LEGO Digital Designer to LDraw

[Ahui Herrera]

Hello all,

It's been 6+ years since I have used the LDraw System of Tools (LDraw parts library, MLCAD, LPub, MegaPov, Pov-Ray, etc..).
I just did a check of my old installation files and notice I am way out of date.
Wow has time gone by and left me behind.
Is MegaPov still used by LPub to make LEGO like building instructions (ie. black outline on the rendered parts)?
Did anyone continue pioneering LDraw animations?
What happened to L3P and L3PAO? Is there a new tool to conver a .ldr to .pov file for rendering?
I feel like such a newbie now but those questions are not what brought me here.

I have a LEGO Digital Designer file (.lxf) that I download but was wondering if that file could be converted to .ldr some how in order to be viewed in LDView? I remember 10 years ago that LDView would allow you to rotate and slice the model if you wanted to. Not sure if this is still possible in LDView?

I did open the .lxf file in the LEGO Digital Designer software but quiet frankly that software looks even more foreign then LDraw did to me.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Hi Ahui,

Glad to see you back

Is MegaPov still used by LPub to make LEGO like building instructions (ie. black outline on the rendered parts)?

Recent, "wysiwig" version 4.x of LPub no longer use pov as a renderer but either LDView or LDGlite.

Did anyone continue pioneering LDraw animations?

Depends on animation style you want... For animation of Technic models, SR3Dbuilder is very interesting. And Roland is actively working to add animation to LDCad.

Is there a new tool to conver a .ldr to .pov file for rendering?

Yes, LDview has a pretty good export to pov function (and also to 3ds and stl file formats for 3D softwares)

if that file could be converted to .ldr

LDD has an export to ldr (file-> export), but you need a file (ldraw.xml) that defines correspondance between LDD and LDraw parts. There is one provided with LDD (placed in LDD program folder) but it is hugely out of date. Get the latest one here. Unfortunately, since there is not a one to one correspondance between LDraw and LDD parts, you will get some missing or misplaced parts...

Not sure if this is still possible in LDView?

Sure it is!

I guess now you have quite a bit of catchup to do

[Magnus Forsberg]

Maybe you should try the All-In-One-Installer

[Owen Dive]

Did anyone continue pioneering LDraw animations?

Depends on animation style you want... For animation of Technic models, SR3Dbuilder is very interesting. And Roland is actively working to add animation to LDCad.

LD4DStudio, also by Roland, specialises in animations, though it is not an editor, so you'll have to have your models already.