LDCad 1.6 Alpha 4 (win+linux)

[Roland Melkert]

Hi all,

I've released LDCad 1.6 Alpha 4.

As always some new things in this one:

Mirroring
This works out of the box on most parts assuming those parts are symmetrical in the X direction or not symmetrical at all. Parts having a left and right version will also usually work out of the box as the feature uses the 'left' / 'right' phrases in descriptions to locate the counter part. All other parts will need shadow information to tell the feature how to mirror and or what the counter part is. I added this information for the technic panels and some technic pins. I will add more during the beta stage. Any help on this is also appreciated

(MPD/OMR) file cleanup
This is a generic fle clean dialog which lets you handle things like prefixes, removal of unused submodels and part embedding etc

Layered grouping (EXPERIMENTAL)
Quick and dirty implementation of layering. This allows for the different group configurations of overlapping content. You can also use it to temporary disable grouping to work with the loose items without having to ungroup first.

Redirection removal
This will replace ~moved to, alias and coloured parts in the selection with their final destinations.

And many bugfixes and small tweaks.
Like usual.



This will probably be the last Alpha version as only two major things are remaining.

I think this is the most stable Alpha so far, it might even be on par with 1.5 but please realize this is still a test version so it might be (very) unstable use it separate from your normal LDCad installation and make backups of the files you want to edit.

Download it here:

http://www.melkert.net/LDCad/nextVer

As always any and all feedback is welcome.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Got a little problem since I use alpha4: most of the time (but not always!) when starting/opening a model, LDCad complains that "samples.lua" and "tools.lua" files have been changed (and no they weren't!), and proposes to reload them. Log attached. Machine is my old XP laptop, ldcad is placed in program files folder.

[Roland Melkert]

Got a little problem since I use alpha4: most of the time (but not always!) when starting/opening a model, LDCad complains that "samples.lua" and "tools.lua" files have been changed (and no they weren't!), and proposes to reload them. Log attached. Machine is my old XP laptop, ldcad is placed in program files folder.

Thanks,

I noticed this once before, also on a XP machine, but it seems to be more related to machine speed then the os type though.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Nitpicker report of the day: "select same part" doesn't work in nested mode on unofficial parts embedded with cleanup function...

Otherwise... I sometimes miss a "find" function to locate a part of a known type in a complex model. Could be as "simple" (?) as a text find in the source window. (maybe I already asked for this...)

[Roland Melkert]

Nitpicker report of the day: "select same part" doesn't work in nested mode on unofficial parts embedded with cleanup function...

Otherwise... I sometimes miss a "find" function to locate a part of a known type in a complex model. Could be as "simple" (?) as a text find in the source window. (maybe I already asked for this...)

Thanks Philo,

a search function for the source window could be very handy indeed, I might add something simple in the 2nd beta if it can be done without danger of breaking other stuff

[Philippe Hurbain]

In the meantime, a workaround:
- add a new instance of the part you are looking for
- select same type (and color), generally using nested mode to access all parts of the model
...and to find the needle in the haystack:
- select invert / hide.

Otherwise, some information on the number of currently selected parts (in status bar?) would be appreciated!

[Willy Tschager]

Feature request of the day:

* I'd like to see the category title or whatever LDCad prints out in the headline mirrored to the palette number:


  LDCad.png (Size: 12.71 KB / Downloads: 657)

* It looks like there's still no equivalent to the a key in MLCad (or I couldn't find it)

w.

[Michael Horvath]

How do I switch to MLCad-like part movement? I.e. press an arrow key to move the part laterally, and home/end to move up or down? Thanks.

[edit]

Also, I want to get rid of the dongle hanging off the selected part. I don't plan on using it.

[Roland Melkert]

* I'd like to see the category title or whatever LDCad prints out in the headline mirrored to the palette number:
* It looks like there's still no equivalent to the a key in MLCad (or I couldn't find it)

I don't know about the labels, it seems a bit 'big' to me... I'll think about it.

the a key: 'rotate around y axis' should be possible in 1.6 by changing the 3 editing pin hotkey configurations, but you are right, I forgot to add abs rotation actions to those key groups. I'll add it for Beta 1.

[Roland Melkert]

How do I switch to MLCad-like part movement? I.e. press an arrow key to move the part laterally, and home/end to move up or down? Thanks.

