Coaster designer

[Ronald van der Velden]

Hello there!

After a few years of not using the LDraw-family of tools, I bought the Lego coaster set 10261 and decided to start a little hobby programming project on the side. I'm working on a roller coaster designer tool. Specifically, I'm trying to include two pieces of functionality that will be useful additions to the already existing tools:

• Instead of positioning each brick individually, just add them at the end of the track automatically, similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon (anybody?  )
  
• And... it will automatically generate a nice support structure, based on the position of the tracks, avoiding collision with the track itself or having too many pillars and ideally also connecting them with horizontal bars like in the 10261 set
  

The first bit is working including a simple renderer, open/save functionality, parts list and (obviously) export to LDR; I'm roughly halfway the support structure algorithm (it places pillars optimally at the right X/Z coordinates based on the track, but only uses the 2x2 round brick so far and doesn't generate horizontal connections   )

In the coming weeks I hope to add some screenshots here. Really curious to hear any suggestions or ideas you may already have!!

Best regards,
Ronald