(2022-01-21, 3:39)Orion Pobursky Wrote: I guess the TL;DR is:
Pro: It models the real world part better
Con: Significantly more triangles and complexity for what amounts to a cosmetic change
Steffen: We could have lo-res and high-res "studs". Con to this is the same as above
My take: I'd like to see a real world example of the functional use of these "bumps". Otherwise these are non-functional aspects that we have historically not modeled in parts.
Yes, the purpose of these parts would be purely visual, not functional. As far as I know there's no way to use any of these extra features as a connection point (although I would be careful not to assume something doesn't exist just because I'm not aware of it).
Because it's purely cosmetic, I agree these parts shouldn't stand in conflict with the existing ones. And because it's purely cosmetic, I do feel they should be treated similarly to existing methods of primitive substitution (indeed, the baseplates already come with alternate bottom studs for fast-draw mode). And finally, because it's purely cosmetic, I think there's value in them continuing to exist, because sometimes it's nice, even strongly preferable, to make one's models that much more realistic.
So there's no question to me that they should exist; the issue would be their place in the official library. To determine that, I propose following the unresolved line of discussion already started here by Steffen and anathema: https://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptdetail.c.../3334h.dat. Wherever that logically leads is what should be decided.