Any good LDraw viewer for Ubuntu 16.04?

[Patricia Moya Nosquera]

LDView doesn't run in new Ubuntu 16.04, is there an alternative viewer or a tick for install LDView?

[Roland Melkert]

Although technically not a viewer, I've just tested LDCad 1.5 with Ubuntu 16.04 64 bit.

All seems fine including the setup script to associate it with mpd/ldr files etc.

I tested this using VMWare and the live iso but that shouldn't matter.

Alternative might be to manually compile LDView.

[Milan Vančura]

LDView doesn't run in new Ubuntu 16.04, is there an alternative viewer or a tick for install LDView?

We maintain sources of Linux-friendly versions of many LDraw SW here: https://github.com/ldraw-linux
You can get ldglite there, for example. Or you may combine that with LPub.
Sorry we do not have binary packages for all distros yet. Work in progress, you know.


As a completely different option, you may try brigl. Demo is here. But you can install it locally as well.

[Peter Bartfai]

LDView doesn't run in new Ubuntu 16.04, is there an alternative viewer or a tick for install LDView?

New version 4.2 provides Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora/Centos/openSUSE packages.

ldview-4.2-ubuntu-16.04.amd64.deb
[size=medium]ldview-4.2-ubuntu-16.04.i386.deb[/size]

You can also check on Opensuse Build Services:
https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/...fai/LDView

[Trevor Sandy]

LDView doesn't run in new Ubuntu 16.04, is there an alternative viewer or a tick for install LDView?

New version 4.2 provides Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora/Centos/openSUSE packages.

ldview-4.2-ubuntu-16.04.amd64.deb
[size=medium]ldview-4.2-ubuntu-16.04.i386.deb[/size]

You can also check on Opensuse Build Services:
https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/...fai/LDView

Help, I can't seem to get LDView to work on Ubuntu 16.04 either. 

I'm working on my x11 LPub3D port and I'm able to render with Peter's ldglite1.3.1 package and 'povray3.7-stable' from github (using L3P1.4LinuxBeta). 

However, LDview 4.2, referenced above, is not successfully receiving my passed command line parameters - it's throwing a bunch of GL errors in the console (I'll post an update shortly).  

Peter's LDView 4.3 package is doing a bit better, but still throwing some console messages about the passed parameters, and rendering only the colour of the part in big squares. I'll prepare a short video of the behaviour shortly.

If I open a model file from the GUI, all seems to work well with both 4.2 and 4.3. The problem seems to be with accepting command line parameters.

Cheers,

[Travis Cobbs]

For command line use, the OSMesa-based command line-only "ldview" (not "LDView") will probably work better. I'm not sure if the Qt LDView supports -SaveSnapshots, which LPub3D started supporting a few months ago. (I think -SaveSnapshots support has been added to the development code, but was missing in the 4.2 release.) I think you can disable usage of -SaveSnapshots in LPub3D.

[Trevor Sandy]

For command line use, the OSMesa-based command line-only "ldview" (not "LDView")...

Very well, I am able progress with this information. However without passing the ldraw path (LDrawDir=) via the command line, I get the message "Critical Error: Could not find LDraw directory." Do I have to pass the ldraw library path (like with ldglite) on the command line for the OSMesa-based executable ? LDrawDir is set in /home/trevor/.conf/LDView/LDView.conf which seems to only be read by "LDView". I could not find a separate .conf for "ldview".

I created /home/trevor/.conf/LDView/ldviewrc after receiving the message "Error setting INI File to /home/trevor/.ldviewrc or /home/trevor/.conf/LDView/ldviewrc" but while this action removed the message, it is still necessary to pass the LDrawDir via command line.

(I think -SaveSnapshots support has been added to the development code, but was missing in the 4.2 release.) I think you can disable usage of -SaveSnapshots in LPub3D.

I'm using Peter's LDView 4.3 package which support -SaveSnapshots so this is not an issue for me. But I must say it would have been quite a pity to not have this capability on x11 because it represents such a big performance improvement when rendering with LDView, not to mention the significant work to rewrite LPub3D to accommodate this parameter.

Cheers,

[Trevor Sandy]

For command line use, the OSMesa-based command line-only "ldview" (not "LDView")...

Is this behaviour the same for OSX ?

Cheers,

[Travis Cobbs]

For command line use, the OSMesa-based command line-only "ldview" (not "LDView")...

Is this behaviour the same for OSX ?

