Lasse D

[Software] Griddy - MOC Design Assisting Tool

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Griddy is a small program that lets you overlay pictures with a grid. The grid can show plates, bricks, tiles and you can add sub-grids of various colors and sizes if you prefer. This can help you when designing MOCs from reference pictures. For example, if you know how long a MOC has to be in bricks, you can use the grid to find all other measurements. It also comes with a simple measuring tool.

griddy_screenshot.png

I started talking about Griddy back in this thread and made a little program to show what I was talking about. This program only had the most basic of functionality and I have now added the following features:

- File handling: You can now load .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .bmp and many other image files, save and load .griddy files (this is Griddy's own file format), export the current image with the grid on top and copy a screenshot of your current desktop (nifty when handling images from .pdf documents)

- Set up the grid to show plates from the side, bricks from the side, bricks from the top and have different colored grids overlaying the standard black grid (the red 10x10 grid is such a sub grid, see Edit-Grid Options).

- Measure distance between points. Click on the picture to play with this.

- Set up the grid without having to crop the picture beforehand by using the controls.

- Zooming and scrolling.

Download

Griddy is currently in "alpha" and can be downloaded as a .zip from the projects page here: http://c-mt.dk/software/

EDIT: link not working anymore, Griddy still available inside this zippack.

It does not have an installer yet and requires Java. You can start using the "run" file:

Windows: run.bat

Linux: run.sh

Mac and other OS'es: Find a way to issue the command "java -cp bin griddy.Griddy" from the BrickGraphics directory. (Please tell me if you know how to make something similar to the .sh or .bat files that works, as I have no MAC to test it on.)

Bugs and stuff to come

Griddy is still a young program, and a lot of stuff has to be done before it is officially released. The current list of features to be added is:

- Have the "draw contrasting" buttons actually do something...

- Installer.

- Stuff that you as a user might come up with.

- Automatically associate .griddy files with Griddy.

- Have a way to lock the measuring thingies (I still have to find the optimal way for the user to set up the grid)

- Have the "zoom fit" button work even when the scroll bars have not been seen (this annoys me)

License

Open source, free as in beer.

Edited by Lasse D

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I can only say one thing - thank you.

I've been using the grid method for years and have always wanted a supporting tool. And now here it is. Life is good :classic:

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Excellent. :thumbup: I've been using the older version ever since you released it, and so far it has resulted in two models. The most recent is my Toyota Prius.

5072275866_f2a0a470f0.jpg

prius grid by Mad physicist, on Flickr

Anyway, here is the result

5022096265_5053e6f145.jpg

Toyota Prius (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

I also used it for my VW Passat. I currently have very little time to do any building, but I am doing some design work for a few new projects and griddy is coming in very handy for those too. I shall definitely be downloading the new version!

Cheers,

Ralph

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I'm glad that you guys find it useful, and please don't withhold any suggestion that you might have. I am currently making a list of stuff to be done once I get time for this project again, but if you find any critical errors (the stuff that spams the console with debug output), then I will rush to fix those bugs ASAP.

And btw. The source code is in the .zip file. Feel free to browse/modify/improve all the undocumented spaghetti code :classic:

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It's great to see a Beta version of something you've talked about for ages!

However it is not running for me, it gives a small line in my command screen and then closes even before I can read what it says.

I am using Vista....

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That's no good. I'm running on a Vista machine right now too.

Can you do this:

- start a prompt (Start->Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt) or simply type "cmd" from run (Start->Run).

- type java in the prompt. Now it has to say "Usage: java " and a lot of other things. If it doesn't, then there's a java problem (probably missing classpath).

- Now navigate to the BrickGraphics folder (using cd "C:\Program Files\BrickGraphics" or where you saved it) and then type "run".

If you get to the end, it should write some more info in the prompt that could help me diagnose the problem.

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That's no good. I'm running on a Vista machine right now too.

Can you do this:

- start a prompt (Start->Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt) or simply type "cmd" from run (Start->Run).

- type java in the prompt. Now it has to say "Usage: java " and a lot of other things. If it doesn't, then there's a java problem (probably missing classpath).

- Now navigate to the BrickGraphics folder (using cd "C:\Program Files\BrickGraphics" or where you saved it) and then type "run".

If you get to the end, it should write some more info in the prompt that could help me diagnose the problem.

Hmmzz, it says could not find the main class: griddy.griddy

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OK. Then java is working.

You should have the following:

- The folder BrickGraphics/ with run.bat and the folder bin/ (and other folders icons/ locale/ and src/ which aren't important right now)

- bin/ has the folder griddy/

- griddy/ should have a file named Griddy.class Right now java tells you that Griddy.class isn't there.

Is this true?

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Great that it's running. Still wondering what went wrong though.

I think I was trying to unpack while it wasn't on my HD yet, haven't used rar or zip in ages. :laugh:

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Now I know how they make those 1/1 scale Lego cars and things. While those things are fun to look at, I don't think they'd be fun to build. That would drive me crazy.

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I have mixed feelings about writing what I'm about to write... while "griddy" is a great idea, and having been a programming hobbyist in the past (since it became my profession I don't do it much as a hobby any more), I understand the attraction to rolling your own because it'll do exactly what you want, and if it doesn't, you can make it do it because you're the programmer...

But I hate to see what I consider wasted effort, too.

The GIMP is available for virtually every platform. It's free. It's extensible, programmable, and there are tons of plug-ins one can find for it to do any number of things... while it's not photoshop, it's a very mature and well rounded image manipulation program that includes the feature of having a definable overlay grid. It has all the features of griddy - including measuring tools, zooming and panning, and includes so much more because it's a general purpose program - it supports many more image formats, layers, multiple windows...

The standard height to width of a 1x1 LEGO brick is 6:5, so all one needs to do is edit their preferences so that the grid has some multiple of those values... or 6:10 for a 2x brick, or 6:40 for a 4x brick... 2x5 for a plate.... I could probably hack up a quick plugin to let one select the brick size and automatically adjust the grid... but honestly, this is where some programming hobbyist should spend his effort, not on reinventing the wheel. I could understand not wanting to write a plugin for proprietary software like photoshop, but not for the GIMP, which is freely available to pretty much everybody on every platform.

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Or you could just have a transparent png with a grid and paste it onto a picture in a basic picture tool like MSPaint or Kolourpaint.

The same could be said about LEGO mosaic software. One could achieve the same as Pic2Brick by using filters in Gimp or Photoshop, but still people choose the former.

The philosophy behind Griddy is to have a small and fast dedicated piece of software without resorting to huge general purpose tools with plug-ins or similar.

(I just started Gimp on my machine. It took 30 seconds for the flash screen to load and another minute before the rest of the program showed up with a GUI with more buttons than the interior of an old Mercedes S-class. Gimp is full of great features and customizability, but a bit frightening if all I want to do is find out how high my windscreen should be if my car is 20 studs long)

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It's great to see a Beta version of something you've talked about for ages!

However it is not running for me, it gives a small line in my command screen and then closes even before I can read what it says.

I am using Vista....

I just downloaded Griddy, and am having a the same problem, however, I am running Windos 7 Home premium. I tried opening command prompt and typing "Java" and got "Java is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

Sal

WFB, WI

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I just downloaded Griddy, and am having a the same problem, however, I am running Windos 7 Home premium. I tried opening command prompt and typing "Java" and got "Java is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

Sal

WFB, WI

Did you get Giddy to work with Win-7? No luck here so far!

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