Also, I want to get rid of the dongle hanging off the selected part. I don't plan on using it.

This will be fully possible 1.6 Beta 1, see my replay to Willy above.

As for the 'dongle' if you mean the editing pin you can hide that anytime using 'p'

[Michael Horvath]

Nice. Could you maybe add an 'MLCAD mode' toggle option that sets up the part movement keys, editing pin, and four orthographic views to be like they are in MLCAD/LDEDIT? That would be a big help to those of us making a transition from MLCAD to LDCAD. Thanks.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Got a crash during an acrobatic manipulation... I was attempting to transform a few pneumatic hose to their LQ version, and figured out it would be faster to use a search and replace in a text editor. After doing this, I saved file in the text editor, then switched back to LDCad. I was mildly surprised that LDCad didn't propose to reload file, so I closed/reopend it. Then I wanted to save file again, hoping to see file size reduction caused by LQ usage. When I pressed save button, LDCad said that my file was updated by an external application, I said "yes" to reload. Crash. Log attached...

Otherwise there is a bug in 15535s01 "~Tile  2 x  2 Round with Hole without Top Face" shadow: middle hole shoudn't be capped.

[Roland Melkert]

Got a crash during an acrobatic manipulation... I was attempting to transform a few pneumatic hose to their LQ version, and figured out it would be faster to use a search and replace in a text editor. After doing this, I saved file in the text editor, then switched back to LDCad. I was mildly surprised that LDCad didn't propose to reload file, so I closed/reopend it. Then I wanted to save file again, hoping to see file size reduction caused by LQ usage. When I pressed save button, LDCad said that my file was updated by an external application, I said "yes" to reload. Crash. Log attached...

Otherwise there is a bug in 15535s01 "~Tile  2 x  2 Round with Hole without Top Face" shadow: middle hole shoudn't be capped.

I think what happened here is: somehow the app focus event was missed, then the manual reload invalidated the cached file objects and finally a second app focus tried to reload the now non existing objects.

I'll look into this but it might be hard to replicate, I can probably easily prevent it from using those invalid objects though.

[Roland Melkert]

I was attempting to transform a few pneumatic hose to their LQ version, and figured out it would be faster to use a search and replace in a text editor.

Also after reloading you might need to force a regeneration of all parts by ctrl+shift+f5 or some of them might still use the HQ ldraw fallbackcode.

[Philippe Hurbain]

All other parts will need shadow information to tell the feature how to mirror and or what the counter part is. I added this information for the technic panels and some technic pins. I will add more during the beta stage. Any help on this is also appreciated

Where do I find examples/documentation for this? I just noticed that mirroring doesn't work with Technic L-beams...

[Roland Melkert]

All other parts will need shadow information to tell the feature how to mirror and or what the counter part is. I added this information for the technic panels and some technic pins. I will add more during the beta stage. Any help on this is also appreciated

Where do I find examples/documentation for this? I just noticed that mirroring doesn't work with Technic L-beams...

L-Beams need a

Code:

0 !LDCAD MIRROR_INFO [baseFlip=Y]

Line, this because the default base flip axis is X.

The default flip axis must be a symmetrical one. This is needed so the feature can flip two axis to prevents matrix problems.

The meta has a property editor so you can edit just like the snap info, for more examples see the technic panels and e.g. the technic axle pin .

I choose the x-axis as the default as most of the library seems to be x-axis neutral but technic parts are an exception. I'll add info for them in the beta version though.

[Roland Melkert]

All other parts will need shadow information to tell the feature how to mirror and or what the counter part is. I added this information for the technic panels and some technic pins. I will add more during the beta stage. Any help on this is also appreciated

Where do I find examples/documentation for this? I just noticed that mirroring doesn't work with Technic L-beams...

I've added info to the parts in the beams group, attached are the changed shadow files.

[Philippe Hurbain]

I was attempting to transform a few pneumatic hose to their LQ version, and figured out it would be faster to use a search and replace in a text editor.

Also after reloading you might need to force a regeneration of all parts by ctrl+shift+f5 or some of them might still use the HQ ldraw fallbackcode.