Cheers,

No, the Mac LDView app should work fine from the command line. I'm not even sure if I've ever compiled the OSMesa ldview on a Mac. Of course, to use it on the command line, you have to access the executable inside the app wrapper (for example, /Applications/LDView.app/Contents/MacOS/LDView).

[Travis Cobbs]

You can create a ~/.ldviewrc file that contains settings for things like the LDraw dir. I think if you copy the Qt LDView config file and rename it to ~/.ldviewrc, it will work, although I'm not 100% sure about that. I can't remember off-hand where Qt stores application config files.

[Travis Cobbs]

You can create a ~/.ldviewrc file that contains settings for things like the LDraw dir. I think if you copy the Qt LDView config file and rename it to ~/.ldviewrc, it will work, although I'm not 100% sure about that. I can't remember off-hand where Qt stores application config files.

Attached is a zip file containing a sample .ldviewrc.

[Trevor Sandy]

You can create a ~/.ldviewrc file that contains settings for things like the LDraw dir. I think if you copy the Qt LDView config file and rename it to ~/.ldviewrc, it will work, although I'm not 100% sure about that. I can't remember off-hand where Qt stores application config files.

Attached is a zip file containing a sample .ldviewrc.

Excellent - many thanks for this information.

Cheers,

[Trevor Sandy]

You can create a ~/.ldviewrc file that contains settings for things like the LDraw dir. I think if you copy the Qt LDView config file and rename it to ~/.ldviewrc, it will work, although I'm not 100% sure about that. I can't remember off-hand where Qt stores application config files.

Attached is a zip file containing a sample .ldviewrc.

Should the ldviewrc file be automatically created like LDview.conf ? 

If yes, are there any plans to update the OSMesa module to allow this going forward ?

Cheers,

[Travis Cobbs]

Attached is a zip file containing a sample .ldviewrc.

Should the ldviewrc file be automatically created like LDview.conf ? 

If yes, are there any plans to update the OSMesa module to allow this going forward ?

Cheers,

No. It gets updated updated (with unofficial parts info) after being created. But if you don't create one in the first place, it won't get created. And settings specified on the command line don't get written into it. The Qt configuration file that is created by the Qt UI version of LDView contains settings made via the UI. Since OSMesa LDView is for command line snapshots only (plus exports in a future release), there is never a time when it will be have normal settings written to it any way other than manually. Note that LDView's help document has a list of settings, and the setting name is what goes into this file as a key.

[Trevor Sandy]

The Mac LDView app should work fine from the command line...Of course, to use it on the command line, you have to access the executable inside the app wrapper (for example, /Applications/LDView.app/Contents/MacOS/LDView).

On OSX, I downloaded, unpacked and copied LDView from LDview_4.2.1_Universal.dmg. It seems to automatically detect my ldraw path and I am able to open an LDraw model launching the gui from (finder) context menu.

However, for command line invocation I get this response:

Trevors-Mac:~ trevorsandy$ /Applications/LDView.app/Contents/MacOS/LDView -ca0.01 -cg23,-45,3993775 -LDrawDir=/Users/trevorsandy/Library/LDraw -SaveAlpha=1 -AutoCrop=1 -ShowHighlightLines=1 -ConditionalHighlights=1 -SaveZoomToFit=0 -SubduedLighting=1 -UseSpecular=0 -LightVector=0,1,1 -SaveActualSize=0 -SnapshotSuffix=.png -SaveWidth=1240 -SaveHeight=1753 -SaveSnapShot=/Users/trevorsandy/Downloads/models/6964-01/LPub3D/parts/3794a_378_1240_150_DPCM_1_23_-45.png /Users/trevorsandy/Downloads/models/6964-01/LPub3D/tmp/pli.ldr
2016-12-21 08:06:07.639 LDView[11425:324724] Error creating remote OpenGL context; trying non-remote context.
2016-12-21 08:06:07.641 LDView[11425:324724] Error creating OpenGL context for snapshot.
Floating point exception: 8
Trevors-Mac:~ trevorsandy$

Cheers,

[Travis Cobbs]

The Mac LDView app should work fine from the command line...Of course, to use it on the command line, you have to access the executable inside the app wrapper (for example, /Applications/LDView.app/Contents/MacOS/LDView).

On OSX, I downloaded, unpacked and copied LDView from LDview_4.2.1_Universal.dmg. It seems to automatically detect my ldraw path and I am able to open an LDraw model launching the gui from (finder) context menu.

