Hi all,

first of all, after a few years of not using MLCad, LPub, LSynth and so on I am back ;-) Thanks to everyone helping out here and providing the All-in-one-installer. That really helped me start off again.

My question:

I am creating an instruction for my little BR 80 Steamer with PowerFunctions – M motor, receiver, 2x PF lights and battery box all in one little engine. The first version of the instruction is done, you can find it at:
http://holgermatthes.de/bricks/data/inst..._small.pdf (~ 19 MB)

Now I have added PF lights and the cables using LSynth. If you insert the PF lights, you can not add all components of the lights in one step. So I had to splitt up:
#1 2x lights and some cable
#2 other parts
#3 middle 2x2 box and some cable
#4 other parts and receiver
#5 1x plug to the receiver and some cable

In LPub it shows the following in the part list per step:
#1 2x lights
#2 other parts
#3 middle 2x2 box
#4 other parts and receiver
#5 1x plug

How can I force the programme that the part list of step #1 shows the complete PF lights (http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?S=8870-1) and #3 and #5 do not show any further sub parts of the PF lights.

Same question shows up while adding the motor or the receiver and connecting them to another part in a later step.

I haven't found the complele PF lights, motors or receivers as one *.dat which I could use and Ghost them in MLCad. Then they should show up in the parts list per step in LPub? If so, how to get rid of the stand alone plugs or the middle box in the parts list? Can you Ghost parts from the parts list? The assembly should show the single element, but the part list should not show anything because the PF lights/motor/receiver was mentioned in an earlier step of the instructions.

Some with BOM: It should show the PF elements with cable and plug as one single element as you can buy them.

Thanks in advance for your help!
Holger

Hi Y'all,

I have attached a picture of a few hinges to illustrate one of the problems I am still fighting with re: a connectivity spec.

Mario posted an update to his connection model and the resulting discussion covers a model for connection meta-data that is pretty complete.

The issue I want to bring up here is: how do we (and do we even bother to) specify the travel limits for connections that have degrees of freedom (E.g. hinges). Such data isn't necessary for Mario's original purpose (assisted modeling) but it might be useful (in helping to stop the user from going past the legal end of motion for a part).

The question is: can connection travel limits be specified on a per connection basis, or can the data only be determined by looking at -pairs- of connectors? In the example I built, the male/female hinge plates have been swapped with part of standard hinge brick.

The limit when the 2x4 plate is inserted into the 1x2 brick isn't the same as -either- the limits for the plate with another plate or the natural limits for the hinge brick.

I could imagine a big table with pairs of connectors and travel limits, but this seems a little bit scary...
- The data is specific to the -part-, not the -connector-, which means we have to say which connector (on a given part) we are connecting with.
- Thus the number of data points in the table is going to be pretty huge.
- It isn't clear how we'd manage such data in the library - there are two parts the data can be attached to, or it could be in a separate table, but not being able to decompose by part is not good.

Does anyone have any good (or at least not terrible) ideas on this? I can try to put together some kind of straw man proposal but I can't help but think I'm missing a concept we need.

Cheers
Ben

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
   

70814 Emmet's Construct-o-Mech / Lego Movie



Done with SR3D Builder
Rubberband generated with LSynth

Errors:
no minifigs
no stickers
92220 Claw replaced by 53989 Bad Robot Arm and 87747 Tooth
95347 Lattice Tower 2x2x10 replaced by 2 pcs. 2580c01 Lattice Pillar
30394 Shovel replaced by 47508 Shovel

L3B Download

Before I start my own rudimentary coding, I thingk I better ask.

I am looking for a tool that allows me to wrap Stickers around a certain shape, e.g. the Santa Fe front sticker, some Panels etc.
If those stickers are made from the scanned sheet itself some distortion will occur, proper rotation of the destination part will reduce these effects when using SlicerPro.

Howver with Stickers "around the corner", like the Santa Fe one, the result is too distorted. The output gets streched too much to be visually pleasing.

Now I though of doing a small script that "bends" the sticker along the edges that the parts provide. For the Santa Fe thsi would be the outer surface of the 6005.dat

The question is if somebody has already done such a tool or which tool can do this?


Thanks

Gerald

I played around with some new forum software. Ultimately I tabled the switch because of the community's desire to keep hybrid view. In order to enable this I would have to do some extensive coding, something that I may have time for later but not currently. If you want to see the new forums check out http://newforums.ldraw.org
Note that this is a static snapshot of the current forum data from some time ago. It will not update with new posts here now will posts there update here.

Hi All,

It would be very nice for LDraw to support the new large radius tracks by ME models. Fortunately, Roland Valenduuk (a member here) and Michael Gale (not a member here) have shared with me some mathematically inclined scripts they wrote that have done some of the hard work. Unfortunately, I'm flat out with work right now and can't do anything.

If anyone has the time and inclination to do these tracks and wants to avoid some of the work please contact me by email to get their work. I have it readily available (java and octave) for anyone that wants it and both Roland and Michael are happy for me to share their work. It will likely save some time.

All the best,

Tim

Hello! I am new and have a quick question about creating instructions from LDraw using LPub.

The step before last on my model has parts being added to the underside of a rotated model so I added another step with an end rotation step, thinking this would flip the model for the final image, but it seems LPub will not add a page for a step unless it has a part in it. The step loads in the list, followed by the rotation end step, but will not create a page unless I insert another piece into the end rotation step back in LDraw. While this works, I then have to delete the parts list on the LPub page and make sure I hide the piece inside the model in LDraw and it's kind of a pain. Can anyone help me understand how to create a 'step' that just presents the final model? You know that last page in the instructions where the building is done and it's just the model? That's what I'm after.

I could add in a separately rendered image but I was hoping to do it in LPub so it all looks the same. Any help would be greatly, greatly appreciated. My googles keep turning up stuff about public libraries.

I wrote a few articles for the old ldraw.org website.

http://www.ldraw.org/Article529.html
<b>LDraw to SimCity 3000 Unlimited Tutorial:</b> A tutorial describing how to import LDraw models into <i>SimCity 3000 Unlimited</i>.
http://www.ldraw.org/Article528.html
<b>Polarized Glasses Tutorial:</b> A tutorial describing how to render LDraw models (and other POV-Ray scenes) so that they can be viewed in 3D using <a target="_blank" href="http://www.chromatek.com/">Chromatek</a> polarized glasses.
http://www.ldraw.org/Article545.html
<b>Cleaning LDraw Models for Export:</b> A tutorial describing why it is hard to clean LDraw models for export to other formats and applications.


Does anyone have backups so I can rewrite them for the wiki? Thanks.

Do you know if by chance this part (18969) is in a raw version available in LDD? I could not find it on RolfS' page

Thanks
Gerald

Listed on brickset as Ladder 4X16 W. Ø3.2 Shaft/6018585/11299/Fences and Ladders/White/2013

Did not find it anywhere in official, unofficial or in-progress... Any takers?