LDCad 2.0 LDraw parser thoughts

[Roland Melkert]

Hello all,

I'm still working on the foundations of LDCad 2 and if time permits I'll soon be starting with the LDraw parser.

So with this in mind I was thinking about possible improvements etc.

As always I'm very interested in what others would like to see supported/different from 1.6 etc.

Things I want myself:

100% official file format support. (mpd/headers/textures/etc)
All the defacto unofficial stuff (like "0 UNOFFICIAL PART" etc)
Some experimental stuff (like "0 !DATA")
LDCad groups
MLCad groups
Buffer exchange
Some or maybe even all LPub meta's.
Local color support (meaning a COLOUR meta will override colors used in following type 1 lines etc )


All input is welcome.

[Willy Tschager]

LSynth Metas.
w.

[Victor Di Rienzo]

Better part snapping it could be good.
Also pre define render like in stud.io pov-ray and photo realistic rendering (i did inspect little how stud.io does the renders and its a very easy way to "lean" and add to ldcad)
A sub program to build instructions more flexible than lpub

Other thing that may be cool, people that has experiencing in coding scripts, send you samples so you can add on the website.

[Roland Melkert]

Better part snapping it could be good.

This is planned but I'm not sure of the extend/form yet.

Also pre define render like in stud.io pov-ray and photo realistic rendering

I'm not sure, POV-Ray support in 1.5/1.6 was always mostly about the animation exports. Extremely high quality will make those take forever to render (when single frames take 15 minutes).

A sub program to build instructions more flexible than lpub

Not sure I want to invent a whole new meta set  and take care of generating pdf's myself. Maybe in a later version down the road if I run out of interesting things to do.
For now I'm just planning LPub meta 'awareness' so in a best case scenario you would only need to press generate in LPub it self.

Other thing that may be cool, people that has experiencing in coding scripts, send you samples so you can add on the website.

I like this idea, but I doubt it will be a big user base, as currently I'm only aware of a few people actually using scripting.

[Victor Di Rienzo]

Thank you for the reply.

Other easy useful thing to implement its to be able to generate a LEGO Set filter automatically. i did it by hand made the pbg file and edited the menus so the filtered bricks of the sets are shown .

But for most people its a complicated task to perform.

May be a script to download form some site the pbg file and add it to the available downloaded sets.




if i think more ideas i will be pasting some

[Victor Di Rienzo]

Other good thing is to add the APPLY button on the properties window. So you when you what to make some changes you can test the changes before accepting them.

Other could be an auto update every time a value is changed on the properties window. But if the model is heavy it may be an issue

[Philippe Hurbain]

Other good thing is to add the APPLY button on the properties window. So you when you what to make some changes you can test the changes before accepting them.

Other could be an auto update every time a value is changed on the properties window. But if the model is heavy it may be an issue

Missed that too sometimes...

[Roland Melkert]

Other good thing is to add the APPLY button on the properties window. So you when you what to make some changes you can test the changes before accepting them.

Other could be an auto update every time a value is changed on the properties window. But if the model is heavy it may be an issue

In 1.6 you can always use undo after an accept if you don't like the result of a change.

With 2.0 I'm planning to have the properties window visible at all times by giving it a dedicated sub window (like the color and part bins).

This will prevent having to reopen the window multiple times while experimenting with something.

It will also allow editing properties of multiple (mixed) objects at once (e.g. color or x position).

This will work by the window only showing the shared properties of all those objects.