28 replies to this topic

[Superkalle]

Hello LDD friends

LDD Manager 0.97 has now been released. The major update for this release is full support for LDD 4.1. As usual, download the application here



Change log

New features
• Now possible to filter out to only view brick issues. Brick issues are defined as a) there is a color warning for that part OR b) there is a missing ElementID for that part
• When importing files, the last imported file is now selected in the Model list.

Updates
• Considerable performance improvement when viewing very large files
• Full support for LDD 4.1:
=>     Brick Database version 372.1
=> New decorations added (thanks Aanchir )
=> New DbM palette
=> LDD Extended Mode
• Updated the reference data from BrickLink (Items and colors) with latest data. A few small errors in the LDD to BrickLink mapping was also fixed.
• The color warning feature has been upgraded to show two levels of warnings:
=> “Check if exist” warning when Lots for Sale is less then 5.  
=> “Possibly rare” warning when Lots for Sale is between 5 and 15.

[DLuders]

@ Superkalle:  I upgraded my LDD Manager to v0.97, and it works great.  I tried it on Zblj's X24 and X48 Lego Technic Engines that he built using LDD 4.1.6, and everything was super-smooth.  Thanks for your hard work!  

[Superkalle]

DLuders, on 09 April 2011 - 02:22 PM, said:

@ Superkalle:  I upgraded my LDD Manager to v0.97, and it works great.  I tried it on Zblj's X24 and X48 Lego Technic Engines that he built using LDD 4.1.6, and everything was super-smooth.  Thanks for your hard work!  

And thanks to you for letting me know. It's really valuable for me to know that it works

[Jaymercury]

Thanks for the update. I generated an lxf file from a bricklink inventory and it gave the 30367 brick a kind of partial r2-d2 decoration. I don't know if it's just me.

Also, something in this inventory is generating an lxf file that won't load. Sorry I couldn't be more specific. It might be LDD's fault and not yours.

Edited by Jaymercury, 10 April 2011 - 02:04 AM.

[Superkalle]

Jaymercury, on 10 April 2011 - 01:55 AM, said:

Thanks for the update. I generated an lxf file from a bricklink inventory and it gave the 30367 brick a kind of partial r2-d2 decoration. I don't know if it's just me.

Also, something in this inventory is generating an lxf file that won't load. Sorry I couldn't be more specific. It might be LDD's fault and not yours.

Hi.

Thanks for letting me know, and I did some checking:

1) The partial r2-d2 is because the one part of the decoration is a decoration, and the other is that part of the dome is colored red (that particular brick is a bit tricky since it can be multicolored). Anyway, that problem I can't do anything about. Sorry.

2) The LXF-file didn't open in LDD because LDD Manager inserted the wrong color code for Chrome Gold. That has now been fixed in the next version. Part of the problem is also that LDD does not correctly parse unknown color codes (or rather it parses it, but doesn't give a message to the user why the parsing was aborted).

[Aanchir]

Haven't tested out all the features of the latest LDD Manager update, but thought I'd share a couple things regarding the color reference:

• You can now add the names for colors 321 Dark Azur, 322 Medium Azur, 324 Medium Lavender, and 325 Lavender. Not only are their names now identified, but they appear in the default palette for LDD Extended mode.
  
  
• In 2006, 296 Cool Silver actually replaced LEGO color 131 Silver, not 150 Light Grey Metallic. And then in 2007 131 Silver came right back and replaced 296 Cool Silver, which hasn't been seen since.
  
  
• 9 Light Reddish Violet and 22 Medium Reddish Violet correspond to Bricklink's Pink and Dark Pink, as far as I can tell. In 2004 they were replaced by 222 Light Purple and 221 Bright Purple, respectively. However, Bricklink treats both versions of Dark Pink as the same color, so no idea what you should do about that.
  
  
• 128 Dark Nougat doesn't correspond to any Pearl color. I'm fairly certain it's the color used for Uncle Vernon's hair piece in the Escape from Prived Drive set, which Bricklink mislabels as earth orange (12 Light Orange Brown). The difference between these two colors is obvious since both appear in the same set (one for Ron Weasley's hair, the other for Uncle Vernon's).

[Superkalle]

Thanks for the headsup Aanchir. I'll add the names to those new colors.

However, I'm not sure if the other three items were for info, or you suggest I change something?

