LDCad 1.5 Alpha 1 (win+linux)

[Philippe Hurbain]

What's the simplest way to align a part with another? Case in point, place a rubber band circle path point centered on an off-grid pulley. Of course it's always possible to copy coordinates one at a time, but...

[Roland Melkert]

Currently there is no real dedicated way to align parts to another one except for maybe the relative grid. I do have some plans on this subject (eg mirror building) but as I have many plans pending it could take awhile

In the meantime you can use the guidance part for the relative grid and then use shift+home (align all axlis' to grid) followed by ctrl+home (reset orientation) and lastly move it to where you want it. This should at least help getting it aligned I think.

If you have some thoughts on how to automate it more, let me know.

[Michael Horvath]

I haven't tried animation yet. How does it work? Can it animate a camera? Does it output to POV-Ray or what?

[Philippe Hurbain]

Indeed, the relative grid makes the job for me in this case! Select the pulley, put origin on it ('o'), then select circle path path point and move to origin ('shift+c'). Optionnally reset orientation too ('ctrl+home'). Thanks!

[Roland Melkert]

I haven't tried animation yet. How does it work? Can it animate a camera? Does it output to POV-Ray or what?

Animation is (currently) 100% script based a bit like POVRay animation is. More features are pending though as it will be the main 'theme' of the 1.6 version which will include a POVRay export (comparable to the one in my LD4DStudio) and maybe a blender one too.

[Philippe Hurbain]

A friend of mine who had no prior usage of LEGO CAD just finished his first model with LDCad 1.4 (a relatively complex Technic MOC, attached). He was very favorably impressed by ease of use and speed of virtual construction.
Among his comments:
- Lack of help bubbles (I told him about the status bar)
- Complained about lack of indication that a bin contains other bins (addressed in 1.5)
- He added a lot of empty submodels, confusing the +step icon with the +model icon (I do that too quite often). While I think there is nothing wrong with the icons themselves, maybe the "discard" button of the edit header box should delete the submodel if it's just beeing created? Speaking of this window, is there a way to make "Sync with filename" the default option?
- Lack of parts list generation
- (edit) When you hide some parts/submodels then create an export, the exported image shows all hidden stuff.

Otherwise, in 1.5 alpha 4, I can't type a space in the filter field (it does work if I pop up the search window of course), preventing me to search on several words. Don't know if this behaviour is new but I think so.

[Roland Melkert]

Very nice model, especially for a first try

Lack of help bubbles (I told him about the status bar)

The hintbar only thing was initially a rendering speed thing, but on modern hardware it matters less and less, so I might add something (optional) in 1.6 for this.

He added a lot of empty submodels, confusing the +step icon with the +model icon (I do that too quite often). While I think there is nothing wrong with the icons themselves, maybe the "discard" button of the edit header box should delete the submodel if it's just beeing created? Speaking of this window, is there a way to make "Sync with filename" the default option?

A delete on the initial discard might be better indeed, I'll put it on my list of low prio stuff.

Lack of parts list generation

For a quick listing you can use the overview bin groups e.g. current step parts, all used parts etc. Or does he mean a export of used parts?

(edit) When you hide some parts/submodels then create an export, the exported image shows all hidden stuff.

This is a (minor) bug, I'll correct it in Beta 1.

Otherwise, in 1.5 alpha 4, I can't type a space in the filter field (it does work if I pop up the search window of course), preventing me to search on several words. Don't know if this behaviour is new but I think so.

This does work in 1.4, I noticed it myself a while back the multi view zoom was stealing the key event so I restricted that key to the view area. I'm not sure what's different compared to 1.4 but it's probably the result of the layout changes

Thanks for the feedback Philo.

edit: forgot to answer the filename sync question. The second checkbox behind that field controls the default behavior. I might need a better hint for that box.

[Roland Dahl]

I have two questions:

(1) Is it somehow possible to apply a certain order to the part bin of all models (all models currently loaded), respectively to sort this part bin by the number or name of the submodel? Furthermore is it possible to fix the main model on top of the part bin (first position).
For building models having a lot of submodels I would highly appreciate to find a certain submodel very quickly. Actually my part bin is in absolute disorder.