However, for command line invocation I get this response:

Trevors-Mac:~ trevorsandy$ /Applications/LDView.app/Contents/MacOS/LDView -ca0.01 -cg23,-45,3993775 -LDrawDir=/Users/trevorsandy/Library/LDraw -SaveAlpha=1 -AutoCrop=1 -ShowHighlightLines=1 -ConditionalHighlights=1 -SaveZoomToFit=0 -SubduedLighting=1 -UseSpecular=0 -LightVector=0,1,1 -SaveActualSize=0 -SnapshotSuffix=.png -SaveWidth=1240 -SaveHeight=1753 -SaveSnapShot=/Users/trevorsandy/Downloads/models/6964-01/LPub3D/parts/3794a_378_1240_150_DPCM_1_23_-45.png /Users/trevorsandy/Downloads/models/6964-01/LPub3D/tmp/pli.ldr
2016-12-21 08:06:07.639 LDView[11425:324724] Error creating remote OpenGL context; trying non-remote context.
2016-12-21 08:06:07.641 LDView[11425:324724] Error creating OpenGL context for snapshot.
Floating point exception: 8
Trevors-Mac:~ trevorsandy$

Cheers,

Just to make sure there's no misunderstanding, are you doing that from a Terminal Window on a Mac that you're logged into? The error message implies that you might not be local. However, presumably anyone using LPub on their Mac would be a local logged in user and not a remote user.

I just tested the following simplest-possible command line on my Mac:

/Applications/LDView.app/Contents/MacOS/LDView -SaveSnapshots=1 car.dat

It correctly generated a car.png file in the current directory (which was the LDraw models directory). I'm using LDView 4.2.1.

[Trevor Sandy]

I just tested the following simplest-possible command line on my Mac:

/Applications/LDView.app/Contents/MacOS/LDView -SaveSnapshots=1 car.dat

It correctly generated a car.png file in the current directory (which was the LDraw models directory). I'm using LDView 4.2.1.

I must be unlucky then   

Here is a short video of the LDView behaviour I'm experiencing - starting with a fresh install from download. I'm using the latest version of OSX.

Sorry for the video delay, I'm accessing OSX on a virtual machine via remote desktop.

Cheers,

[Travis Cobbs]

I must be unlucky then   

Here is a short video of the LDView behaviour I'm experiencing - starting with a fresh install from download. I'm using the latest version of OSX.

Sorry for the video delay, I'm accessing OSX on a virtual machine via remote desktop.

Cheers,

Unfortunately, at the 360p effective resolution of the video, I can't read anything. Having said that, did you record the video in this way because you don't know a way to record Mac desktop video? In other words, does the same problem happen when you are running locally? If that is the case, be aware that you can use QuickTime player X to do a screen recording on the Mac. If it is not the case, have you tried when truly locally running on the Mac? Also, have you tried copying and pasting the command line into a Terminal window so that we can rule out calling from LPub3D itself as the problem?

[Trevor Sandy]

I must be unlucky then   

Here is a short video of the LDView behaviour I'm experiencing - starting with a fresh install from download. I'm using the latest version of OSX.

Sorry for the video delay, I'm accessing OSX on a virtual machine via remote desktop.

Cheers,

Unfortunately, at the 360p effective resolution of the video, I can't read anything. Having said that, did you record the video in this way because you don't know a way to record Mac desktop video? In other words, does the same problem happen when you are running locally? If that is the case, be aware that you can use QuickTime player X to do a screen recording on the Mac. If it is not the case, have you tried when truly locally running on the Mac? Also, have you tried copying and pasting the command line into a Terminal window so that we can rule out calling from LPub3D itself as the problem?

Sorry about that. I recorded another video at 1096 - this time using QuickTime player. If you open in QuickTime or VLC, the video quality will be better.

I recorded the first time using Camtasia from my Windows environment because recording directly on OSX really slowed down the VM. 

My OSX environment runs via VM (VMWare) on my test machine which I access remotely using MS Remote Desktop. For the test in the video, I worked on the VM directly from the test machine.

I've tested both your simple command using car.dat and a copy/paste of the exact output from LPub3D. Both appear to give the same error at the command terminal. I also noticed that while I can open an image in LDView using the GUI, when I try to export a snapshot, I get the same error as exporting a snapshot from the command line. 

Cheers,

[Travis Cobbs]

I could be wrong, but I strongly suspect that the problem is VM-specific. I see now that GUI snapshots don't work either. Mac LDView relies on Pixel Buffers for snapshots, and Apple deprecated them (because Apple sucks sometimes). Given how little time I have dedicated to LDView over the past years, it appears I never had a chance to switch over to using Frame Buffer Objects. I'll add it to my list, but I'm not particularly optimistic about it getting fixed.