My objective with the color mapping in LDD Manager is (for general info to everyone else, Aanchir allready knows this ) not actually to be 100% per se, but to transform any colors applied in LDD to existing color/brick combinations in BL and vice versa. And unfortunately, due to how LDD Manager is set up to work now, I can't map two LDD colors to one BrickLink and vice versa.

[alienwar9]

I love the new speed! Soooo much faster Thank you so much for releasing this wonder!

It looks like once again the piece count is off somehow. My latest build, "building 29" has 10,060 pieces, but LDD manager says it has 10,073 pieces. Before it didn't count some pieces, but now its counting more?

Here is the LXF

[Murdoch17]

I have a question regarding LDD Manager. I have a model I'm going to buy from LDD and I ran it through LDD Manager. I looked at the part summary and some strange stuff showed up:  

90639pb05 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Breez 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632642
90639pb05 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Breez 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632645
90639pb04 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Evo 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632642
90639pb04 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Evo 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632645
90639pb08 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Flame and Double Lightning Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632642
90639pb08 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Flame and Double Lightning Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632645
90639pb03 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Furno 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632642
90639pb03 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Furno 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632645
90639pb02 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Nex 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632645
90639pb02 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Nex 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632642
90639pb01 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Stormer 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632642
90639pb01 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Stormer 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632645
90639pb06 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Surge 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632642
90639pb06 Hero Factory Armor with Ball Joint Socket - Size 5 with Surge 2.0 Pattern ? (LegoID 315) Hero Factory 6 Check if exist Yes 4632645

Problem #1: Now, I don't have the Evo 2.0 pattern on it, (or anay of the other ones, by the way.) All patterns are showing up in the Manager.(such as Stormer, Nex, Breez, Surge, etc, and in mutilples of six...) I don't know why it says this, because there is not pattern on the model. Here is a picture of the model I'm using:

Granted, unbuyable parts are on the model, but besides that why would it do that? It also says (in the decorations tab) that no decorations are being applied to any parts!  
Problem #2: What is "LegoID 315" ? I'm going to eventually try to match up the color of this model to the one in set #2182 Bulk 3.0 when it's released. But  I can't as long as I don't know the Bricklink color!   Can you please help me?

[Aanchir]

Murdoch17, on 16 April 2011 - 03:13 PM, said:

Problem #2: What is "LegoID 315" ? I'm going to eventually try to match up the color of this model to the one in set #2182 Bulk 3.0 when it's released. But  I can't as long as I don't know the Bricklink color!   Can you please help me?

315 Silver Metallic is the color of all silver parts since summer 2010 (excluding, of course, metallic or chrome silver parts). So any and all 2011 Hero Factory parts in silver (BL's flat silver) would be 315 Silver Metallic. Likewise, any and all 2011 Hero Factory parts in dark silver (BL's pearl dark grey) would be 316 Titanium Metallic.

The reason there's no Bricklink counterpart listed for 315 or 316 on LDD Manager is that Bricklink colors are mind-bogglingly inconsistent-- parts in 315 Silver Metallic have been listed as Pearl Dark Grey, Pearl Light Grey, Flat Silver, and Metallic Silver on Bricklink, never mind that all of these were colors that existed prior to 2010 whereas 315 Silver Metallic is an almost brand-new color.

If LDD manager were to have Bricklink equivalents listed for these colors, not only would they be unreliable (giving you some parts in colors they're not listed in on Bricklink even if they do in fact exist in 315 Silver Metallic in real life), but furthermore it would make the reverse process (generating an LXF from a Bricklink inventory) impossible, since LDD manager wouldn't be able to tell whether the inventory belonged to a 2006 set, a pre-2010 set not from 2006, or a 2010-2011 set. A part listed as Pearl Light Gray on Bricklink would have to equate to a different LEGO color in each of these situations!

For your reference, I can pretty much assure you that Bricklink will list Bulk 3.0's silver parts as Flat Silver when the set is finally released and inventoried, since that's the pattern the site is following with regard to the Hero Factory wave 2 sets. However, you have to understand that LDD manager can't be a perfect tool when it's trying to map things to an imperfect database (Bricklink's, in this case, although really there is no perfectly-accurate online LEGO database). So certain flaws in LDD-to-Bricklink conversions simply can't be eliminated.

[Superkalle]

Aanchir, on 16 April 2011 - 05:01 PM, said:

315 Silver Metallic is the color of all silver parts....

I second everything Aanchir wrote. And not only is the color system itself confusing. When adding new sets to BL it is up to the person doing the inventory to "decide" which of all possible metalic colors the parts have. This is when the situation arises that new sets have been found to use old colors. So LDD Manager is just a reflection of a colors system (at BL) that is some sense is getting really messy.

