LDPartEditor - Planning stage started

[Nils Schmidt]

Hey,

I decided to create a new project on sourceforge: The LD Part Editor - A pure part editor.

Basically it will be a java SWT / JFace / OpenGL offline rich client.

I had to introduce the *.lpc file format for the LD Pattern Creator and I do not plan to use another new file format for the editor (e.g. *.lpe). The im- and export should use the native *.dat file standard.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/partcreator/

Cheers,

Nils

[Orion Pobursky]

Sweet. Look forward to seeing this.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Eagerly waiting for this... count on me for beta testing!

[Willy Tschager]

+1

Really, really hoping it goes further then this:

http://news.lugnet.com/cad/?n=13713

Did anyone have had a chance to get his hands on?

w.

[Scott Wardlaw]

I began a dedicated part editor in JAVA over a year ago, but I have not had time to work on it in over 6 months. I'll upload my code to my website and you can take whatever you like from it. Here were my primary goals:

Look like MLCAD (4 views that are user selectable, parts / primitives visual menu, color chooser, etc.)
Allow plugins for add-on tools (plugins would allow the original author to maintain all rights and hide their source code)
View screens would have layers (top layer for part author, lower layer(s) to underlay picture of the real part, ldraw grid, etc.)
Grid-based click to create / move line ends

With these goals, I hoped to get others to create the plugins (hoping for all of Philo's tools in an MLCAD-like program)
Open source, so that when I got too busy, others could take over :-)

I got pretty far along, but not enough to post anything. I'll try to upload tomorrow night and you can have what you want, or just see what limitations I encountered.

Scott W.

[Rolf Osterthun]

Hey,

I decided to create a new project on sourceforge: The LD Part Editor - A pure part editor.

I recommend that!

Some time ago I began to implement a part editor, too. But I had not that specific goals like Scott.

At first I wanted to implement a copy of Philos Pathtruder with a 'realtime preview' GUI: two input and one output textarea and three 3D preview areas (one for each textarea). I got of the track and created some kind of text editor (with 3D preview and selection) for LDraw files. I used C# with WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation).



This was a good start but it was much too slow. So I tried to use OpenTK instead of WPF 3D.



This time I got so far, that I implemented a first draft of 3D manipulators.

In process of time, while researching, I found an interesting tool: Metasequoia. It provides some cool features for point, line or polygon manipulations.

Like Scott, I didn't find the time to work on it efficiently. I didn't even found the time to wrote this post timely or detailed :-(. But I like the combination of the text editor and a 3D mouse editor.

Rolf

[Scott Wardlaw]

So, I finally uploaded the source code and some pictures...

Source Code is here:
http://www.scottwardlaw.com/lego/LOCAD.zip

Here is a picture of version 0.0:

Version 0.0 has decent lighting and LDraw capability, but I never did get the 3D rotation and panning exactly right.

Here is a picture of version 0.3:

Version 0.3 has the four view panes, and a parts bin, but the lighting got worse. The parts in the parts bin will rotate when you put your mouse over them. That really helps to identify sub parts.

Hers is a picture of version 0.7:

Version 0.7 has the ability to select parts in a model or polygons of parts to change their color. At some point the parts bin got messed up though. Lighting improved, but I'm not sure that it is correct.

Hope someone can use this. If so, please let me know.

Thanks,
Scott W.

[Magnus Forsberg]

Hi Nils

As an author and reviewer I wish to add my two cents to this thread.
I've made a simple mock-up of what I would like to see and use.



I'm using these programs today:
MLCad, LDView and LDDP, LD Pattern Creator, LETGUI with all of Philo's tools, RingsAndCones, LDCalc, PrimGen2
DatHeader for checking, correcting and optimizing my work.
When creating a new part I want my code to look "pretty" as well. I like to make them from inside and out, like an onion.
Start with the inside structure, and then continue outwards, toward the outside surface.

I haven't made many patterned parts, but I really like many of the features in LD Pattern Creator.
I've corrected many old patterns just with "join to last selected".

I want to:
select in the preview window, and edit in an text editor, or vice versa
preview all primitives in a sorted menu
select by drag'n'drop from preview menu
rotate and move by keyboard commands, like up/down, left/right, "in/out" keys, in grid settings
turn on/off grid in viewer window
change settings of grid, coarse/medium/fine or editor selected
view my part from more than one view angle at once
have selected object high-lighted, in text editor and viewer
resize primitives, in different directions, by scroll-wheel
set bfc red/green/blue in viewer window
randomize colours in viewer window
look inside my part by cut-away with scroll-wheel
calculate a intersection point between a line and a quad/triangle, or another line
reshape a 3D-surface by selecting a single point and moving it
sort all lines in a file by colour or linetype
sort ascending/descending by x,y,z value
sort by select and drag'n'drop in text editor

I hope this helps you, and I'm looking forward to a Part editor
/ Magnus

[Nils Schmidt]

This is excatly what I had in mind.

[Greg Teft]

Nils, How is this going, I had started an LDraw related API for Linear Algebra and Element stuff at one point.
Any interest in comparing notes, I was going to start putting stuff up on sourceforge too, but had a hard time finding a canned license that fit my preferences.
Which IDE are you working in? most of my work is in Oracle JDeveloper's format, and I haven't made ant files yet.

[Nils Schmidt]

I'm working with Eclipse 3.7.2 and prefer to use the MIT license for my work.
Furthermore, I decided to use IBM's SWT and JFace for the GUI design.

- The GUI sketches will be drawn with GLADE.
- The object relationships will be modeled with BOUML (free editon).
- The test plan will be documented with Open Office Calc.

[Nils Schmidt]

I just want to mention that I started to write the first lines of code. Due to my work & study I have to decrease the priority on the LD Pattern Creator, but nonetheless I am open for new features.

[Nils Schmidt]

Here is a forecast of all OS types on which the Part Editor will run:

• Windows XP (32bit [tested] / 64bit)
  
• Windows 7 (32bit / 64bit [tested])
  
• Ubuntu Linux >= 10.4 (32bit / 64bit [tested])
  
• MacOS X >= 10.6 (32bit / 64bit [tested])
  

You'll need the Oracle / IBM Java Runtime Environment greater or equal to version 6 installed and a Graphic Card with OpenGL support for version >= 2.1.

These specifications might be changed when the development proceed.

[Roland Melkert]

Just out of curiosity, Why do you require OpenGL 3.0?

Isn't this editor basically drawing single parts only, in my experience LDraw users often have 'older' hardware for some reason.

[Nils Schmidt]

Due to private reasons, I will continue my LDraw related work on 2012-09-09.
I looked forward to use the new OpenGL 3.0 spec, but I can easily "downgrade" to 2.1

[Michael Heidemann]

I can not download from http://www.scottwardlaw.com/lego/LOCAD.zip !?

Is the file still there?

[Scott Wardlaw]

Many appologies. My website provider went out of business, and I had to transfer what I had backed up to a new web provider.

I have the Java code for LOCAD and will upload it tomorrow.

Hopefully, someone will do something good with it...I'll include the three versions pictured on my flickr page.

Scott W.

[Scott Wardlaw]

Ok, the files are actually still there, but it is now on a Linux server, so the path is case sensitive. The path is actually:

http://www.scottwardlaw.com/LEGO/LOCAD.zip

Sorry for the confussion.

Scott