[LDCad] LDCad 1.6d (win+linux)

[Roland Melkert]

I've released the 1.6d version of LDCad.

Bug fixes, tweaks and some minor new features.

Highlights:
Alternative GUI templates (donated by Miguel Reizinho).
Snapping information for the 190X library and many additional (requested) parts.
Additional MLCad and technic macros
Some new (gui related options and tweaks).

See the changeLog.txt file for all changes.

I wanted to do a bit more, but decided 1.6d was long overdue.

As always the latest version is here:
http://www.melkert.net/LDCad/download

I also decided to start work on a 1.7 version even though I planned the next big version to be 2.0.

This is mainly because I have very little time to work on LDCad at the moment which means the 2.0 version won't be ready anytime soon.

But the little time I do have I wanted to work on some fun features without having to rewrite the whole 1.6 feature set first.

The current 1.7 plans include:

- More scripting.
- Interactive animation.
- Collada (blender) export.
- Snapping improvements.
- Arrow generator (maybe).

Any additional ideas are welcome at this thread:
https://forums.ldraw.org/thread-23840.html

[Philippe Hurbain]

I've released the 1.6d version of LDCad.

Installed. Works. What to say more?

- Collada (blender) export.

I hope to be able to get rid of Studio usage...

- Arrow generator (maybe).

Should prove very useful!

[N. W. Perry]

Installed. Works. What to say more?

Same here. After a few hesitant moments of not being sure I'd remember how to install it, I just did…and it just worked. 

(I did get some error messages show up in my terminal, seems like they might be related to GUI switching. Didn't seem to affect anything, though; I'll let you know if they come back.)

Thanks for the uni joint helper and the shorter path handles!

I hope to be able to get rid of Studio usage...
Should prove very useful!

Me too. :-) As impressed as I was with it at first, it tends to break more, is less transparent to fix, and is harder to get responsive support for. (Still don't know why prim sub seems to have broken recently…)

Good thing about Studio is, it re-kindled my interest in LDraw (as a Mac user) after having hit the "end of the road" with Bricksmith. That eventually led me straight to LDCad. 

[Johann Eisner]

I installed the new version in a separate folder. 
So far works very well. 
Is there a way to export the favorite parts from 1.6c and import them in 1.6d?  Or do I just have to install the new version in the same folder as the 1.6c to make it work automatically?

[Orion Pobursky]

I hope to be able to get rid of Studio usage...
Should prove very useful!

+1 to this. I'm kinda reluctant to use it now given what I know of how the renderer came to be. Stud.io's track record has be that of community exclusion and it's a shame that they seem to have capitalized on the hole left in the market by the depreciation of LDD.

[Roland Melkert]

Is there a way to export the favorite parts from 1.6c and import them in 1.6d?  Or do I just have to install the new version in the same folder as the 1.6c to make it work automatically?

You can copy the "partBin.fav" file from the config folder to the 2nd installation or just replace the exe and .sf files to upgrade the existing location.

This assuming you didn't use the setup (or AIOI) the first time, if so you can just run the new setup to upgrade.

[Johann Eisner]

Thank you!
I had set a system restore point before installing 1.6d.  I have now reset the system and simply installed the d version in the standard directory.  Because I had previously updated from 1.6b (from AIOI) to 1.6c, all of my favorites settings are now available.

[Roland Melkert]

I've released the 1.6d version of LDCad.

I kinda forgot to include a small extension to the color bin.

It's configuration only, so if you think it's useful you can add it yourself.

It's a new color group with the most frequent used technic colors.

To use it close the program and create a new file:
colorBin/default/technic.cbg

containing:

Code:

[options]
kind=static
caption=Technic
description=Common technic colors
sortOn=none

<items>
7
2
15
4
0
71
72
19
14
1
25
256

And change the contents of
colorBin/default/root.cbg
to:

Code:

[options]
kind=menu
caption=Main group
description=LDCad default color bin


<items>
solid
transparent
metallic
rubber
plastic
technic
special
favorites
history

I tried to order it so the most common ones are in the center.

If you think additional colors should be added let me know.

[Philippe Hurbain]

If you think additional colors should be added let me know.

iMHO if Light Grey is there, Dark Grey should be included too.
Dark Tan and Reddish Brown (used for L5 and L3 axles with stop) should be added too.

[Owen Dive]

Very minor thing, but I'm going through and tweaking my partBins, and I see that sorted/technicBeams.pbg both keeps and excludes 32551.dat explicitly.

Relatedly, why does LDCad re-write its .pbg files on close? I had been editing the files with LDCad open (the easier to see what parts I wanted to exclude from a particular group), and being confused when I found the changes had no effect - because the file was overwritten when I closed LDCad.

Owen.

[Roland Melkert]

Very minor thing, but I'm going through and tweaking my partBins, and I see that sorted/technicBeams.pbg both keeps and excludes 32551.dat explicitly.

I don't know what's the exact reason, I will review the content of that bin.

Relatedly, why does LDCad re-write its .pbg files on close? I had been editing the files with LDCad open (the easier to see what parts I wanted to exclude from a particular group), and being confused when I found the changes had no effect - because the file was overwritten when I closed LDCad.

The <items> section is used as a cache.

But on modern hardware it's hardly any advantage over just populating the bin in realtime on each start up. Even more so because checking all the timestamps for changes etc takes about the same time

[Owen Dive]

The <items> section is used as a cache.

Oh of course it is. I should have been able to reason that out. I guess I was too busy being frustrated at having to modify the files without the program open. :-)

[Roland Melkert]

I've released the 1.6d version of LDCad.

FYI:

I've added md5 information to the download page as someone was concerned about their virus scanner quarantining the setup version.

It's easy to check on Linux

Code:

echo 1c20f8581273e94631d40f3fef006990 LDCad-1-6d-Linux.tar.bz2 | md5sum -c

Don't know an easy check for windows though, anyone has suggestions?