Exporting from LDraw to Sketchfab

[Sketchfab team]

Hi all,

we're seeing quite an uptake in the number of Lego models that are being posted on Sketchfab:

https://sketchfab.com/models?q=lego

(Of course, running a Lego-themed contest helped, too ;-)

This made me wonder if it's possible to export from LDraw or related tools to some file format that we support.

Would anyone be interested in lending me a hand and investigate this?

Thanks!

Bart
Community Manager Sketchfab

[Travis Cobbs]

To the best of my knowledge, Nathanel Titane is using a developer build of LDView to export to 3DS format. Unfortunately, the latest release (including the 4.2 beta release) of LDView has significant bugs in its 3DS exporter, preventing it from being usable. I keep meaning to get an official 4.2 release out, but unfortunately I just haven't spent time working on it for the last few years, and it keeps not happening.

I assume someone using the LDraw Blender importer could import an LDraw model into Blender, and then from there export it into a format that you support.

[Sketchfab team]

In fact we support Blender and have it running on our servers, so that might be a great way to approach this. I just didn't know there was an LDraw importer (I guess Blender can do anything these days!).

I also just realized that Nathanel has already been doing some experiments on Sketchfab, so I'll reach out to him directly.

Thanks for nudging me in the right direction!

Bart

[Sketchfab team]

Wow, in fact, that Blender importer is awesome!

Here's what I was able to create in just a few minutes using Bricksmith, import to Blender and then send off to Sketchfab:

https://sketchfab.com/models/52bd54b7a3a...45db293441

Thanks so much for that!

Bart

[Steffen]

which importer do you mean? this one?
https://github.com/le717/LDR-Importer

[Sketchfab team]

Yes that's the one! I ran a quick test with Bricksmith, imported to Blender and uploaded to Sketchfab - it worked like a charm:

https://sketchfab.com/models/52bd54b7a3a...45db293441

Do you think this is at all relevant in the LDraw community? Would you like us to support the LDraw format or even work with the editor authors to add direct uploading?

Cheers!

Bart

[Nathanel Titane]

Hey Bart!

Did I not reply to you directly via e-mail that other time Travis Cobbs had recommended me to you?

LDView is the tool I would recommend, as the exports I use are 3DS files... the issue is the file size as the models parts are exported as is and are not optimized...

you can have a look at my Sketchfab gallery or contact me directly if need be - Alban knows who I am