PS: Murdoch - can you post your LXF and I'll have a look at it and see if there is anything wrong in LDD Manager.

alienwar9, on 13 April 2011 - 05:02 PM, said:

It looks like once again the piece count is off somehow. My latest build, "building 29" has 10,060 pieces, but LDD manager says it has 10,073 pieces. Before it didn't count some pieces, but now its counting more?

That's because LDD Manager translate minifig torsos and legs to separate parts. The reason is that since you in LDD can color things the way you like (one arm red and the other blue), and if you want to order that minifig from BL, then you need to pick the indivual parts and assemble the minifig yourself. I know that in 99% of the cases, you make a minifig with "standard colors", but to be able to handle all cases, I had to do it like that.

PS: Great looking building BTW  

[Aanchir]

I've been goofing around with decorations lately, trying to find what parts have decoration surfaces that could have decorations in real life, but which don't have the correct decorations available in LDD. By putting the incorrect decorations into an LXFML, you get some unusual results!



I used the latest version of LDD Manager to help pinpoint these parts. However, I noticed that when I search in the Brick Finder for the attribute "Have DecorationFaces", certain parts that can be decorated do not come up in the list. Specific ones I noticed include bricks 90638, 90639, and 90640, but the fact that these ones are not listed in LDD Manager in this category means that there may be others that do not have this attribute listed. It should be noted that of these three bricks, two of them were available in LDD version 4.0, although I do not know whether they had decoration surfaces at that time. The horse (75998) also is not listed as having decoration surfaces, although it has two-- one on either side of its face.

I think that it would be really reassuring if you could double-check for other brick attribute oversights, including decoration faces as well as connectivity attributes.

[Superkalle]

Aanchir, on 23 April 2011 - 05:55 PM, said:

I used the latest version of LDD Manager to help pinpoint these parts. However, I noticed that when I search in the Brick Finder for the attribute "Have DecorationFaces", certain parts that can be decorated do not come up in the list.

Hi Aanchir

Thanks for pointing this out.
The missing items (that have decorations) in the list was simply because I forgot that these were in a new category in the palette, so all HeroFactory parts are missing in the LDD Manager "Brick Finder" (but only here, not anywhere else).

The horse is missing out because it's a composite element, and I'll look into why it's not working.

While I was at it, I also updated the icon descriptions in LDD Manager.


What I'm working at now in LDD Manager are four new features:
1) Generate a LEGO style building guide (using the HTML Building Guide output and re-formating it quite a bit to look like a TLG instruction.)
2) Show the physcial dimensions of a model. This requires quite a bit of matrix transformations and rotations which I forgot almost all about since the school days. If anyone is good at this, let me know, because I can sure use some help.
3) Generate a printable pick-list with images of each brick (in the right color).
4) Show which colors a model can be build in. I.e. you have a model with lots of whites and some red bricks. To which other colors can all the white and red respectively be changed to (i.e. bricks exist in those colors).

[Taaron]

First I have to say: that Police Rockmonster is great.  

Onto the topic at hand, finally gave LDD Manager a try, as I want to Pick A Brick my parts as opposed to using the "Design By Me" service.

Works pretty nifty. (I kind of think this topic should be pinned, since it's such a handy tool.) Only thing is, it takes a while to copy & paste all the element numbers into the P-A-B search, so I was curious, would it be possible to make the Element numbers click-able, like the Bricklink item#, that would link to the Pick A Brick search with the element ID already input?

[legoboy3998]

Taaron, on 29 April 2011 - 12:10 AM, said:

First I have to say: that Police Rockmonster is great.  

Onto the topic at hand, finally gave LDD Manager a try, as I want to Pick A Brick my parts as opposed to using the "Design By Me" service.

Works pretty nifty. (I kind of think this topic should be pinned, since it's such a handy tool.) Only thing is, it takes a while to copy & paste all the element numbers into the P-A-B search, so I was curious, would it be possible to make the Element numbers click-able, like the Bricklink item#, that would link to the Pick A Brick search with the element ID already input?

I agree that would be nice.  I also only buy through PAB because it is about 25% (based on my last order) cheaper than through LDD (DBM).  The extra time it takes to print out and manually find the parts in PAB is worth the savings.  On my last order that was enough to buy 2 of the new PF train motors and pay for shipping and still save about $20 US.  That reminds me I want to mention that in the ambassaders forum.

