s/55706s01.dat

[Remco Canten]

i noticed that part s\55706s01 is on the PT for quite some time.
last entry: At Tue Jun 30 21:20:02 2009, the following review was posted:

if its alright with (mikeheide) i could do the remodelling.
i have looked it over and there are more then 60 gaps.
give or take about a month of work. ;-)

[Santeri Piippo]

I think Philo's Unificator could deal with the job in less than a month. :p

[Remco Canten]

how come it has been on the PT for so many years if you could do it in such short time?

[Jude Parrill]

The part authors, particularly Philo, actually create and edit a LOT of the parts around here (Just recently he authored about 100 or so parts, subparts, and primitives related to the new sensors/programming parts). However, there is a lot to do, and sadly, a lot of parts sometimes get forgotten at the bottom of the parts list.

If you have a particular need for the part, and if you ask nicely, Philo might be willing to help you out. Just remember he does in his spare time and recieves no compensation for it, just like everybody else around here.

Take heart, though, as things are getting better around here. Take a look at the history graph and you'll notice that the backlog has steadily decreased over the last 5 or more years

[Remco Canten]

well i don't need the part but was looking in the forgotten section.
i thought this could be something for me to put my teeth in.
so that's why i put in the question to Mikeheide if it was alright for me to
take a look at the subpart.

but then again if my quest for (making an part) is already dead, because (John is so good at it, or Jack has an program for it)
then i might as well resign with the authoring stuff and delete al the programs i recently downloaded for me to try getting
a hang of it. This way i can never learn or put something in the community.
Just because someone else is better. and im just the newbie. (willing to learn and grow in all this (jungle of information).

I hope that i can still do something and not to withhold my actions.

[Tim Gould]

New part authors are definitely something we want and need so please do continue in this quest.

In this case, the part might be a good chance for you to try out some of the tools you downloaded Maybe see what you can do with unificator and some text editing and I'm sure people will help out. I strongly advise to learn how to use Philo's tools as you go along. They make life easier for everyone (especially Philo, hence his part count) and are really useful.

In answer to your question above: Sometimes parts really do get forgotten. Or no-one cares enough about them to fix problems. Or people get busy. But any part that has sat unedited for four years should be considered totally free for fixing

Tim

[Max Martin Richter]

Remco don't worry about such problems.
You should try a to build a simple part or take a "simple" one from our official library, where you feel, that could be done in a better way. We have many parts with a "needs work" statement for example...
Of course it's up to you. You can take every other complex part, that's not in our library, too. Feel free to do so. Everything will improve your skills.

I started authoring a couple of years ago and did everything by hand. That costs so much time, that I'm very happy, that some tools exist. Just download them, give them a try and use these programs if needed. I use very very often rectifier, intersector, isecalc, edger2 and unificator when I create parts.
And be sure, that nobody will mock you, if you did something wrong.
But yes sometimes our comments are very short and we don't write everytime: "thanks and well done" for every part. But if a part gets a cert-vote it's the same and when it get's a cert vote without any discussion before it's the best case that could happen.

So... - happy building!

/Max

[Remco Canten]

But there comes the problem, the easy ones are put on the PT before i could build and submit it.
Hence the trick for me to find an easy part. And therefor i asked mike to be ok if i could overtake the part he
submitted initially. There is no list of missing parts.

"take a simple" one from our official library, where you feel, that could be done in a better way. We have many parts with a "needs work" statement for example.../Max

And how do i find a simple one or needs work part?

p.s. the unificator program i can't get it to do anything, even downoaded LETGUI and some need2have tools(Isecalc, Rectifier and Planarcheck). but still nothing comes out.

better for me to use MLcad and manualy change positions of all the quads and triangles.

[Max Martin Richter]

Well, this was a problem, which I had in the beginning too.
I see missing parts mostly while rebuilding official models. And parts that needs attention have a "needs work" statement in their description (You can see this in MLCad for example).
A simple part - that depends on you, what's simple. For me it would be part with a lot of rectangular faces (and only 1-4, 2-4, 3-4 and 4-4 curves.
I'm sure, that you will find something.

The Unificator program. I hope, you read the description on Philo's webpage?
Personally I don't like the LETGUI so much an therefore I created simple batch files for the programs.
For example my unificator.bat:

Code:

@echo off
Unificator -s -l d:\ldraw a.dat b.dat
b.dat

You have to specify your LDraw base path, if it's different from d:\ldraw. a.dat is my file that will be unificated and b.dat is the result. In the last line it opens b.dat with my favorite program. (Normally I use LDDP for writing parts)

/Max

[Chris Dee]

And how do i find a simple one or needs work part?

Here is a list of parts in the official library that contain the text "needs work". Some will only have that tag because the inside, unseen, faces have only been guessed at.

[Steffen]

Hi Remco,

I can also only encourage you to keep being a parts author.
As any start, also this one is a little difficult,
because you need to first get an impression of which tool will help you where,
and you over time will develop a workflow which best suits your likes and preferences.
Nowadays, I switch frequently between tools: if I need to BFC-flip some triangles and quads,
I use LDDP, which can do this with a button click, if I need to BFC a whole file, I use WINDZ (despite it being so
crudely prehistoric), I use MLCad for precise coordinate editing, Philos tools, and of course my favorite
text editor for search+replace. And there's more, the LPC, SR3DBuilder, DATHeader, LDView, and, and, and.
You will definetely have fun editing parts, so I can only follow what the others said: don't give up!
You're definetely welcome, and as already said, sometimes the review sentences on the PT are a little short,
but a CERT vote definitely contains a "cool man, well done". It's good to have you with us.

