[LDPartEditor] 0.8.5 Beta Released

[Nils Schmidt]

Hi,

with a little overdue of one month*... here is the LDPartEditor 0.8.5 Beta release!
I will now focus on tutorial videos since this version should be stable enough to work with (though its still a beta).


You can download LDPE from this page:
http://nilsschmidt1337.github.io/ldparteditor/

Changelog:

With this release you will be able to...

• ...use up to 9 decimal places for rounding (coordinates + matrix). [requested by Gerald]
  
• ...open the part in the 3D editor from the text editor window (orange "3D" button) [requested by at least two users]
  
• ...use "save as..." to store files under a new filename (text editor only) [requested by Magnus]
  
• ...use a button for single vertex manipulation ("SyncEdit") in the text editor [requested by Willy]
  
• ...benefit from a new "how-to-use" description for the SlicerPro2 tool.
  

The following critical issues were fixed:

1. Rectifier created rect#.dat primitives when "Split" and "SlicerPro2" were used.
   
2. Rectifier created rect-prims that were scaled in three dimensions.
   
3. Fixed an issue which was related to the parsing of the !HISTORY meta command
   
4. Fixed a null pointer issue with "Add Quad" and other "Add..." functions.
   
5. Fixed incorrect cursor movement when single vertex manipulation was active.
   
6. Fixed a GUI access issue, which occured on drag&drop with text editor tabs.
   
7. Fixed a random null pointer issue, which could disable the tab from the text editor window when more than one tab was opened.
   
8. In some rare cases when a flat subfile was scaled in X/Y or Z and the transformation matrix contained more than one space as seperator between the values, the corresponding "Quick Fix" was not able fix the scaling.
   

The program was tested intensively with "real world" files.
However, it is still a beta version and something can go wrong in about 100.000 lines of code.

Make sure that you choose the right architecture for your OS and Java Virtual Machine (JVM) (64bit or 32bit).
A short guide how to check if a 64bit JVM is installed on your system is located at the bottom of this message.

1. Download the zip-Archive
   
2. Extract the archive content to the location of your choice
   
3. On windows, double-click "run.bat" to start LPE.
   
4. On linux/mac, you have to excecute the shell script "run.sh" to start LPE.
   

Please note that this software is in the beta stage. Although, LPE 0.8.5 was carefully tested and developed, there are already known issues for this release. There is a potential risk of data loss.

You can search for updates if you do the following steps:

1. On windows, double-click "update.bat" to search for updates.
   
2. On linux/mac, you have to excecute the shell script "update.sh".
   

LPE is a 3D CAD application: The overall system requirements are higher. While I recommend to use a powerful 64-bit multicore system, it could be possible, to run LPE on older machines as well.

System Requirements:

Minimum System Requirements:

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.8
  
• OpenGL 2.1 compatible Graphics Card
  
• Operating System (32/64bit): Windows [XP; Vista; 7 or newer], Mac OS X [>=10.6], Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=10.4]
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor e.g. Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon II (>2.0Ghz)
  
• RAM: 2.5GB
  
• Video-Memory: 512 MB
  
• Free Disk Space: 100 MB
  

Recommended Requirements:

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.8
  
• Operating System (64bit): Windows 7, Mac OS X [>=10.6], Linux [e.g. Ubuntu Linux >=10.4]
  
• CPU: Multicore-Processor with 4 cores (or more)
  
• RAM: >4 GB
  
• Video-Memory: >512 MB
  
• Free Disk Space: 512 MB
  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to check your JVM version (32- or 64-bit):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can try on the command line:

Code:

java -d64 version

If it's not a 64-bit version, you'll get a message that looks like:

Code:

This Java instance does not support a 64-bit JVM. Please install the desired version.

In general, I recommend to install the 64-bit version of the JVM for Java 8.



___
* normally, I want to do at least one release per month.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Going on with my questions... While there are lots of options to inline something, I found no "built in" way of making a subfile from a selection. So I tried the manual route: cut elements to be moved in the subpart, created a new subpart and... failed there: it seems you can't paste things to another file?

[Gerald Lasser]

That works for me.

- Create the empty subpart in the project's "s" directory
- Select from the original 3D view the items you want to copy (prims, quads, lines all together)
- Copy them (Ctrl-C)
- Paste (Ctrl-P) them in the new subfile

that worked for me.

Indeed a button to do that would be perfect!

