Technic beam orientation

[Roland Melkert]

I was wondering: why is the technic beam orientation the way it is?

Looking at real life models and default grid stepping in mlcad etc, it seems more logical to have the axis holes horizontally.

Just wondering.

[Orion Pobursky]

Much like a lot of orientations, for historical reasons. It's better to leave old parts as-is than change them and break all the models that use them. In the case of the beams, this would be quite a few.

[Philippe Hurbain]

We indeed need to stick to present orientation, but it was definitely a stupid choice in the beginning!

[Roland Melkert]

I don't seek to change it, I was just wondering why it is how it is.

but it was definitely a stupid choice in the beginning!

Guess this means there isn't some deep unseen meaning behind it then

[Daniel Goerner]

Just an Idea I had: Why not give the library a makeover? Clean up partnumbers, better oriantation for parts change rotation points where necessary etc.
And before releasing it making a little tool like DATHeader which can check existing models for those changed parts and correct this stuff. That way we could also get rid of all the moved to and alias stuff...

I'm just out of bed, so maybe I haven't thought this through. However, what do you think?

[Roland Melkert]

I don't think that's going to happen, the library people probably (understandably) rather spend their time on new stuff.

But we could always invent a new meta for supplying an alternative orientation, if it's really really really needed

[Steffen]

We've been downwards-compatible for many years now, I don't think we should break that now.

As for renumbering changes: we can do that downwards-compatibly by adding a 1-liner redirection file.
As for origin changes: we can do that downwards-compatibly by adding a 1-liner redirection file.

I would prefer that over introducing a new meta command.

But I think we should not devote our energy to such currently, as wrong origins or orientations can easily
be corrected by the users, and new parts will not suffer from that.

Instead we should focus on bringing the parts off the parts tracker
which wait there for years already.

[Travis Cobbs]

Actually, I think the idea of a new meta-command has merit. It would allow the orientation and origin of any part to be corrected at any arbitrary time without having a negative impact on existing files. LDraw editors would have to support the command, but it would only be used by editors at the time that a part is added to the model. The meta would simply contain a standard LDraw transformation matrix (just like type 1 lines contain), and if present, this transform would be applied by editors when the part is added. (LPub might also pay attention to the command to orient the part in the BOM; I'm not sure about that, though.)