I'm happy to announce HispaBrick Magazine 013 has been released.
In this issue you will find a new instalment of my series of LDraw tutorials. This time I have focused on BlueBrick and how to create new modules to use with this program.

You can download the magazine from www.hispabrickmagazine.com

Quote:LEGO Group Acquisition of LDraw.org Parts Library Announced

LDraw.org and LEGO System A/S jointly announced today that LDraw.org has agreed to sell its rights in the development of the LDraw Parts Library to the LEGO Group, the publisher of the virtual building software LEGO Digital Designer (LDD), for $5.35 million. The LDraw.org Steering Committee members have been offered employment by the LEGO Group, who will continue software development and operations from the former LEGO Universe studio in Louisville, Colorado.

“We’re excited about the integration of the LDraw Parts Library to fill the gaps of old virtual LEGO parts currently missing in LDD, but re-engineered by the fans and are happy to have the core of the community officially join the LEGO team,” said Søren Askildson, Senior Executive Vice President at the LEGO Software Engineering; Development Department. “This acquisition demonstrates our commitment both to the ongoing success of LEGO Digital Designer and to an overall strategy to expand our brand online.”

“LDraw.org’s focus is developing a solid easy-to-use library on an open document file format, and publishing the next generation of virtual building CAD systems,” said Willy Tschager, Member of the LDraw.org Steering Committee . “We’re proud of the library our community built, and are certain that it has a bright future. The transition of members of our team to the LEGO Group enables us to focus completely on internally-published, free-to-play software businesses.”

LEGO System A/S entered into a free-data-for-advisory relationship with LDraw.org as to build LEGO Universe in 2006. The acquisition of the rights to the library and the ability to transition members of the team to continue work on the library follows the fulfillment of the LEGO Universe development contract.

LDD as a virtual building experience attracts several million people each year to build a huge range of amazing creations. The LDraw System of Tools is a popular system of free software tools for modeling LEGO creations in 3D on a computer. The parts library that is central to the programs is under continuous maintenance and extension by the LDraw community since 1997.

Hi,

before I'm going to add the 2012-01 parts update I'd like to get some feedback on the latest addition: SR 3D Builder.

Sergio's prog requires Microsoft .NET Framework as well as Microsoft DirectX 9.0c to properly function. Both packages have been added to the AIOI and the installer performs some checks and if missing or not up-to-date silently installs them if you have chosen to install SR 3D. Since this is quite a lot of new code and I do not have tons of machines with different configurations I could only test it in a limited way. I would love if you could run this beta:

http://www.holly-wood.it/tmp/LDraw_AIOI_...bit_v1.zip

and send me your "Setup Log.txt" files you can find in your "Windows\LDraw" folder in case you run into trouble during install. Currently only the German and French dialogues have been added. If you run the AIOI on an Italian, Dutch or Spanish OS you'll get your error messages in the default English.

Bye, w.

With this motor something is messed up:

I get missing error messages in LDView, it's messed up in editors and on the PT several subpart are not anymore existing.
It looks like the missing subparts were certified - are they gone official with a change of their partnumber ?
The shortcut still reference the old numbers.....

Please investigate.

I get an LDView error when displaing this part:

error loading submodel X581S02.dat

and the same with X581S01.dat

The part looks completly fine in editors (like SR 3D Builder)
Is that an LDView or a LDraw (part) issue?

If this is a LDView error only, this post can be moved to the LDraw Editors and Viewers subforum..

http://www.genderremixer.com/html5

Hey,

Here is the new LPC 1.3.1.
I do not recommend to continue using the previous version 1.3.0.

Please uninstall older versions of this software before installing a new version.


Change log:

New features:

• You can round the coordinates of the current selection from 0 to 3 digits.
  
• Select connected/touching with same colour now using the colour of the triangle which was last selected.
  

• The vertex data group box won't refresh when selecting another single vertex with the selection box.
  
• CTRL do not remove the vertices from the selection when triangle mode is activated.
  
• CTRL do not remove the triangles from the selection when vertices mode is activated.
  
• I include Rectifier 1.4 but it should be 1.7
  
• The initial Config.cfg contains a malformed path to the language-.csv.
  
• The title from the "Save as..." dialog contains a "&"
  
• One i18n bug in the advanced option menu (The "Colours:" Tab)
  

The 2012-01 LDraw Parts Update has been now been released.

This update includes 1148 files in the core library, including 601 new parts. Two major features of this release are the inclusion of a large selection of 12V train parts and Mindstorms NXT components, all of which had been waiting on the Parts Tracker for far too long. Many of the primitives have also been upgraded to the current expectations for (counter-clockwise) polygon winding.

This is another big step in reducing the backlog on the Parts Tracker and brings the number of files to its lowest level since April 2005. Thanks are due to the small community of part authors who created or corrected parts for this release and to those who have reviewed files in order to make this release happen.

I am really pleased with the increased momentum on the Parts Tracker this year and I am hopeful that we can continue to work at this pace to reduce the backlog as well as bringing newly issued parts into the Official Library. I'd like to recognise the pragmatism that has been exhibited in allowing functional (but not necessarily perfect) parts to be released with a "Needs Work" tag.

You can preview the new parts in 2012-01 and download the update by going to the updates page.

The 128 certified files currently on the LDraw Parts Tracker were held back from this update in keeping with our normal practice of not releasing new primitives or subparts until they are needed for an official part file.

What happens to LDraw.org website? Yesterday it was pretty sluggish all day long (CET), it worked fine early this morning (CET again, about 1 hour before this message) and now it seems completely down.

Howdy,

I'm in the process of creating a highly-anticipated instructional guide of one of my recent custom creations -- however, I searched every possible part in the LDraw library for my software, and couldn't find one particular piece which is extremely vital to making the 3-D instructions: a 2x2 brick with a socket for a ball joint:

http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptdetail.cg.../62712.dat

http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/62712

After searching this site for information on it, I found and downloaded the DAT file from the first link, but I wasn't sure where to install it in the parts library folder (I mean, which particular folder). All I need is this piece for finishing my 3-D instructional guide; could one of the admins please review and certify this -- or at least, please instruct me how to install an unofficial DAT file of it to my library? Either or will be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

-Baron