(2) Adding a new step is actually done via “append a new building step after the last one”. Is it possible to insert a new building step right after the actual building step (which is not meant to be the last one)?

thanks and regards

roland

[Roland Melkert]

(1) Is it somehow possible to apply a certain order to the part bin of all models (all models currently loaded), respectively to sort this part bin by the number or name of the submodel? Furthermore is it possible to fix the main model on top of the part bin (first position).
For building models having a lot of submodels I would highly appreciate to find a certain submodel very quickly. Actually my part bin is in absolute disorder.

The all models group is currently sorted by description, but now I think about it, this is probably not a good thing to do. I will change it to the model filename in the default bin for the next version.

The sorting order is given in the group's configuration file (allModels.pbg) trough the field 'sortOn'. You can change that field to something more to your liking yourself but you might have to do it again after an upgrade if it differs from the default. Unless you create a new / additional group for it by copying the pbg file. See also http://www.melkert.net/LDCad/tech/partBin

If you are comfortable working with config (ini) files you could setup a whole alternative bin structure to make things more to your liking. I would recommend to wait with the overview ones until Beta 1 of 1.5 is ready though. This because I'm in the middle of changing those groups rules wise.

(2) Adding a new step is actually done via “append a new building step after the last one”. Is it possible to insert a new building step right after the actual building step (which is not meant to be the last one)?

In the step menu there is an insert, it will insert a step meta before the current active one. There is also an option to insert a step meta before the current selected item in the same menu.

If you are using the 1.5 Alpha version you can insert a step meta anywhere using the source window. Just select any existing step meta and press 'ins' or drag a step meta from the part bin (root/special parts/LDraw meta's).

[Roland Dahl]

Thanks, that helps me a lot!

[Roland Melkert]

Hello all,

I'm almost ready to release a 1.5 Beta 1 version, just a few things to do followed by fixing all known bugs.

Problem I'm having with this is there is a known bug I can't seem to trace as it occurs seemingly randomly while closing the program.

I would appreciate any additional information people might have on the behavior of this bug. For example..

* have you noticed this crash in previous (alpha) versions (so i can limit the search to features added after the last stable version).
* have you noticed some scenario where it is more likely to occur (e.g. while a specific part bin group is visible etc, something is selected etc etc).

Any thoughts / feedback is welcome as I'm really having a hard time finding this bugger

And to the programmers among you I have tried to indirectly fix this issue by extensively running valgrind. But the only issues it now reports are memory leaks from third party libraries (mostly wxWidgets). So any suggestions on alternative debug tools etc are welcome too.

[Owen Dive]

Sorry, I can't help you there - I haven't experienced an actual crash of this program for a long time.
But I am very excited for the 1.5 Beta!

Owen.

Edit: I've been using LDCad a bit today, and I noticed that the Tools/Helper/Marker parts appear to be identical, despite the fact that one's labelled permanent and one's labelled temporary.

[Owen Dive]

Sorry, I can't help you there - I haven't experienced an actual crash of this program for a long time.

Well, I must have cursed myself - I got some crashes this afternoon.

Here's how I reproduce it:
1) From a new session, begin a new file
2) Add a submodel
3) Add a part to the submodel
4) Add the submodel to the main model
5) In the parts pane, go to Overview/Used in step. There should be one copy of one part.
6) The main model should consist of one submodel. Try to replace the submodel with the part by double-clicking the part in the parts pane.
7) On my machine at least, I get a Windows dialog that says "LDCad has stopped working" and tries to diagnose the problem. It can't, so all I can do is close the program.
Of course, sometimes it does that, and sometimes it replaces the submodel as expected. My hypothesis is that there's a race condition between the delete and the insert - if the delete happens first, the part is no longer in the list of parts used in this model, so there's nothing to insert. Or I could be completely wrong.

Sorry to bring this up so close before the release of Beta 1.

Owen.

[Roland Melkert]

Of course, sometimes it does that, and sometimes it replaces the submodel as expected. My hypothesis is that there's a race condition between the delete and the insert - if the delete happens first, the part is no longer in the list of parts used in this model, so there's nothing to insert. Or I could be completely wrong.