What Nils intended is:
- Do your part.
- Whatever you want to subfile shall be framed by
0 !LPE INLINE 1 16 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 s\test2.dat
4 12 -40 -12 -20 40 -12 -20 40 -12 60 -40 -12 60
1 12 0 -20 20 36 0 0 0 0 -44 0 -1 0 48\4-4disc.dat
1 12 40 -32 -12 0 -80 0 0 0 -26 26 0 0 4-4cylo.dat
0 !LPE INLINE END
- Click on "Compile Subfile Data" and test2.dat is created in "s"

[Philippe Hurbain]

Indeed, it works. But I have lots of focus issues (eg. if you click on a button, the 3D window is no longer focused, without any visual clue, so I guess the ctrl+c was missed).

What Nils intended is:
- Do your part.
- Whatever you want to subfile shall be framed by
0 !LPE INLINE 1 16 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 s\test2.dat

Interesting, but quite complex compared to similar function in LDDP (do a selection, hit the subfile button, selection is moved to subfile and a reference to the subfile is created)

[Gerald Lasser]

Your suggestion would really make the workflow smoother as the step of sorting and collecting will be skipped.

[Philippe Hurbain]

And actually an improvement over LDDP since there you can't select non-contiguous pieces of code...

[Nils Schmidt]

Indeed, it works. But I have lots of focus issues (eg. if you click on a button, the 3D window is no longer focused, without any visual clue, so I guess the ctrl+c was missed).

That's interesting!
I heard something similar from Willy Tschager and created a high-priority ticket for this issue. It should be easy to reproduce and to fix.

[Nils Schmidt]

Hi,

I just finished the first tutorial video with some audio commentary and subtitles.
The topic is "Download & Installation". You don't have to watch this video if you are using LDPE already.

You can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ektI6yMB-2s

How do I proceed in the future? I will focus on some basic stuff first. Installation, startup and then all functions and features.
One by one, from opening a file, adding a vertex, to generating CSG bodies, !TEXMAP, ...

Later on, I will do a video about the topic: "What is LDPartEditor?" and why I created it...

[Philippe Hurbain]

Found two little glitches...
- In the attached file, I colored two rectangle greens. But LDPE shows them as main color, even if LDPE selection window shows that the color is indeed '2'.
   

- In the same file, if I select the two yellow boxes then select -> touching, the two green rectangles are not selected, though they are touching (that's something I can understand, determining adjacency of 2 subfiles is not easy)
- Stranger, the 3 red lines on the back face get selected, though they are definitely not touching...

[Nils Schmidt]

Found two little glitches...
1. In the attached file, I colored two rectangle greens. But LDPE shows them as main color, even if LDPE selection window shows that the color is indeed '2'.
2. In the same file, if I select the two yellow boxes then select -> touching, the two green rectangles are not selected, though they are touching (that's something I can understand, determining adjacency of 2 subfiles is not easy)
Stranger, the 3 red lines on the back face get selected, though they are definitely not touching...

1. The solution is very easy. There are two overlapping surfaces:

Code:

4 16 -38 16 -18 -38 16 -12 -38 8 -12 -38 8 -18
4 16 -38 8 18 -38 8 12 -38 16 12 -38 16 18

You have to delete them. Select the two green rectangles. Hide them (with a click on the ghost button). Select the two unwanted quads, delete them and click on "Show All".

2. Indeed, the "Select -> Touching" feature behaves strangely. I have to investigate what was going on there.

[Philippe Hurbain]

1. Argl! sorry! Somehow strange I didn't noticed this in either LDDP or LDView...

[Willy Tschager]

Bug:

* When you Save as... the <0 Name:> entry gets not updated accordingly.

w.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Going on with my rantings/questions...
- How do I mirror a selection?
- Is there a good method to use that pesky manipulator? I have the feeling that it is NEVER in the right place - and often has not the desired orientation...
- Is there a way to customize color toolbar? I desperately miss color 24!
- I have a French keyboard, that needs to hold shift key to get digits on main keyboard so the default shortcuts for select/move/rotate are clumsy to use (note that LDPC cheerfully uses unshifted keys...). My first idea was to customize shortkeys to use numeric keypad. The customizer accepts the keys, but when I press OK nothing is done. So I decided to use S/M/R keys. customization went fine, help bubble shows the right shortcut... but only 'M' works, S and R keys have no effect

[Magnus Forsberg]

I really would like to have the project file manager explained.

[Gerald Lasser]

A few items how I use them

- How do I mirror a selection?

