[Help] Using LDD, MLCad

[moschino]

Hello,

I see lots of wonderful creations here and not only rendered in POVRay and the results are amazing.

I discovered recently LDD2POVRay and that tool is very nice, but once I want to create instructions I have to deal with ldr files and not lxf.

I used LDD, and I exported the scene as ldr, but unfortunately many parts were placed very different or were not there at all. For example the plants, parts 2423, 2417, doesn't show in MLCad at all. Lamp Post 11062 doesn't show either and there are many more. It is extremely frustrating after I work hours or even days, to place them manually again in MLCad, and more than that is very difficult to notice what is missing when the scene is very complex.

To avoid such issues I suppose I have to create the whole scene in MLCad or LeoCad?

Unfortunately I find those programs much less user friendly than LDD and using XYZ axis as they are there, would take much longer to finish the scene than using LDD.

What do you guys do? Which programs do you use and what would you recommend?

Is there any software that uses LDraw dat files but let me to place parts as LDD does?

[Calabar]

LDD can create instructions, but the result is not very good.

To obtain better instructions you could do that manually (using LDD screenshots) or use the groups technique: you have to create groups so that they reflect the order of the instructions, and then convert group code inside the lxfml file into intructions code (it is not immediate but the procedure can be automated). In short, it requires a bit of manual work.

SR 3D Builder has an approach similar to LDD, although it is more complex.

Unfortunately the developer of the software recently passed away, so SR 3D is destined to become obsolete. Anyway it is perfectly usable at the moment.

Another alternative could be LDView, it is a recent software, there is a lot of work to do on it, but it is very promising.

Wait for the opinion of some other builder that use more massively these software.

You can also take a look at the software list in the Section Index.

[Philo]

Another alternative could be LDView, it is a recent software, there is a lot of work to do on it, but it is very promising.

I guess you mixed up names... LDView is only a LDraw viewer (albeit extremely useful, and often used to create images for building instructions). The editor program that matches your description is LDCad. Otherwise I fully agree with your advices ;)

[Calabar]

Oops... you are true, obviously! LDCad, not LDView!

Thanks for the correction!