Thanks for the program Superkalle, just updated to the new version and it works great.

Sal
WFB, WI

[Ex cinno]

Hello, i am new here so be patient.
I have a problem with LDD Manager 0.97: when I try to generate XML code and upload to bricklink an error occurs.
Seem that activex fail to create the object, even if I enter the right wanted-list id.
Lack some authorization?

Thank you for your support.

[P4trickvH]

Did you try to copy the XML data in the form on Bricklink? If not try that, something i fuond out to recently. You can't upload the file it self.

[Superkalle]

Ex cinno, on 07 May 2011 - 03:35 PM, said:

Hello, i am new here so be patient.
I have a problem with LDD Manager 0.97: when I try to generate XML code and upload to bricklink an error occurs.
Seem that activex fail to create the object, even if I enter the right wanted-list id.
Lack some authorization?

Thank you for your support.

Hello

Can you be a bit more specific about exactly when the error occurs and also the exact error message.

[Commander Uno]

Murdoch17, on 16 April 2011 - 03:13 PM, said:

Problem #2: What is "LegoID 315" ? I'm going to eventually try to match up the color of this model to the one in set #2182 Bulk 3.0 when it's released. But  I can't as long as I don't know the Bricklink color!   Can you please help me?

I have a fix for the 315 Flat Silver problem.
When LDD Manager copies the XML code to the clipboard paste it into Notepad instead of Bricklink (still keep up link). Search your XML code for <COLOR>100315</COLOR>. Then replace all the ones that say that with <COLOR>95</COLOR>. Copy and paste that into your Bricklink page and all 315 colors should come up as Flat Silver like they should be.

[Ex cinno]

Superkalle, on 07 May 2011 - 07:31 PM, said:

Hello

Can you be a bit more specific about exactly when the error occurs and also the exact error message.

Hello

The error occurs when I try to execute Step 2. Generate XML code and upload to Bricklink
At this point the program gives back the message "Il componente ActiveX non è in grado di creare l'oggetto" as you can also see in the picture.
Message is in Italian because this is the language I use.

[DLuders]

The Babelfish translation (from Italian to English) is "The ActiveX member is not in a position to creating l' object."  

[Calabar]

Ehehe the wonders of the automatic translation!  

The English message should be: "ActiveX component can't create object".

[Aanchir]

Commander Uno, on 07 May 2011 - 11:30 PM, said:

I have a fix for the 315 Flat Silver problem.
When LDD Manager copies the XML code to the clipboard paste it into Notepad instead of Bricklink (still keep up link). Search your XML code for <COLOR>100315</COLOR>. Then replace all the ones that say that with <COLOR>95</COLOR>. Copy and paste that into your Bricklink page and all 315 colors should come up as Flat Silver like they should be.

Well, there's still the problem that not all parts in that color on Bricklink are listed as Flat Silver. Some are listed as Pearl Light Gray, some are listed as Metallic Silver, and some (inexplicably) are listed as Pearl Dark Gray. Still, for assembling a wanted list it should suffice given that nowadays they're doing a slightly better job with labeling that color consistently as flat silver (there are still some egregious errors in PotC set inventories, of course).

[Ex cinno]

P4trickvH, on 07 May 2011 - 04:39 PM, said:

Did you try to copy the XML data in the form on Bricklink? If not try that, something i fuond out to recently. You can't upload the file it self.

I don't see the XML data because error occurs immediatly when I press "Step 2. Generate XML code and upload to Bricklink".
I operate with Windows 7 and I think LDD Manager lack some system autorization to perform it's task.

Thank.

[Superkalle]

Ex cinno, on 08 May 2011 - 05:11 PM, said:

I don't see the XML data because error occurs immediatly when I press "Step 2. Generate XML code and upload to Bricklink".
I operate with Windows 7 and I think LDD Manager lack some system autorization to perform it's task.

Thank.

Well, the strange thing is that clicking Export to XML LDD manager only opens a form, and that's when you get the error. Really strange.

Anyway, this error happens because one of the reasons mentioned here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319844

Cause 2 and 3 it can't be, because then everyone should have that error (I think  )
Cause 5 doesn't seem to relate
Cause 1 is shouldn't be, because I'm not using DAO in LDD Manager, only ADO. But you should still do that (what it says in the link above).
Cause 4 seems far fetched (but you should check it).

(BTW What version of Access are you using?)