I’m making a model in MLCad (3.40 if that would matter) and I need a rubber belt in it.

It is just a simple use: a Technic bush 1/2 (#4365a) placed on an old 9V motor (#2838c01) and connected with a belt to Technic wedge belt wheel (#4185) directly above it. And I find it really difficult to get the position and size right.

I found here thread titled “Rubber bands” in which most important (for me) was another link to page “Modeling rubber belts”. The page indeed helped by providing radius of the Technic parts so now at least I knew what to enter for “R1” and “R2” in “Rubber Belt Generator”.

But how should I know what the dimensions (“X” and “Y”) are? Luckily X is 0 in my case. But the other? How do I know on which height an axle/hole is within Technic brick? How do I know on which height motor axle is placed? I guess that to the difference between centers of those axles I should also add both radius to have the height?

Then after solving that how do I know on which position to place that rubber belt so that it aligns well with the Technic parts?

Is there any software to just point two parts (likely limited to some small set of supported parts) and have a rubber belt connecting them generated?

What I find disturbing is that this is entered not as a “Part” but “Belt”. Is it something specific for MLCad? Will other software be able to “understand” that?

Are there any “predefined” values (in particular for rubber belt thickness) of the “standard” LEGO rubber belts like K3 and so on?

I just can't get this to work quite right. I like to use LDD as a starting point for just playing around with new model ideas. It's quick and easy to just throw bricks in place. But then I want to take that into LDCad and break down the one single model into a collection of submodels in a .mpd file.

I can create new submodels in LDCad. I then cut and paste the selection of bricks I want from the existing single model into the empty submodel I just created, making sure to remove position and rotation information as I do so. I'll then take the submodels and "recombine" them into a new main model, this time made of the submodels instead of individual bricks. I can close and reopen the file at this point and everything is fine.

However, if I then go in and add Steps to the submodels I run into a problem. It's not apparent right away. I can create the steps and page through them and it looks fine. But if I close and reopen the file I'll find bricks have moved to different locations. Some are even part of different submodels. I can't seem to figure out what's causing them to move like that. It's definitely a result of adding steps to the submodels.

I can replicate this with any model I make, whether I start in LDD or even make the whole thing in LDCad. I can split a single model into submodels. But as soon as I add Steps to the submodels, the position of random bricks gets messed up upon reopening the file.

Hi everybody,

i tried to get used to LDraw by hacking 10350p01 from Philo to support another pattern for the black horse (with brown biddle and without white blaze)

I finished one side now, get rid of all BFC-errors and now asked myself what is the next step? I hope it is ok to add several question:

- Do I need permission to post the modified 10350p01 as a new number to the Part Tracker?
- What the proper name of the part - 10350p02?
- What would be the proper author name and history of this file?
- Is there a possibility to mirror the other side or do I need to manipulate the other head side too?

Thanks in Advance

A lot of the images on this page http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptpatterns.cgi cannot be displayed. This affects all types of parts, and seems to happen after the files become official.

I'm not familiar with the train and rail parts.

What is a good distance to separate two parallel rail lines from each other? Taking into account curved rail sections and the general way rail parts are supposed to be connected.

Currently I have them set as close as possible next to each other. I chose this value because part 949ac02.dat splits into two lines spaced this much from each other. But looking at Lego.com's TRAIN TRACK PLANNER it seems this can vary.

Sometimes I am also looking for new possibilities for creating pattern.

One of the challenges I am faced is to reduce the colours used in that pattern. This is mainly necessary because most (if not all) pictures are antialiased and therefore we do not have sharp edges that we can work with, if we try to automatic the generation of pattern in ldraw file format.

I tried it so far with an algorithm from bitsticker project:

I wish you guys a happy and playful new year 2014! May LDraw keep going strong.

Has anyone used Yafaray to render models? Supposedly it is faster than POV-Ray at rendering complex images with a lot of features.

Does Yafray have a scene description language like POV-Ray? Can it be run standalone without Blender? Or is Blender also required?


Mike

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=2560

Can someone modify this so it's three lengths, 48 studs wide, while duplicating the bottom holes threefold?
Also a variant where it is 32 studs wide?
Thanks.

Recently I've noticed that Chris has begun to hold certifiable but currently unneeded primitives (for example this one). To me, this seems like a bad idea.

According to our reference, we define a held part as:

Reference Page Wrote:Hold (No) - It's getting there, but not yet.
There are errors to be corrected before the part can be released. The author has to take care of the errors.