Feedback Request: Table of Offests for Related Parts
2013-01-30, 21:48 (This post was last modified: 2013-02-17, 21:59 by Sergio Reano.)
2013-01-30, 21:48 (This post was last modified: 2013-02-17, 21:59 by Sergio Reano.)
Hi Y'all,
Some official parts have origins that favor easy rotation along their hinge but make them (relatively) difficult to place. For example:
3853 (window 1x4x3) and its shutters/panes (3854, 3856)
60596 (door frame 1x4x6) and its doors (e.g. 60623, 30178c01).
I saw that one author had written a help comment into a proposed part that stated the relative offset ot place the part in its parent. Unfortunately, the comment is not machine-readable. So my idea is to make a table of relative placements that would describe where to place the child part (e.g. the door) relative to the parent (its frame) to align the hinge mechanism. Since the parts are official, it's too late to change origins (and in some cases an origin that favors assembly would have other problems) but the table could allow a 3-d editor to insert the part directly.
A few questions:
- Has anyone already done this/is there an existing system that could be leveraged? I am sure i'm not the first person to consider this.
- Would such meta data better be stashed in the part itself or kept in a side table?
- Is there interest from other app developers in having access to relative placement table?
- How to handle parts that can be connected in multiple ways (e.g. the shutter can go to the left or right of the window)?
- Does this come too close to a "connections database"?
On that last point, my view is that even if such a scheme were stop-gap in the bigger picture, it would still be useful and could be replaced with something more thorough later. "Placement" info is simple enough that it could be done now, and it's useful even for 'fixing' a small number of part placements.
Thoughts?
Some official parts have origins that favor easy rotation along their hinge but make them (relatively) difficult to place. For example:
3853 (window 1x4x3) and its shutters/panes (3854, 3856)
60596 (door frame 1x4x6) and its doors (e.g. 60623, 30178c01).
I saw that one author had written a help comment into a proposed part that stated the relative offset ot place the part in its parent. Unfortunately, the comment is not machine-readable. So my idea is to make a table of relative placements that would describe where to place the child part (e.g. the door) relative to the parent (its frame) to align the hinge mechanism. Since the parts are official, it's too late to change origins (and in some cases an origin that favors assembly would have other problems) but the table could allow a 3-d editor to insert the part directly.
A few questions:
- Has anyone already done this/is there an existing system that could be leveraged? I am sure i'm not the first person to consider this.
- Would such meta data better be stashed in the part itself or kept in a side table?
- Is there interest from other app developers in having access to relative placement table?
- How to handle parts that can be connected in multiple ways (e.g. the shutter can go to the left or right of the window)?
- Does this come too close to a "connections database"?
On that last point, my view is that even if such a scheme were stop-gap in the bigger picture, it would still be useful and could be replaced with something more thorough later. "Placement" info is simple enough that it could be done now, and it's useful even for 'fixing' a small number of part placements.
Thoughts?