Trevor Sandy Wrote:LPub3D 1.3.3.590.2Thanks so much for fixing those bugs and crashes!
Jaco van der Molen
lpub.binarybricks.nl
lpub.binarybricks.nl
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:3) in the menu which appears when right clicking on the main page the first top choice now is "Change page background". I personally preferred it before when it was "Add next step", just because I guess this command to be more often used overall. (I might be wrong though)
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:New possible features:
1) Currently when you click on an step image the cursor moves to the corresponding location on the right commands list, which is great. It would be useful if the same would happen when while clicking on a line of code the corresponding instruction image would get highlighted.
2) Rotation steps: Not sure whether it is just me, but when it comes to rotation steps I happen to more or less always use the same angles of vision. (example: 25 50 0 ABS). In my view it would be very convenient to have some buttons to generate these standard rotsteps with just a click. (customzable in the prefs?) Additionally it could help to have buttons to rotate by +/- 90° each axis on the currently selected rotstep. Just throwing ideas out there :-)
3)When I generate BIs I find myself often going back and forth from and to MLCAD to fix small issues, like an inaccurate bricks positions, or a wrong brick color.
In this sense it would be great to have the ability to change the color directly in LPub. Of course this can already be done by typing the color code, but it would be more convenient to have a table with the colors and just have to click on the proper one.
When it comes to brick position also here it would be great to be able to adjust the position of bricks back and forth up and down and so forth by just clicking on some buttons which makes them move by standard distances like 1 plate in height and 1/2 brick in x,y. (or custom configurable in the prefs)
I also like to move bricks temporarily to generate more clear instructions (For this there is a specific Ldraw instruction, but I find too cumbersome and time consuming to use). I personally indeed export everything to PNG and combine instructions in Photoshop.
4) possibility to add extra custom arrows? This is something I personally do not need, but somebody might find useful.
Jaco van der Molen Wrote:Mattia Zamboni Wrote:3) in the menu which appears when right clicking on the main page the first top choice now is "Change page background". I personally preferred it before when it was "Add next step", just because I guess this command to be more often used overall. (I might be wrong though)
Good point. I was have trouble adjusting to that too. I am so used to right click and pick the first option for adding steps.
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:New possible features:
1) Currently when you click on an step image the cursor moves to the corresponding location on the right commands list, which is great. It would be useful if the same would happen when while clicking on a line of code the corresponding instruction image would get highlighted.
2) Rotation steps: Not sure whether it is just me, but when it comes to rotation steps I happen to more or less always use the same angles of vision. (example: 25 50 0 ABS). In my view it would be very convenient to have some buttons to generate these standard rotsteps with just a click. (customzable in the prefs?) Additionally it could help to have buttons to rotate by +/- 90° each axis on the currently selected rotstep. Just throwing ideas out there :-)
3)When I generate BIs I find myself often going back and forth from and to MLCAD to fix small issues, like an inaccurate bricks positions, or a wrong brick color.
In this sense it would be great to have the ability to change the color directly in LPub. Of course this can already be done by typing the color code, but it would be more convenient to have a table with the colors and just have to click on the proper one.
When it comes to brick position also here it would be great to be able to adjust the position of bricks back and forth up and down and so forth by just clicking on some buttons which makes them move by standard distances like 1 plate in height and 1/2 brick in x,y. (or custom configurable in the prefs)
I also like to move bricks temporarily to generate more clear instructions (For this there is a specific Ldraw instruction, but I find too cumbersome and time consuming to use). I personally indeed export everything to PNG and combine instructions in Photoshop.
4) possibility to add extra custom arrows? This is something I personally do not need, but somebody might find useful.
I like all 4 ideas.
Specially number 4! Vector arrows would be so nice.
I gave this some thought: right clicking on an assembly image should have the option "Add arrow" (just like a callout).
A standard black arrow of some length and line thickness should be generated then.
Click this arrow will show 2 handles (like with the callout arrows) to manipulate the start and end point of the arrow.
Right-clicking the arrow must allow to change color, line width (and type since this is in now) and size of arrowhead.
It would be more awesome to add corners to arrows (callouts) or even curved arrows.
Point 3: Since I turned to LDCad as my favorite editor I think both LDCad and LPub3D should be made aware of eachother changing a file.
I think LDCad already does this: change a file in say a texteditor and returning to LDCad prompts it has detected changes and gives the option to reload. Make this vice versa and you could easily switch back and forth from your editor and LPub3D.
