godt

Nils