Under "Merge/Split" I use the "Scale" function to mirror by X, Y and Z axis. Just put a "-1" in there

- Is there a good method to use that pesky manipulator? I have the feeling that it is NEVER in the right place - and often has not the desired orientation...

a) If you selected an item or prim and you have selected what you want to do with it (move/rotate) then double click on it. It will move to the items origin. That's handy for slanted quads etc.
b) another method is to use the drop down menu next to the globe to orient the manipulator or move it.

- Is there a way to customize color toolbar? I desperately miss color 24!

If color 16 is selected and you draw a line it will be color 24

[Philippe Hurbain]

Unfortunately, things can go wrong in the field...
- On my XP machine, for some reason (I did nothing special for that!), Java is not in the path.
   
I had to use an explicit path to be able to run the 32/64bits check, and also had to modify run.bat. I guess I could as well add Java folder to the path, but...

- Od my Seven machine, Java is in the path, but 'version' class is not found.
   
I figured out that since my 7 was 64bit the JRE was probably 64bit too... and this was indeed the case.
LDPE works fine on both machines.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Quick notes about user interface:
- I find the usage of LDPE toolbars much more explicit on XP than on Seven, the push/release 3D look on XP is far, far more explicit than the vague blue hue of activated button on Seven. I know 3D look is not fashion, but could it be possible to have it nonetheless on Seven (or more)? This legibility issue have been raised by Willy here: http://forums.ldraw.org/showthread.php?t...0#pid20910

- I don't find the mode (vertices/lines/surfaces/subpart) select very convenient. If I want to work on a part section that typically contains all styles of elements (eg. to copy it) I have to select each class separately - extremely tedious! (granted, maybe I didn't understood something, or my workflow is buggy?). I think that it would be much more convenient if each of these buttons actually acted as on/off filters, allowing or disabling selection of each class.

- I'd really like to be able so get bigger thumbnails in the primitives bin. I had some hopes when I found the "set icons size" but it seems to act only on toolbar buttons?

- Maybe related to last point here: On both my XP (32bit) and Seven (64bit) machines I configured space bar as alternate middle mouse button shortcut. It works in the main window on both machines (with some focus issues already mentionned), but I can't rotate the primitive preview thumbnails using spacebar on the XP machine, I have to use MMB.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Under "Merge/Split" I use the "Scale" function to mirror by X, Y and Z axis. Just put a "-1" in there

OK, why not... But then, the purpose of some manipulator actions is very mysterious to me (swap the manipulator xy axis, intert manipulator x axis)!?!

a) If you selected an item or prim and you have selected what you want to do with it (move/rotate) then double click on it. It will move to the items origin. That's handy for slanted quads etc.

Yup, handy!!!

b) another method is to use the drop down menu next to the globe to orient the manipulator or move it.

Yeah, that's what I used. How heavy and clumsy!

If color 16 is selected and you draw a line it will be color 24

Makes (a lot of) sense!

You got some private tutoring by Nils, didn't you?

[Gerald Lasser]

- Is there a way to customize color toolbar? I desperately miss color 24!

Just found this out:

e.g. to change Light Grey (7) to Light Bluish Grey (71)
- hold CTRL key and click on the color to change, e.g. color 7
- The color selection dialogue pops up
- select the new color (e.g. 71)
- click OK

Done

[Philippe Hurbain]

Great, even if color 24 problem issue is not one actually! new grey and brown are indeed more useful nowadays...

[Philippe Hurbain]

I better understand now, the new surfaces were added behind my back! See the attached files. 64053 is the original file, 64053ldpe is a copy in which I:
- Select the back box3u2p
- Select -> touching
- Cut
- Paste
- Save

The files should hopefully havethe same elements with selection placed at the end of 64053ldpe ... but the processed file now has 10 more elements!

[Philippe Hurbain]

Another issue... Hide/Show state seems extremely volatile: as soon as I change rendering mode or (worse!) make an undo, everything I painfully hid to access some internal part of a design is shown again.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Under "Merge/Split" I use the "Scale" function to mirror by X, Y and Z axis. Just put a "-1" in there

Just tried that, and stumbled on another mysterious issue:
- I select a buch of lines and quads for which I want to create a mirror copy.
- copy/paste selection
- Scale X by -1
...damned, the initial copy is mirrored too. Supposed that the initial copy was still selected after copy/paste?
So, after paste, I go to text window, select the lines of the copy and only them, press "show selection in 3D view". Scale X by -1. Bummer, the initial copy that was NOT selected is still mirrored! And no, "Move adjacent data" was NOT checked.