Just noticed an issue with LQ pneumatic hose: generated substitution code is BFC inverted, BFC INVERTNEXT is applied to outer 4-4cyli instead of inner one. I checked 166.dat in my library, it's OK...
(edit): found the (not guilty) culprit: 166.dat is CW, not CCW. But changing from CW to CCW should invert all surfaces (tris and quads), not primitives! Anyway, changing 166 to CCW and regenerate all parts solved the issue

[Roland Melkert]

Just noticed an issue with LQ pneumatic hose: generated substitution code is BFC inverted, BFC INVERTNEXT is applied to outer 4-4cyli instead of inner one. I checked 166.dat in my library, it's OK...
(edit): found the (not guilty) culprit: 166.dat is CW, not CCW. But changing from CW to CCW should invert all surfaces (tris and quads), not primitives! Anyway, changing 166 to CCW and regenerate all parts solved the issue

Thanks Philo, as 166 is an official part you can also uncheck 'inline donor references' in the path skin properties.

This will disable the bug related part of generation and remove the need to embed a modified 166 into the mpd (as I suspect you did?).

It will also reduce filesize a bit more, it being enabled is purely an copy paste action on my side while making the template anyway

[Philippe Hurbain]

Thanks Philo, as 166 is an official part you can also uncheck 'inline donor references' in the path skin properties.

This will disable the bug related part of generation and remove the need to embed a modified 166 into the mpd (as I suspect you did?).

It will also reduce filesize a bit more, it being enabled is purely an copy paste action on my side while making the template anyway

No, I wasn't smart enough to think of this possibility - Done now.
BTW, what's the intended purpose of this inlining capability?

[Philippe Hurbain]

Just noticed... I thought I should see an arrow near menus entries that open a submenu, but I have a green square instead, as if I had a missing character in the font used (Win7 machine).

[Roland Melkert]

BTW, what's the intended purpose of this inlining capability?

Portability,it removes the need for third party renderers to have access to the ldc*.dat files. Most custom LQ donors are only using official primitives anyway.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Just noticed... I thought I should see an arrow near menus entries that open a submenu, but I have a green square instead, as if I had a missing character in the font used (Win7 machine).

Roland, maybe you missed this?

[Roland Melkert]

Just noticed... I thought I should see an arrow near menus entries that open a submenu, but I have a green square instead, as if I had a missing character in the font used (Win7 machine).

Roland, maybe you missed this?

I missed this indeed,

the default windows font 'DejaVuSans' should have those arrow characters.
I just discovered the fallback font 'veranda' doesn't have them but I didn't noticed that because even my old XP machine was using dejavusans.

I could use the '>' char instead if the font misses the triangle. I'll look into it.

edit: If it really bothers you you could add "arial," infront of all the "menu_*" font lines in the main.gui file. Maybe I should use arial instead of verdana as the fallback font any font experts here

[Philippe Hurbain]

edit: If it really bothers you you could add "arial," infront of all the "menu_*" font lines in the main.gui file. Maybe I should use arial instead of verdana as the fallback font any font experts here

Clearly DejaVuSans is not a good choice on Windows since it is NOT a Windows police (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ty...ft_Windows). Arial seems a good default choice (I tried it, changing Verdana to Arial in main.gui).
While I was doing this, I also tried to tweak source window police. Currently on my machine it renders as Courier New, a font I never liked (too thin, poor legibility). I wanted to use Lucida Console, but despite numerous variations I couldn't change main.gui entry to make LDCad use that font
- I finally installed dejavusansmono to solve this issue...

[Michael Horvath]

edit: If it really bothers you you could add "arial," infront of all the "menu_*" font lines in the main.gui file. Maybe I should use arial instead of verdana as the fallback font any font experts here

Clearly DejaVuSans is not a good choice on Windows since it is NOT a Windows police (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ty...ft_Windows). Arial seems a good default choice (I tried it, changing Verdana to Arial in main.gui).
While I was doing this, I also tried to tweak source window police. Currently on my machine it renders as Courier New, a font I never liked (too thin, poor legibility). I wanted to use Lucida Console, but despite numerous variations I couldn't change main.gui entry to make LDCad use that font
- I finally installed dejavusansmono to solve this issue...

What is a Windows police?

[Roland Melkert]

Clearly DejaVuSans is not a good choice on Windows since it is NOT a Windows police (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ty...ft_Windows). Arial seems a good default choice (I tried it, changing Verdana to Arial in main.gui).
While I was doing this, I also tried to tweak source window police. Currently on my machine it renders as Courier New, a font I never liked (too thin, poor legibility). I wanted to use Lucida Console, but despite numerous variations I couldn't change main.gui entry to make LDCad use that font
- I finally installed dejavusansmono to solve this issue...