Personally I think LPub3D should remain a layout tool and not and LDraw editor.
Pont 2: This could be done with the Leocad editor? Though I have never used it.
Magnus Forsberg Wrote:Is LDCad or LPub3D able to create anything like that? Click a button and auto generate a partlist or a BI on a html-page, or any other file format?In LPub3D there is an option to place a BOM on a page (intended to be used on an empty page - I usually include it at the end of my PDF file)
Merlijn Wissink Wrote:LPub3D (or any LDraw software as far as I know) can't create building instructions on its own, like LDD. However, I don't think a lot of people use LDD's instruction generator, because aside from very basic brick-only models, it produces weird, unlogical and unbuildable instructions. The algorithm isn't smart enough. There is a program available that's similiar to LPub but for LDD, which is relatively popular.I totally agree with Merlijn here. The instructions that LDD produces are virtually unreadable (very bad and low res quality) and quite unlogical with many hovering parts and tends to build so that with real bricks it is impossible.
Jetro de Château Wrote:The render quality of Blueprint is fabulous though. I'd love to be able to generate higher quality instructions with LPub.
Jetro de Château Wrote:Where do I change that setting? I checked under Configuration > Preferences, but don't see an option to choose quality.
Jetro de Château Wrote:Also, what LDView settings does LPub use for rendering?
Jaco van der Molen Wrote:Jetro de Château Wrote:Also, what LDView settings does LPub use for rendering?
I think these are the last settings you make in LDView.
Travis Cobbs Wrote:Jaco van der Molen Wrote:Jetro de Château Wrote:Also, what LDView settings does LPub use for rendering?
I think these are the last settings you make in LDView.
At one point in time, I think LPub would use the "LPub" preference set in LDView, if that preference set was present. You can verify that by creating an "LPub" preference set and configuring it to do something obvious (like wireframe), and then switch to another preference set that doesn't have the same configuration.
Quote:I tried LDGLite and the render speed is fabulous. However, the result is different from LDView, not simply in quality, but for some strange reason, in size.Ah, still the same old problem. I hoped it had been solved since I tried the same process (LDView only for final rendering)...
Quote:Has anyone been able to get LDView to render studs with the LEGO logo?Yes, you have to enable it in LDView: preferences -> Primitives tab -> Enable primitive substitution (suggest to use second notch of slider) and check "Texture studs".
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:The mixup happened to you is because LPub is keeping a cache of step images in a temp folder in order to speed up image rendering process. From time to time if you change a step and do not refresh, or if you load different files form the same folder mixups can happen. Just make sure to empty the cache (there are 2 menu items for this in LPub3D) and you are good to go!Maybe there could be an option in preferences that allows you to force LPub to empty the cache before creating a PDF?
Philippe Hurbain Wrote:Yes, you have to enable it in LDView: preferences -> Primitives tab -> Enable primitive substitution (suggest to use second notch of slider) and check "Texture studs".Thanks. I missed them mostly on the LDView render I did to create an image of the complete model for the front page. Including them in building steps doesn't sound like a good idea indeed.
Not sure that it is worth the trouble since the logos are barely visible at model scale, it takes more time and make the image a tad less legible.
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:That being said LPub is using the active preference set used by LDview. So if while using LPub you open LDview and change something, changes will be reflected in LPub the next time you refresh your page.
I personally would prefer LPub using its own LDview settings, but I doubt LDview currently allows this.
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:When it comes it render engine there are 2 options: LDGlite, and LDview. In my testing I found LDGlite to be much quicker but with lower image quality. LDview on the contrary can generate superb image quality but at the cost of speed. So my strategy is to use LDGlite during my work in LPub and switch to LDview just before printing/exporting.
Travis Cobbs Wrote:At one time LPub included -PreferenceSet=LPub on the command line. This allowed a power user to create an LPub preference set in LDView and configure it exactly like they wanted.1. Does anyone know why that functionality was removed from LPub?
Travis Cobbs Wrote:At one time LPub included -PreferenceSet=LPub on the command line. This allowed a power user to create an LPub preference set in LDView and configure it exactly like they wanted.I don't recall seeing this option/behavior, and I was not aware of it, but I also see no reason why it cannot be reintroduced.
