Introducing my LEGO Parts Guide, which is powered by images exported from LDraw.

[tom alphin]

How did you calculate your previous most common, current parts?

For my previous roughly annual "most common parts" calculations, I did the following:
1. Assumed that I purchased one of every set in the past 5 years and sorted all the pieces by part, then by color.
2. Ranking is a weighted function that takes both the sheer number of pieces for each part (irrespective of color) and the number of unique colors the part comes in.  I haven't looked at the actual algorithm in a long time, but I think logarithms are involved to squish the long-tail distribution down a bit.

Why logarithms and why take into account both sheer number and number of colors?
My goal is to identify the most useful parts for LEGO builders that want to create their own MOCs.  Especially given access to BrickLink and Pick A Brick, it doesn't really matter if a part is hard to get in a particular color, or only comes in a few sets... The goal is to highlight parts that 'matter' - so to speak.


I'm glad to hear that a script which outputs a list of the most common parts not currently in LDraw would be useful.  Once I re-create my weighted ranking system on the website, I will create an undocumented script for this group to highlight parts which might be missing from LDraw. 

(Parts will appear on that list for either of two reasons: It isn't in LDraw at all, or the Part Number used on Rebrickable doesn't match the LDraw part number. - Rebrickable is my source for set inventories.)

Thanks for the kind words about what I've built so far!
---tom