LDCad uses the main.gui font names litteraly and will will search for a .ttf or .ttc file for it in the system fonts folder (usually c:\windows\fonts)

So for Lucida console use "lucon"  in main.gui.

I think I've gotten dejavusans through Libre Office or something as it is present on both my Windows 7 and XP machines. I think I'll add arial and lucida console to the default fonts list.

[Philippe Hurbain]

So for Lucida console use "lucon"  in main.gui.

I'm pretty sure I tried that without success! But yes, it works!

[Michael Horvath]

Is there a free font you can bundle with the program?

[Roland Melkert]

Is there a free font you can bundle with the program?

Yes, but those font files are rather big, so I prefer to use the 'html' approach by walking through a list of suitable fonts of which at least one should be available.

[Travis Cobbs]

Is there a free font you can bundle with the program?

Yes, but those font files are rather big, so I prefer to use the 'html' approach by walking through a list of suitable fonts of which at least one  should be available.

As a general rule, the only font files that are large are CJK fonts (fonts that include Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters). The entire Open Sans font family (a free high-quality font family from Google) fits into a 1.1MB zip file, with OpenSans-Regular.ttf being 212KB. Unless you support Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, there's no point using a CJK font. If you do support those, the files get a lot bigger. The only freely distributable high-quality CJK font I'm aware of is Source Han Sans. I think including the three files needed to make it work in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean results in close to 20MB worth of (uncompressed) data.

[Merlijn Wissink]

Hey Roland, today I used the 'Cleanup' feature of LDCad 1.6 and it seems to work pretty nice!
However, I have one little note: it seems that it renames submodels slightly wrong (according to the OMR spec).

It renames submodels like this (from the spec): 

Code:

<Set Number>[-<Optional Qualifier>] - <Set Name>[ - <Sub Model Name>]

But, only the filename needs to have the Set Name, all the submodels (including the main submodel) only need to have the set number like this:

Code:

<Set Number>[-<Optional Qualifier>] - <Individual filename>

Although I personally often give my main submodel the name of the set (first option above, but without submodel name). So, in short: LDcad should be renaming submodels according to option 2 and it would be nice to have an optional checkbox to name the main submodel as set. 

[Philippe Hurbain]

Yes, I noticed this but forgot to report. You can get it to work fine by filling in only the set number in OMR window.

[Willy Tschager]

Feature request of the day:

* I'd like to have a small red border around the editor window(s) when I'm in o-mode. I do not think that it is enough to have the double compass to make me aware of the changed grid orientation
* I'd like to have a Home icon next to the filter icon in the part bin window, which take me right to the top of the tree to the Main group
* I'd like that the source window automatically scrolls up or down when I move a part and get with the cursor close to the borders of the pane

* How do I search for ~ed parts?

Thx, w.

BTW, kudos for the shock absorber template ( I worked with for the first time). Awesome feature!

[Philippe Hurbain]

* I'd like to have a small red border around the editor window(s) when I'm in o-mode. I do not think that it is enough to have the double compass to make me aware of the changed grid orientation

Looks like a good idea - sometimes I have problem with this too (especially when the local orientation is almost aligned with world coordinates). In the same spirit, a visual indication that I am in nested mode would be appreciated too. A colored dot near top right model name?

* I'd like that the source window automatically scrolls up or down when I move a part and get with the cursor close to the borders of the pane

I asked for that a long time ago and Roland answered (wisely!) that this kind of scroll never go at the right speed (either too slow or too fast) - and I must say I agree. Use PgUp/Dn keys or mouse wheel to scroll...

* How do I search for ~ed parts?

These parts are not supposed to be directly accessible, but shortcuts should have been provided in the library. The proper way is thus to use this shortcut and if needed you can inline it to access the ~ed components for different coloring or position. But you can also access them directly using LDCad search tool!

[Roland Melkert]

* I'd like to have a small red border around the editor window(s) when I'm in o-mode. I do not think that it is enough to have the double compass to make me aware of the changed grid orientation

Looks like a good idea - sometimes I have problem with this too (especially when the local orientation is almost aligned with world coordinates). In the same spirit, a visual indication that I am in nested mode would be appreciated too. A colored dot near top right model name?

