• Organizing your own collection — With just 13 top-level categories, it’s easy to get started in sorting your collection the Brick Architect way. As your collection continues to grow, sub-categories allow you to fine-tune your storage solution so you can find everything quickly.
  
• Understanding how LEGO works — As you explore the categories and sub-categories, the title and description for each folder teaches you about the various connection types, complex geometries, and other skills you need to learn on your road to a Master Builder.
  

Quote:I could create a script that generates a csv containing a list of parts that are in the top 2000 most common LEGO parts, but are not available in LDraw yet

(2024-02-22, 8:44)Fredrik Hareide Wrote: How did you calculate your previous most common, current parts?

(2024-02-22, 12:53)Philippe Hurbain Wrote: Very nice, well organized parts guide!
I'd love to see this, always useful to know where to put our efforts the most efficiently possible!

• NOT IN LDRAW LINK: https://brickarchitect.com/parts/not-in-ldraw.php|
  
  
• Beta - MOST COMMON PARTS (All-time): https://brickarchitect.com/parts/most-common/  (not filtered to parts which might not be in LDraw)
  You can jump to next page by adding "?page=2" query string to the URL.
  

• Overall Rank is a weighted scoring based on # of pieces, # of sets, and # of colors.
  
• # pieces/sets/colors are pretty self explanatory.
  
• Years Produced shows the parts which were in production for the longest time, even if they are not very common overall.
  

(2024-03-19, 0:17)tom alphin Wrote: NOT IN LDRAW LINK: https://brickarchitect.com/parts/not-in-ldraw.php|

(2024-03-19, 8:57)Philippe Hurbain Wrote: Thanks, Tom! As noted by Willy, the numbering discrepancy makes the list a bit tricky to use. Maybe it could be improved by filtering it with the Rebrickable cross-reference?

(2024-03-19, 14:18)tom alphin Wrote: Is there an established table of cross-references between LDraw and Rebrickable — I would love to integrate that into the table to make it more useful.   Unfortunately, this is not something provided in the Rebrickable dataset.  Is there a table on LDraw site containing these mappings which I could use?

---Tom

(2024-03-20, 13:24)N. W. Perry Wrote: First off, I think this is a great project, and while there are a lot of existing parts databases, I do think this fills a need for something more curated, presented in more of a narrative style—somewhere in between the purely statistical format of a BL or RB, and the long-form narrative of blogs like NewE.

I like how the information is categorized. I'm always pleasantly surprised as I drill down through the hierarchy and find new information with each step. This, however, can also be a drawback, as there is useful information that can't always be found unless I go down through all the levels.

One thing that does raise my eyebrow is some of the nomenclature you've decided on—particularly when it's at odds with the official terminology. One example would be in the clip category, where you describe the clips as vertical where TLG refers to them as horizontal, and vice versa. For another example, you've adopted a more rigid definition of "arch" and "bow", such that there are parts officially described as "bows" that don't match your definition.

Granted, the TLG descriptions are far from consistent, and I appreciate the need for a more unified nomenclature. (I'm not sure whether the term "blate" will catch on, but I respect the intention.)  I just wonder if finding new uses for already existing terms might not cause more confusion than it eliminates?

Otherwise, again, I truly appreciate the effort behind creating a "handcrafted" resource—there's certainly potential to grow tremendously, and while it will require ongoing effort, I do think it will fill a meaningful void!

(2024-03-23, 22:30)Rene Rechthaler Wrote: Thats a nice list...

two annotations:
-why are all parts differently sizad and scaled? now they overlap and are sometimes pixelated if a small part is upscaled too much. maybe either define a standard size or scale.
-the list with missing parts includes a lot of flexible parts like rubber bands or strings and parts from exotic subfamilies of lego like scala/belville, Clikits or galidor, these parts are so special and strangely formed that it is hard to model them. (they are also used too rare to have a reason to model them)

• The "Label" and "Table" views have small part images which are resized to fit the small size, which is why they are not to scale.
  
• The "Scale" view shows parts to scale with one another, but I'm not sure this format will work as well when viewing the Most Common Parts (since it isn't practical to show a bunch of data about each part in that format.)
  

(2024-03-19, 0:17)tom alphin Wrote:

• Beta - MOST COMMON PARTS (All-time): https://brickarchitect.com/parts/most-common/  (not filtered to parts which might not be in LDraw)
  You can jump to next page by adding "?page=2" query string to the URL.

• https://github.com/leozide/leocad/blob/master/resources/library.zip
  

(2024-10-09, 0:28)Eugen Wrote: Could you compare and make a diff for "Most Common parts vs. LeoCAD's built-in parts library"? (which is stripped from full LDraw Parts Library):

• https://github.com/leozide/leocad/blob/master/resources/library.zip
  

Would be good to know what is the last most popular brick included in the LeoCAD's built-in lib.

(2024-10-09, 15:03)Willy Tschager Wrote: This library is no longer used. LeoCad has switched to the original LDraw library years ago.

w.