Thanks for reporting, I couldn't reproduce it using one part in the submodel. But while using multiple ones it was guaranteed to crash

Actually lines are never really deleted, they are just marked deleted this makes the undo system alot easier to work with.

It was caused by the item hint system, which tried to 'ask' the bin cell below the mouse for its hint string after processing the double click. But at that point the cell bin item was no longer (reliable) available because the bin already regenerated it items cache list.

Sorry to bring this up so close before the release of Beta 1.

Don't worry about it I rather fix this now then have a scratch on the brand new version just after releasing it

[Philippe Hurbain]

Not really a bug, but... when you use a part bin that has color information (set pbg, or history), you somehow would expect that double clicking on a part in the bin with a part selected would replace the part type AND its color. Currently only the part type is changed.

Found another quirck: when I change from bin set 1 to bin set 3 that are identical (set pbg) except for filter string, the displayed filter string is not updated (the bin contents are properly changed) . But it works when I change 1 to 2 then 2 to 3!

[Roland Melkert]

Not really a bug, but... when you use a part bin that has color information (set pbg, or history), you somehow would expect that double clicking on a part in the bin with a part selected would replace the part type AND its color. Currently only the part type is changed.

That's more logical indeed, I'll change it.

Found another quirck: when I change from bin set 1 to bin set 3 that are identical (set pbg) except for filter string, the displayed filter string is not updated (the bin contents are properly changed) . But it works when I change 1 to 2 then 2 to 3!

A bug resulting from the bin rewrite, I'll fix it.

On a side note I'm happy to report 1.5 Beta 1 is now feature complete and I'm concentrating on bug fixing / testing hoping to release it soon. If anyone has additional problems / quirks / bugs please let me know as soon a possible.

[Magnus Forsberg]

This is maybe not a bug either, but it is buggin me.
Or is the answer to my questions someware in a previous post?

1.)
Why can't I change the colour of a brick in my model by clicking on the colour wheel?
I want to select a brick in my model, and then select/change the colour of it by clicking on the colour wheel.
As it is now I have to select the part, then rightclick to the correct meny and manually edit the colour code.
Or delete it, select colour, add a new brick.

2.)
After installing the latest update, my icons were redirected to "G:\LDraw\LDCad\LDCad.exe"

3.)
Why can't I move a brick in my model from the keyboard alone?
In MLCad I select a part and then move it left/right/front/back with the arrow keys and up/down with "Page up/Page down"

4.)
Why can't I navigate the part bin by clicking above or below the slider?

[Roland Melkert]

Why can't I change the colour of a brick in my model by clicking on the colour wheel?
I want to select a brick in my model, and then select/change the colour of it by clicking on the colour wheel.
As it is now I have to select the part, then rightclick to the correct meny and manually edit the colour code.
Or delete it, select colour, add a new brick.

You can by double clicking the color wheel. But I'm thinking you are using the wheel wrong to begin with. The wheel selects the current 'working color' this is indeed used for new parts etc but you can also assign it to the selection by clicking the larger rectangle in the color history bar below the color wheel.

After installing the latest update, my icons were redirected to "G:\LDraw\LDCad\LDCad.exe"

I'm not sure what you mean / happend here. All I can tell you is the setup does not change any file extension stuff, maybe you did a manual open with (use as default) in the windows context menu?

Why can't I move a brick in my model from the keyboard alone?
In MLCad I select a part and then move it left/right/front/back with the arrow keys and up/down with "Page up/Page down"

You can but the editing pin has to be in move mode, in 1.5 you can also use ctrl+arrows while its in rotate mode.

Why can't I navigate the part bin by clicking above or below the slider?

This is possible in 1.5 as it has a number of scroll bar related improvements.

[Magnus Forsberg]

I'm not sure what you mean / happend here.

The icon in Windows start meny stopped working. A right click told me that the properties was changed to
Target "G:\LDraw\LDCad\LDCad.exe".
Start in "G:\LDraw\LDCad\"

I don't have a G: drive !?
I have LDCad installed in "C:\Program Files (x86)\LDCad"

You can, but the editing pin has to be in move mode

I want to move it in all three directions without having to choose a edit plane first.