If you're looking for parts to work on, you can also look here:

(a)
There's a feature on the Parts Tracker which shows you the "oldest" files on it, i.e., which files have been lurking
around here for long. Maybe there's a part where you would like to help:
Click on "parts tracker", then "tools", then "file queue". You land here:
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptqueue.cgi

(b)
I sometimes also look at the overall Parts Tracker parts list
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptlist.cgi
and scroll to the bottom, where all the poor, held files sit.
Sometimes something pokes my eye which I easily can fix.
Then I go ahead. However, sometimes of course the problems in the files are difficult,
and maybe too difficult for a beginner.

Enjoy!

[Remco Canten]

thnx for the life line. ;-)
i seriously like to build IRL and on the computer but sometimes i get frustrated when things don't go
the way i like them to go. I really tried the programs Philo made but somehow i don't get them to do
what i want them to do. Mainly nothing. The programs are for me too hard to use so i got LETGUI.
Installed those progs and then again tried to get things my way.
It even got me to the point of seeing the file gone and replaced with an altered one. So a couple of hours of work were
replaced within a (mili)second.

you need to first get an impression of which tool will help you where,
and you over time will develop a workflow which best suits your likes and preferences.

As i said, as a beginner i got no clue how to get those programs working or learning using the manual of each program.
Its like too high of programming skills. I used every addon for LETGUI and then after save looked at the part about what has
changed. But every time i looked at the part, that was not changed for one (sub)part.

You're definetely welcome, and as already said, sometimes the review sentences on the PT are a little short,
but a CERT vote definitely contains a "cool man, well done".

I know the short answers are just for an author to know where the problem is he missed.

Is there an possibility for the programmers for noobs like me to make an manual where its almost state what to
put in or type and what to expect as an result? In really uderstandable language and not the gibburish what i read. ;-)

[Steffen]

>Is there an possibility for the programmers for noobs like me
> to make an manual where its almost state what to put in or type
> and what to expect as an result?

Aren't the instructions for each of the tools at
http://www.philohome.com/ldraw.htm
instructive?

There are many images in them, including all
the involved command lines.

[Max Martin Richter]

Well for the most people here, which are programmers, it seems to be very very easy to work with a command-line or create a batch file. But for many people, which aren't grown in DOS-time or have never used the command-line it could be in fact a bit difficult.
So, I will try a very basic introduction for the command-line.
First of all: The easiest way to open a command-line windows directly with the right directory is to rightclick on the folder, where the executable (.exe-file) is in, while the [Shift]-Key is pressed. A menu will open where you have to chose "Open command-line here" (I'm not sure what's the correct translation from German here). The command-line window is now open with the path, where toolxyz is situated.
Now you have to tell the command-line that it should execute toolxyz. This will be simply done writing

Code:

toolxyz

within the command-line window.
OK, these had been the very basics, but if you would confirm your input you will mostly only get some lines with a very simple description of the tool and its parameters.
And now the interesting part starts - the parameters.
You have to tell most of the tools what they should do. For this you have to extend your input by the parameters. For example you have a tool, that changes some faces and you want to know which are changed (or even touched) you can use debug colors - mostly they are called by [-c] in Philo's tools.
So you have to write:

Code:

toolxyz -c

(Note that you can add more parameters by typing

Code:

toolxyz -c -m -n -o

and some parameters needs a value. For Parameters with value (a value can be an angle or a path here), you have to type:

Code:

toolxyz -c -m 0.003 -n c:\Lego\ldraw -o

(m, n, o are just examples for parameters)
Now the programm knows what it should do, but it still doesn't know the input file (and output file)
In some tools it's possible to write an input file only. But this will be replaced by the output and if something goes wrong your old has gone. So you should use an output file with a different name than the input file.
Small example: Your have an input file 'input.dat' and will get an output file 'output.dat', you have to write

Code:

toolxyz input.dat output.dat

and with parameters it could be something like this:

Code:

toolxyz -c -m 0.003 -n c:\Lego\ldraw -o input.dat output.dat

That's it. I hope this was the type of help you expected?!

/Max

[Remco Canten]

yes steffen, i read those articles of philo. but still i was more confused then warmed up to work with them.

@max, that indeed the basic knowledge of DOS. i knew about paramaeters and directories.

My main problem is that some words are too techical for me ( btw im an dutch bloke) and some words i can not put right in my mind. Then i have to re-think about the tekst, put it in the correct order to know what im about to do.
Then after getting the program up and running, i have to put in the line of commands. but theres the catch.
They are al swurled up in my mind and im confused.

I thought about this:

name of the program.
entire command line with everything in it.
each parameter explained and what can be put in. And why.
after the command, what to be expected in the file.

Or make a post about the programs and name it "programs for dummies".

Some words are normal to you all but the word "Vertices" i have to repeat it before i understand it. I think it in the first place as vertical.

And please dont laugh when you read this. ;-) ;-) ;-)