• do variants/revisions exist?
  
• if so when was a new one introduced and what is the major difference?
  
• are their parts very close to it, but still not close enough for a variant (1x6x5 brick vs panel for example)
  
• did this part replace an existing part (or got replaced by one), the crocodile for example
  
• does it belong into a kind of 'parts family' especially interesting for hinges
  

(2024-10-09, 17:02)Eugen Wrote: Basic library consists of 127 or 128.

(2024-10-10, 18:25)Willy Tschager Wrote: Beside the pure fun fact. I have other things to do, such as cleaning the bottom of the PT.

w.

(2024-10-10, 19:34)Eugen Wrote: To be clear, in my initial comment (https://forums.ldraw.org/thread-28092-post-55126.html#pid55126) I did not asked you do that.

I asked author of BrickArchitect, as he already knows how to compare lists of parts.

(2024-10-09, 23:02)Chris Böhnke Wrote: Nice idea, I actually thought about something similar myself.

Here are few thoughts or ideas have regarding this:

Since this is purely informative rather than a trading platform (like Bricklink etc.) maybe add a little bit more info outside the usual inventory info:

-Material this part is cast in (ABS, PC, MABS, SAN, PP, PE, steel, etc.)
-Official Lego Name, Element IDs, Design IDs
-Has this part ever appeared in a pre-assembly like Minifig torsos? If so are there multiple variants?
-Number and type of connection points
-Which Theme/Sub-Theme was this part introduced with and why?
-Evolution of the part:

• do variants/revisions exist?
  
• if so when was a new one introduced and what is the major difference?
  
• are their parts very close to it, but still not close enough for a variant (1x6x5 brick vs panel for example)
  
• did this part replace an existing part (or got replaced by one), the crocodile for example
  
• does it belong into a kind of 'parts family' especially interesting for hinges
  

-Printed vs unprinted versions, maybe list identified print colors for decorated parts
-Highlight rare colors or gaps where certain colors were unavailable or uncommon, but not now
-Interesting engineering features or explanation of mold oddities
-Associated patents and designers/inventors (it's not as hard to find out as one might think!)
-Other trivia, like Jamie Berard claiming 4733 is internally known as a "Super-Erling"
-List known "Q-part" versions that have been found or identified

Feel free to ask if you any questions regarding this

• I think that related/replacing parts is useful and I might explore this in the future.
  
• number and type of connection points is definitely interesting since this is literally how LEGO parts go together.
  
• I also happen to love the idea of adding trivia like the Jamie Berard comment - if I could find the source quote I'd totally add that as a comment on that part :-)
  

(2024-10-09, 23:02)Chris Böhnke Wrote: -List known "Q-part" versions that have been found or identified

(2024-10-21, 9:31)Rene Rechthaler Wrote: Hm, on some occasions (even rarer than different colors) "unofficial" lego parts appear, including
-mismolds
-mold variants
-unreleased development molds
(but i guess thats too "special" to be included here)

(2024-10-21, 12:52)Gerald Lasser Wrote: But those are not Q-Parts. Q-Parts are standard parts with colours only available for the Legoland model builders

1. Any part in a non-production color available to LEGOLAND model builders is a q-part or q-element.
   
2. Q-parts/elements are those parts which are produced in a full range of colors for LEGOLAND - so a Q-Part is a specific part shape that the company has decided is useful enough to provide to model shops in all colors.   (If this is the right definition, I would LOVE to see a list of which part shapes are defined as Q-Parts, because it is a signal that TLG sees the part as crucial to general-purpose model building.)
   

(2024-10-21, 14:27)tom alphin Wrote: In an ideal world, websites like BrickLink or Rebrickable (which show which colors a given part comes in) would have a database of known non-production q-element colors.  That said, I don't think this would be very useful, nor easy to maintain, since we would be trying to maintain a database of what basically amounts to stolen LEGO parts.

P.S. I have heard two slightly different definitions of q-parts...  anyone know which is correct?

1. Any part in a non-production color available to LEGOLAND model builders is a q-part or q-element.
   
2. Q-parts/elements are those parts which are produced in a full range of colors for LEGOLAND - so a Q-Part is a specific part shape that the company has decided is useful enough to provide to model shops in all colors.   (If this is the right definition, I would LOVE to see a list of which part shapes are defined as Q-Parts, because it is a signal that TLG sees the part as crucial to general-purpose model building.)
   

---Tom

(2024-10-22, 12:05)Gerald Lasser Wrote: That said I do have a list from 2019 of what LLs could order and you can filter it by "Q-Part", and those are only colours that can be ordered by the LL Builders, out of a total 11000 parts 898 are Q-parts.

And they all have an Element-ID, which is basically their order number.

(2024-10-26, 4:47)tom alphin Wrote: That is interesting, and it confirms that a specific shape (mould) is not a Q-Part, but rather specific parts in specific colors (aka specific elements) are Q-Parts.