[Gerald Lasser]

Under "Merge/Split" I use the "Scale" function to mirror by X, Y and Z axis. Just put a "-1" in there

Just tried that, and stumbled on another mysterious issue:
- I select a buch of lines and quads for which I want to create a mirror copy.
- copy/paste selection
- Scale X by -1
...damned, the initial copy is mirrored too. Supposed that the initial copy was still selected after copy/paste?
So, after paste, I go to text window, select the lines of the copy and only them, press "show selection in 3D view". Scale X by -1. Bummer, the initial copy that was NOT selected is still mirrored! And no, "Move adjacent data" was NOT checked.

Uhhh, yes, sorry I forgot to mention this! That must be a bug, I had this issue as well.

To avoid this I move the (copied) data a bit first and then mirror it. This avoids the wrong mirroring and keeps the original data at their position.

[Nils Schmidt]

Another issue... Hide/Show state seems extremely volatile: as soon as I change rendering mode or (worse!) make an undo, everything I painfully hid to access some internal part of a design is shown again.

It should be easy to repair. I will improve this with the release of version 0.8.6.

[Philippe Hurbain]

I thing that vertices of condlines control points should not be normally shown, especially those of primitives. They could be useful only in special condline mode, they are annoying otherwise. As you can see in this example it is next to impossible to choose the right vertice to draw an edge line at the base of the cylinder when the zoom level is low enough to see both ends...
http://forums.ldraw.org/file.php/24/2184/cpvertices.jpg

[Gerald Lasser]

Good point, may be these vertices shall only be visible if the "special Condlines" mode is activated

[Philippe Hurbain]

I'd really like to be able to close a .dat file to enable edition in other editors. Some operations (eg. copy/mirror a section of a file) are still very inefficient to do in LDPE while they just take a split second in MLCad. In the future this will hopefully be necessary, but for now...
Editing files in parallel with LDPE is possible (but clumsy) in LDDP, but not in MLCad (locked file).
OK, I could also close LDPE temporarily, but since it's very long to start I'm not keen of doing this too often...

[Nils Schmidt]

Editing files in parallel with LDPE is possible (but clumsy) in LDDP, but not in MLCad (locked file).
OK, I could also close LDPE temporarily, but since it's very long to start I'm not keen of doing this too often...

The first button in the upper left corner with the two grey arrows triggers a sychronisation process which re-loads the file contents from the disk. You don`t have to close LDPE. In the future, I will implement a polling function for the detection of external file content changes.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Mmhhh.... sorry, tried again and the file doesn't seem to be locked actually, so I can edit file with MLCad while it's open in LDPE (there is still something not totally clear, I am pretty sure I tried the same thing before and file was locked, I'll keep my eyes peeled if it occurs again).

The first button in the upper left corner with the two grey arrows triggers a sychronisation process which re-loads the file contents from the disk. You don`t have to close LDPE.

Yeah... but it also reloads primitives, etc, etc and takes about the same time as a full restart

[Nils Schmidt]

There is another dirty workaround

1. Save your file
   
2. Modify it with another program
   
3. Open the "old file" in LDPE again and add one space (do not save the modified old file)
   
4. Open the context menu for the file in the project tree from the 3D editor and select "Revert All Changes / Reload"
   
5. The file is now updated.
   

As I said, I will improve the file synchronisation with later versions

[Philippe Hurbain]

I had a similar trick, asking for a file save in LDPE, at this moment LDPE realizes that the file was modified externally. Yours seems safer

As I said, I will improve the file synchronisation with later versions

Thanks in advance

[Philippe Hurbain]

A line (or condline) that has both ends joining a surface that will be selected by a "select ..connected" action will be selected even though it is not adjacent to any element selected. This in not the desired behaviour...
   
In the above diagram, green line should be considered connected to blue area, but not yellow one.

[Nils Schmidt]

Rien ne va plus. Version 0.8.6 Beta will include 15 improvements (7 new features and 8 bug fixes).
The release date is 2016-03-20.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Got a hang-up today... Was working on a moderate size part (21269 hair piece, about 3000 LDraw lines). Hit undo then no answer from LDPE. I finally killed the application, looked at the log file. It appears that it was a heap overflow, see below (I'm on a 4GB memory/32bit XP machine).