[Roland Melkert]

The icon in Windows start meny stopped working. A right click told me that the properties was changed to
Target "G:\LDraw\LDCad\LDCad.exe".
Start in "G:\LDraw\LDCad\"

I don't have a G: drive !?
I have LDCad installed in "C:\Program Files (x86)\LDCad"

Ah you mean the start menu shortcut. I'll have to look into this as I'm currently unaware of any issues concerning the setup messing that up. Did you at one point run the setup from e.g. a thumb drive or something ? If anyone else had similar problems please let me know.

I want to move it in all three directions without having to choose a edit plane first.

Currently you can only move on the 2D grid but you can switch the plane using keys (T)op, (S)ides, (F)ront. I can't use pageup/down as those are already used for building step navigation. I'll try to open up your referred usage through the 1.6 version key remap feature.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Something for a future release: give the possibility to distribute length error of fixed elements flexible parts over the whole length. Maybe it's already possible, I tried to play with skin segment size, this does something but I couldn't get it right despite several trial/errors.

[Magnus Forsberg]

Did you at one point run the setup from e.g. a thumb drive or something ?

Yes, I think that might be the cause behind this behaviour.
I did a install, both on my regular drive and on a usb-stick, and tested if I could open it from that stick.

[Roland Melkert]

give the possibility to distribute length error of fixed elements flexible parts over the whole length. Maybe it's already possible

I'm not sure what you mean here, are you trying to define LSynth like skin? If so you need to set the segment size below 100% so the segments will slightly overlap, placement should be dynamic, 'max merge' disabled (1) and 'final scale' set to none.

And last you should use a donor which is available in the official library or mpd itself as it will use normal references while working with the dynamic placement method.

[Philippe Hurbain]

I made a tread using 57518 part (for 42042 model) using LDCad template. When properly placed over the sprockets and guiding wheels, the tread was 45 links long (the correct value) but there was a gap of maybe 1/2 link wide. I guess that in the real model, play at each link attachment allows to properly close the loop. What I want is to close the gap by making all the links a tad further apart.

[Roland Melkert]

I made a tread using 57518 part (for 42042 model) using LDCad template. When properly placed over the sprockets and guiding wheels, the tread was 45 links long (the correct value) but there was a gap of maybe 1/2 link wide. I guess that in the real model, play at each link attachment allows to properly close the loop. What I want is to close the gap by making all the links a tad further apart.

That should be possible by setting the skin tolerance to e.g. 5% and setting the 'grid stepping' (path page of the header dialog) to 0.

The grid stepping is the internal curve resolution, you will loose perfect link placement if it's different to the link length but that's what you want

[Philippe Hurbain]

Perfect! Thanks...

[Philippe Hurbain]

Something that surprised me a bit (but somewhat makes sense): I inlined a shortcut while in nested mode. The shortcut was inlined at working level, instead of beeing inlined in the submodel where shortcut was.

[Roland Melkert]

Something that surprised me a bit (but somewhat makes sense): I inlined a shortcut while in nested mode. The shortcut was inlined at working level, instead of beeing inlined in the submodel where shortcut was.

This is how I set it ip to work, but I could add an option dialog to the feature.

'm not sure it is needed that much though, especially as you could also just press 'n' (change the working level to the selection's direct parent) before using inline-ing.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Yes, I think it's OK as -is. Now that I know the behaviour...

[Roland Melkert]

Problem I'm having with this is there is a known bug I can't seem to trace as it occurs seemingly randomly while closing the program.

I'm still open to any additional info.

This is now the single pending issue preventing me from releasing 1.5 Beta 1. I thought I fixed it 2 days ago, but it crashed again a moment ago. I have one more thing to try but I'm wondering if I should just release it instead of waiting a couple of days again while doing random stuff in the program myself now and then.

[Philippe Hurbain]

I vote for beta release. I have used alpha 4 quite a bit these days and got no crash. Moreover this one is not so annoying since it occurs on close, no data is lost.

[Roland Melkert]

I vote for beta release. I have used alpha 4 quite a bit these days and got no crash. Moreover this one is not so annoying since it occurs on close, no data is lost.

Actually it usually crashes while gathering the config file contents so you'll loose the config data as it is never written

But you are right it is probably better to just release it in hopes of getting more info at least.