The 2015-01 LDraw Parts Update has been now been released. This adds 502 new files to the core library, including 338 new parts and 34 new primitives. This update includes an unusually large, but welcome, proportion of improved and corrected parts. This is largely due to the work of Roland Melkert with the 'libfix version' of LDCad. Significant effort has also been expended by Magnus Forsberg to inline dithered colour subfiles (a now obsolete technique). Most of the obsoleted subfiles will be released in a future update.

Thanks are once again due to all the part authors who created or corrected parts for this release. The reviewers also play an important role in keeping files moving through the tracker and deserve just as much credit. Whilst I can see the attraction of working on new parts, it is slightly disappointing to me that the number of parts held for further work is not decreasing.

With the main LDraw website currently out of commission, you can preview the new parts in 2015-01 here, download the zip-file update here or download the Windows install package here. Alternatively you can use the LDView menu option File | Check for Library Updates... to install the update.

Once again, no new "Physical colour" parts are included in this update as we still intend to move these to a separate section of the LDraw file structure, to more closely fit with the "DesignID" vs. "ItemID" concept. A number of such parts on the Parts Tracker are awaiting admin review, but will not be released until this concept has been implemented. I am conscious that support for texture maps also needs to be added to the Parts Tracker and have that on my to-do list.

This update has only just kept pace with the number of new files submitted since Parts Update 2014-02 was released in December 2014. I'd like to repeat my appeal for authors and reviewers to try and reduce the backlog of held or insufficiently reviewed parts. Let's see if we can certify enough of these for the traditional end-of-year holiday season update.

Hello all,

It took over a year since 1.4 Beta 1 but I'm hoping it is worth the wait / time spend.

For those who somehow missed the massive 1.5 Alpha thread on the forum, the major new features of 1.5 are:

Detachable color and part bin windows, of whom you can have multiple instances or none at all.
Extensive (optional) LDraw source window, with full nested editing support and a growing selection of line type property editing dialogs.
LDraw file reloading and external changes detection, and you can finally close files now.
Library part (shadow) editing, mostly intended for myself in order to add part snapping info so it is disabled by default and far from a full LDraw part editing solution.
Compressed (e.g. complete.zip) library support.
Single instance protection.

There are also loads of minor improvements etc, some of which are:
Better scrollbar handling
Bin window(s) can be used at a smaller width.
Part bin windows can render vertical or horizontal orientated.
And many more tweaks and adjustments etc.

I also added almost 600 new part snapping files to the default shadow library including info for doors, windows, windscreens, fences, bars, antenna's, plane parts, boat parts, minifig hats/hair and minifig accessories. Do note some (especially the doors and windows) need some additional work as I'm not sure how they behave/fit in real life any help on that is welcome.

Here are a couple of screen shots showing possible window configurations.

The 1.5 mascot example

An alternative layout

Editing shadow (snap) info

And I will add a new youtube demo clip later, if there is something particular you would want demonstrated feel free to ask.

As always the new version can be found at
http://www.melkert.net/LDCad/download

The windows setup version can be used to upgrade any previous version including ones installed by the AIOI.

I will update the documentation on my website to reflect the newest version in the next couple of days / week. For now the only thing you might need to know is how to dock windows. This is done by holding down 'ctrl' after you position the loose window roughly at the place you want it to go.



Lastly there might still be a problem with occasional crashes during closing the program at seemingly random intervals. I have tried a number of things to fix this and I haven't had a crash since the last adjustment myself, but as it might sometimes take days between occurrences I'm not sure it's really fixed.

So if you do have a crash on close down, please send me the contents of the logs folder as I added some extra messages to help pinpoint the crash location. The crash it self is relatively innocent as it will only result in a failure to write/update configuration files as it happens fairly late in the shutdown procedure.


Hope you like the new major version, any feedback / questions / suggestions are welcome.

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I have task to accomplish with calculate total weight of model. bricklink.com and bricker.info have this value.
I look into result of LDMakeList ,use LDFind 1.3.5.3 ,check .dat file without look.
Where is the place to go or method to use for get list of weight of brick.

Hi (Trevor :-)

Would it be possible to come up with a meta command in LPub3D to local set the background color of a page or set a background image? It can be done global ofcourse using either submodel color or one solid color. And one image for all pages.
I.e.:

I've played with the Lego Digital Designer, and like some aspects of it, and others drive me nuts. One thing that I like is that it does a pretty good job with snapping pieces together. I'm also playing with LDCad, which is awesome, but I'm noticing some weird behavior and I'm not sure if it's specific to LDraw or LDCad. Here's what I've noticed:

The "Technic pneumatic T-piece Type 2" (4697b) does not appear to snap to the "headlight" hole on the front of "Brick 1 x 1 with headlight" (4070). However, it works just fine on "Brick 1 x 1 with stud on one side" (87087). Also, 4697b snaps just fine to the front hole on "Brick 1 x 1 with studs on four sides" (4733), but will not snap to any of the other holes. This is regardless of the axis stepping that I choose.

Is this by design, or should it snap to any of the holes in any of the bricks I mentioned?

I'm using LDCad v1.4 and the latest version of LDraw library (not sure exactly how to find the version of that), but I installed it using the AIOI about a week ago.

Hello, I'm new to these forums and LDraw Editors in general. I've been using LDCad 1.4 and am really liking it. Is there a way to reset the grid plane/axis to the "default" orientation? I haven't been able to find anything, sorry if I've missed it, I've devoured a lot of information about all this stuff over the past week and could have missed it. Thanks!

Hi there,

Maybe this adresses mainly to Philo as he created the p/4-4ering primitive.

Would it be possible to get a Hi-Res 48 version of this primitive?


Thanks a lot.

Hi

I have just installed LPUB3D and i have run into a couple problem with it.
The first is that when I change from standard document size to LEGAL and the orientation of the document is Landscape, the partlist stays in the middle of the page and I can't get it to move automatically to the upper left corner of the document.
How can I fix this, without having to move them all by hand ?

The other problem is when choosing POV-Ray as default editor.
POV-RAY complains about parsing commandline.
Any idea what to do about this - other than choosing another default renderer
I have attached a screendump of the error.
I should be running the latest version of POV-Ray.

/Knud

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The main LDraw.org website is down due to technical issues. I'm working the resolve this a soon as I can. The Forums, Parts Tracker, and Wiki should be unaffected since they use different software

-Orion

Is it just me or have the "latest Forum posts" disappeared from the website? The heading is there but the posts aren't.