Looking for Experienced LDraw Part Author (Paid Work)

[Ansgar Riedel]

Hello everyone,

we are currently working on a project that requires a number of custom LDraw parts. To keep everything compatible with the official LDraw standards, we are looking for an experienced LDraw Part Author who can create high-quality, highly optimized .dat files.

This is paid work, and we are looking for someone with the following experience:

Requirements

• Strong experience with LDraw part authoring
  
• Ability to create primitive-based, clean, and efficient geometry (minimal triangles, correct use of subfiles, primitives, condlines, BFC, etc.)
  
• Familiarity with the LDraw Part Authoring Guidelines
  
• Ability to work with custom elements, modified versions of existing parts, or completely new parts based on STEP/OBJ files
  
• Experience with LDPartEditor and LDraw primitives is important
  

What we provide

• STEP/OBJ reference files
  
• Technical drawings or measurements if needed
  
• Clear specifications for each part
  
• Potential for ongoing paid collaboration
  

What we expect

• Clean, optimized .dat files
  
• Correct BFC usage
  
• Correct origin and grid alignment
  
• Use of LDraw primitives whenever possible
  

Volume of work
We need several custom parts and are looking for a reliable long-term collaboration.

How to apply
If you are interested, please reply here or send me a private message. 

Thank you!
Ansgar

[Peter Blomberg]

Who's the employer? Why do you need compatibility? Why do you need custom parts?

[Ansgar Riedel]

Who's the employer? Why do you need compatibility? Why do you need custom parts?

Hi Peter,

we’re a small independent project working on digital building workflows.
We need Studio/LDraw compatibility because our designers build in Studio and we rely on LDraw files for part lists and instructions.
The custom parts are original elements specific to our models that don’t exist in the official library, so we need them as highly optimized .dat files.

Best,
Ansgar

[Peter Blomberg]

Is what country is the employment? Where the employee would pay income taxes.

Why don't you simply convert the obj files into dat files and annotate them with studio's part designer?

[Ansgar Riedel]

Is what country is the employment? Where the employee would pay income taxes.

Why don't you simply convert the obj files into dat files and annotate them with studio's part designer?

We’re not offering employment — it’s just a paid commission for specific LDraw parts, so tax residency isn’t relevant.

Regarding OBJ → DAT:
We already tested Studio’s Part Designer, but it exports full mesh geometry, which results in very large, unoptimized DAT files with no primitives, no condlines and poor performance.
For our workflow we need proper LDraw-style, primitive-based parts (like the official library), which is why we’re looking for an experienced part author instead of using mesh imports.

[Rene Rechthaler]

What kind of parts do you need? rather geometric or more freeform parts? (any examples you want to share/show here?)
could it be split between several persons? (we have some specialists here, also to keep the "peer review" feature)
are the digital parts also based on real parts? coexisting with Lego or not?
does it still fall under the CC BY 4.0? would the parts also be allowed on the tracker? or for your use exclusively?

[Hageta]

Convert To LDraw(to be renamed) can convert some step formats. The next release will include some fixes for that format(colour/material and other stuff). Currently step files are automatically converted to a mesh with default settings(with trimesh). It may be possible to expose some settings for quality, to get a simpler mesh(you could open an issue on the repo for that). Some changes in the next version may also be usefull for creating patterned parts.

[Peter Blomberg]

We’re not offering employment — it’s just a paid commission for specific LDraw parts, so tax residency isn’t relevant.

When one entity gives a task and another performs it with the expectation of monetary compensation, all requirements for a contractual relationship (employment in the case where the performing entity is a human) are fulfilled. Sure, it doesn't have to be continuous employment and the compensation can be based solely on the work performed, but the beneficiary must pay tax. Anything else constitutes grey economy.

[Orion Pobursky]

I think the point is that with contract work or work for hire, pay taxes is on you, not on them.

[Peter Blomberg]

That may indeed be the case. It depends on the country. Therefore, one would need to know in which country the income is generated.

[Orion Pobursky]

Assuming you do the work, whatever one you're residing in.

[Rene Rechthaler]

How much money is it even? if it is a singular thing up to 50€/$ i guess it would be negligible...
If more or longer, then maybe.

[Peter Blomberg]

Not always. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation
Generally, it depends on both the foreign country, the local country, and what kind of mutual tax treaty they have.