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:1) The incompatibility related to the "Add/CHANGE line type attribute to border configuration" with previous LPub versions should be in my opinion be fixed by assigning a value by default to the missing value in case of older file, instead of generating a parsing error which might not be trivial to understand to unexperienced users. This is of course just a suggestion.I thought about this option and finally decided the time to write logic to do a one-time update was not worth the update itself. If it was the case where files would be useable between LPub and LPub3D then for sure I would have silently addressed this change but this is not the case. So old border metas must be manually updated and once a file is configured for LPub3D there is no further action for LPub3D or the user to do.
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:2) wrong text (I'm just being picky here!): when you export to PNG the window title says "Print to pdf"I'll take a look at this - thanks.
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:3) in the menu which appears when right clicking on the main page the first top choice now is "Change page background". I personally preferred it before when it was "Add next step", just because I guess this command to be more often used overall. (I might be wrong though)I'll take a look at this also - thanks.
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:New possible features:What functional value does this feature provide ? A user must still 'select' the image by a context menu right-click to perform an action. While there may be some 'kool!' factor in having this behavior, I'm not sure what else it achieves.
1) Currently when you click on an step image the cursor moves to the corresponding location on the right commands list, which is great. It would be useful if the same would happen when while clicking on a line of code the corresponding instruction image would get highlighted.
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:2) Rotation steps: Not sure whether it is just me, but when it comes to rotation steps I happen to more or less always use the same angles of vision. (example: 25 50 0 ABS). In my view it would be very convenient to have some buttons to generate these standard rotsteps with just a click. (customzable in the prefs?) Additionally it could help to have buttons to rotate by +/- 90° each axis on the currently selected rotstep. Just throwing ideas out there :-)Ok, this is a vary contextual request. If I were to implement this then I'd have to satisfy every user's expectation of having the options they 'more or less' use - so that would be a selection of 4 angles x 2 directions (positive, negative) x 2 ABS/REL x 3 axes = 48 buttons.
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:3)When I generate BIs I find myself often going back and forth from and to MLCAD to fix small issues, like an inaccurate bricks positions, or a wrong brick color.Considering the effort to implement this this behavior in LPub3D, one should be sure every step is sufficiently configured before embarking on producing instructions - or be prepared to return to their modeling solution to make adjustments. With sophisticated modelers like LDCad, the experience should be better.
In this sense it would be great to have the ability to change the color directly in LPub. Of course this can already be done by typing the color code, but it would be more convenient to have a table with the colors and just have to click on the proper one.
When it comes to brick position also here it would be great to be able to adjust the position of bricks back and forth up and down and so forth by just clicking on some buttons which makes them move by standard distances like 1 plate in height and 1/2 brick in x,y. (or custom configurable in the prefs)
I also like to move bricks temporarily to generate more clear instructions (For this there is a specific Ldraw instruction, but I find too cumbersome and time consuming to use). I personally indeed export everything to PNG and combine instructions in Photoshop.
Mattia Zamboni Wrote:4) possibility to add extra custom arrows? This is something I personally do not need, but somebody might find useful.Ok - since you do not need this an no one else has requested this and as custom arrows can be added in any modelling application at this time - will you pay 1,000 Euros for this enhancement :-)
Don Heyse Wrote:Have the changes been put to the test on any systems other than Windows? If not, I'll try and see what happens on linux (and OS-X if my ancient emac still runs, or the icebook I suppose).No, but I did the enhancement using Cygwin.
Don Heyse Wrote:Where do I find ldsearchdirs.h? I have a vague memory that makes me think maybe there was a sourceforge project somewhere with the ldrawsearchdirs code, but I haven't found it yet.It's part of the LPub3D source, you can see on sourceforge.net - follow the link in the LPub3D about menu item.
Don Heyse Wrote:I noticed that code like this:The mingw 4.9.2 compiler was complaining about the original code being obsolete. I didn't change any extensions just used what i downloaded. My goal was to implement the functionality I needed for LPub3D - as described in update notes. I did not think this code base was maintained. Please feel free to throw out anything I've done as you please.
function("Some String")
is replaced quite often by code that looks like this:
{
char* str = "Some String";
function(str);
}
Is there some new C standard that forces that construct on us? I don't like it, but I guess times change... Or is this maybe a C++ thing caused by some of the files foolishly using the .cpp extension when they're actually plain old C code?
Don Heyse Wrote:And finally, if anyone remembers how to use manage a sourceforge cvs repository I could use some hints. Apparently cvs is deprecated to the point where they've removed most of the documentaion. Right now I'm limited to the annonymous read-only access that's still documented. I'm almost tempted to start over with ldglite code someone stashed on github.You could use TortoiseCVS to download your source and repost on SVN or github.