This might be handy indeed, I'll put it on my 'nice to have' list for 1.6 beta 1 or 2.

[Willy Tschager]

Coyp  and paste doesn't work as expected in the source window:

* Select and copy say two parts
* Select a part and paste
* "Select the source insertion point"
* Go to the very bottom and click into the empty space (since it is the very end where I wanna insert my part)
* Apparently nothing has happened. No part shows up. Before it comes visible you have to scroll upwards and then down again. Just then the list gets updated. BTW the same happens when you add a STEP. The command shows up only after you have scrolled in the source window. The funny thing is CTRL+D immediately updates the source window.

w.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Roland will explain the details I guess, but the behaviour in both case is controlled by "follow selection" and "follow step" options. Get to the source menu by right click on the source window but not on a part (otherwise you pop up the selection menu). BTW - (hint, hint Roland) it's not very convenient to access this menu

[Roland Melkert]

Roland will explain the details I guess, but the behaviour in both case is controlled by "follow selection" and "follow step" options. Get to the source menu by right click on the source window but not on a part (otherwise you pop up the selection menu). BTW - (hint, hint Roland) it's not very convenient to access this menu

Follow selection (on new) is enabled by default, so this might be a bug indeed. Thanks for reporting Willy, I'll look into it.

[Willy Tschager]

What is the best approach building a minifig, since LDCad doesn't have a generator?

* Build it from scratch taking advantage of the connections
* Adding 979 - Minifig standing -> Inline -> substituting parts
* Importing from another model, adding as subpart and get rid off the rest

Have there been thoughts of creating a template with hand and leg accessories, head accessories such as goggles?

w.

[Philippe Hurbain]

I have successfully used the first method (for minifigs) and the second one (for Friends figures)...

[Philippe Hurbain]

A little issue: if we change main color to a more prominent one (see this discussion), the unused portion of color wheel uses this color. This looks weird...

[Roland Melkert]

I did consider a minifig generator at some point by using a special kind (non cells) of bin group but I couldn't figure out the real advantage as you would still have to find the loose parts etc.

[Roland Melkert]

A little issue: if we change main color to a more prominent one (see this discussion), the unused portion of color wheel uses this color. This looks weird...

I'll change it so the leftover segments use a static color loaded from main.gui instead.

[Roland Melkert]

I'll change it so the leftover segments use a static color loaded from main.gui instead.

Done, I've also removed color 24 from the 'special' group as it is too confusing for non pro users


  wheel.png (Size: 22.57 KB / Downloads: 409)

[Willy Tschager]

I did consider a minifig generator at some point by using a special kind (non cells) of bin group but I couldn't figure out the real advantage as you would still have to find the loose parts etc.

How about a Minifig template:

   

where you just have to substitute parts, without the need to inline.

w.

[Roland Melkert]

How about a Minifig template:

That could help, you can add one yourself by placing an ldr

%appdata%\LDCad\templates\shortcut

Just be sure it has a "0 !KEYWORDS shortcut" line so it will be displayed in the templates/misc bin group.

I'll add some to the default set too.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Attached file shows a "problem" I got with pneumatic LQ hose. When using dynamic placement (default of template), there is a step at the ends of straight section. This is solved either by limiting merging (but file size is a bit bigger, and some steps are still visible), or switching to static placement which definitely gives better result for the same size. Suggestions and insights?...

(edit): While fiddling with tubing in my model, I got a case where LDCad generated LDraw substitution code contains singular matrices references. Attached...

(edit2): singular matrices seems related to static placement + nearby waypoints with "overlapping" control handles. The same tube with dynamic placement looks bad but doesn't create singular matrices, getting control handle closer to their respective waypoint solves both problems.

[Willy Tschager]

How about a Minifig template:

That could help, you can add one yourself by placing an ldr

%appdata%\LDCad\templates\shortcut

Just be sure it has a "0 !KEYWORDS shortcut" line so it will be displayed in the templates/misc bin group.

I'll add some to the default set too.

  Minifig.ldr (Size: 1.09 KB / Downloads: 2)

Ain't showing up :-(

w.

[Roland Melkert]

Ain't showing up :-(

It does for me, all I did is place it in the templates/shortcut  folder (while LDCad is closed). then is listed in the templates/misc bin group (minifig lever in cell).

I tried with 1.5 and 1.6.