Hi! I'm a new user with next to no prior CAD experience, but with some ESRI GIS map-making background. I can see that LDraw uses a powerful and versatile suite of tools - very impressive!

However... ummm... it's my technical manual writing experience behind this question...

From where I stand now, at the bottom of a huge learning curve, I have to point out the huge pot-hole awaiting first-time users right out of the gate. By walking you through it instead of just blurting it out, I hope someone who's in a position to make an improvement will see why it might be helpful to do that.

I opened the Help page to get familiar with the environment. I intended to open the program to follow along. Here's what the Introduction section says about that:

"When you run LDView, it will open its main window and immediately present you with an open file dialog (assuming you didn't specify a file as part of the launch process). Select the LDraw .ldr, .dat, or .mpd file you want to view."

These forums and the first build tutorials are equally silent on the same critical (dare I say obvious?) detail. Being a first-time user, I have no .ldr, .dat, or .mpd files to select. There are of course the three .ldr files in the LDraw directory:

LDConfig.ldr
LDConfig_TLG.ldr
LDCfgalt.ldr

But since I don't know and can't guess what those files are for, I doubt they're meant to be monkeyed with by inexperienced users. So the $64,000 question is:

How does one create a new project file?

And, FYI, the place to explain this to new users is the same place to explain the difference between the file extensions - the Introduction section of the Help page (or, somewhere up front in whatever place new users are meant to start learning). I've since gotten the answer on this forum, but it would be courteous not to make new users hunt for it...

Anyway, thanks! I'm excited to see my design coming to life : )

3183 Plate, Modified 1 x 4 with Towball Socket has two versions
with different numbers of slots:

3183a,2 Slots
this version is already in the library

3183b,4 Slots
this one is still needed

Thanks to anyone, who creates the missing one.

I have created a number of what I would consider sub-models that I wish to combine into one larger model. The problem is that some of these sub-models are MPD files with their own sub-models, while others are the LDR files I would want. Is there a way to combine multiple MPDs together (since it would be simple to create MPD files out of the LDR files)?

I've spent a large amount of time creating these files (and perfecting the instructions for each of these sub-models), and now when I am finally ready to put these together to create instructions for the final assembly, I have run into the issue that I cannot figure out how combining the parts can even work.

As I'm newish to Ldraw, I only figured out that these sub-models I had created were of different file-types when I attempted to import all of them into one master file, but was unable to find several of the files needed, and realized this is because some are .mpd and others are .ldr

Is there a good method for solving this issue and combining the files into one MPD as I'd like?

Thanks!

Hello, I am a new guy here.

May I ask, is the boat hull of 4031
released in ldraw? I found its no. is x447c01 from Peeron.com,
but this no. was not the hull in ldraw.

Thanks for the help in advance.

Hello People

we have a contest 10 people can win there moc in parts + a commision + his or her name on instructions and in the museum aka gallery we are building

http://partsandtoys.nl/wordpress-3.9.1-n...wn-design/

als feel free to chat my name is Fictions or Marcel in Chat

greets
Marcel

Hi all,

I was wondering if someone would be able to author 4085d which is lacking in the library?


Thanks a lot!

Hi,
based on this brick viewer, I have written a converter, that creates LDraw files from LDD mesh files (*.g).
I've solved the problem of the files with the g1, g2, etc. extensions. These are subparts for a model, that are colored differently or textured. My converter can merge these into a single file.
I've attached an example of a part, that was originally split into two.

If there's enogh interest, I'm willing to upload the sources to Github and create a somewhat user friendly version (currently it's a command line tool.)

Greetings

Banbury

Attached Files

  part.dat (Size: 130.03 KB / Downloads: 0)

Thanks to the hard work of very many LDraw parts authors I have here an actual model of a 8564-1 Lehvak. Though, it seems to be missing a little something.

The Krana and the Krana holder pieces are still not modeled, and are the last Bohrok parts that are in such a state. Anyone got thoughts on how are we going to get the models for the Krana? The Bionicle masks in general seem like a nightmare to model. Perhaps that awesome 3D scanner of Philo's could get the mesh? It seems to have the design ID 42042, though note: there's 8 variants though Peeron only pictures 5 of them.

I still think we should congratulate ourselves, we sure have gotten a lot of parts done! I know the rubber band is also missing though that's because I don't know LSynth-fu.

more than five characters

I'm working on a set of Ferrari instructions and need the 58088 wheel cover.