Worse: now when I open the file again and try to work on it, LDPE freezes again for a loooong time, then throws this enigmatic message: "Registered 0 new file(s) Deleted 0 file(s) Detected 0 unsaved file(s). They are opened with LDPE but another version (older or newer) is stored on the HD or the original file was deleted from HD". If I press OK and try to work on part again, the same behaviour starts again. I tried to close LDPE and start again, same problem. I even restarted computer, no way!!!
I tried to rename the part file, same problem. Removed header from file, finally was able to edit file again. Phew!

(edit) One might say I'm always ranting, but I must say that LDPE is a very nice tool to adjust shape around minifig head, fit stud primitive or tune lines/condlines (result here http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptdetail.cg.../21269.dat). Once the most salient bugs are ironed out it will be a really great tool! Might benefit of some speed optimisations too

log file excerpt:

Code:

org.eclipse.swt.SWTException: Failed to execute runnable (java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space)
    at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Synchronizer.runAsyncMessages(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.runAsyncMessages(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.readAndDispatch(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.jface.window.Window.runEventLoop(Window.java:825)
    at org.eclipse.jface.window.Window.open(Window.java:801)
    at org.nschmidt.ldparteditor.shells.editor3d.Editor3DWindow.run(Editor3DWindow.java:4920)
    at org.nschmidt.ldparteditor.splash.SplashScreen.run(SplashScreen.java:298)
    at org.nschmidt.ldparteditor.main.LDPartEditor.main(LDPartEditor.java:39)
Caused by: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
    at java.util.Arrays.copyOfRange(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.String.<init>(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.custom.DefaultContent.getTextRange(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.custom.StyledText.getText(Unknown Source)
    at org.nschmidt.ldparteditor.data.DatFile.parseForError(DatFile.java:640)
    at org.nschmidt.ldparteditor.composites.compositetab.CompositeTab$4.modifyText(CompositeTab.java:648)
    at org.eclipse.swt.custom.StyledTextListener.handleEvent(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.EventTable.sendEvent(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.sendEvent(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.notifyListeners(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.swt.custom.StyledText.setText(Unknown Source)
    at org.nschmidt.ldparteditor.data.VM00Base$1$1.run(VM00Base.java:262)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.RunnableLock.run(Unknown Source)
    ... 8 more
Exception in thread "Thread-6" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
    at java.lang.String.toCharArray(Unknown Source)
    at org.nschmidt.ldparteditor.text.StringHelper.compress(StringHelper.java:82)
    at org.nschmidt.ldparteditor.data.HistoryManager$1.run(HistoryManager.java:110)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

[Nils Schmidt]

I was able to reproduce this "Heap Space" issue with 21269.dat on my WinXP 32bit test system (with 4GB RAM) within five minutes.
The solution is simple: you have to change the command line which is located in the "run.bat" batch file. I have to find out the best settings for the -Xmx and -Xms Java VM command line parameters.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Great! I was nonetheless able to complete the part, but I avoided to use undo, that seems quite ressources hungry...

[Nils Schmidt]

Code:

start "" javaw -Xmx1500m -Xms512m -jar -Djava.library.path="natives/" -jar LDPartEditor.jar

This should be enough to avoid trouble on 32-bit JVMs.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Wishes of the day...
- It's very difficult (except with thickest edge lines, solution that causes other problems) to distinguish between edge lines and mesh lines. I suggest to make mesh lines another color (eg. blue, or better user configurable), and don't show them when they are overlapped by an edge line.
- Speaking of edge line thickness, I am not sure that using some real world line thickness is a good idea: when you zoom in on a tiny area, it becomes covered with fat lines... Fixed pixel sized lines (as used by MLCad and LDView) might be better. Granted, their drawback is almost opposite, unusable pictures when zoomed out too much. But since parts are generally relatively small, I find it tends to work better. Of course the best would be to have the choice between both modes
- what about supporting drag and drop to open a file?

[Nils Schmidt]

I created some tickets for this feature request. The idea of using drag and drop to open a file is good and easy to implement. This feature will be introduced with release 0.8.7.

[Gerald Lasser]

I would like to add another thing:

It should be possible to manipulate the CSG parts in the same way as the primitives or quads, at least for rotation and move.

Currently a placing a CSG item at an angle requires manual calculation of the matrix.

Thanks

[Nils Schmidt]

It should be possible to manipulate the CSG parts

Yes, this is something I will implement in the future (CSG Mode). And there will be a "master mode" to select every object, regardless of its type.
By the way: The release date for 0.8.6 Beta is tomorrow