Building models on the computer

[Burf2000]

Hey I love building models offline as I use computers as part of my job and am a geek too lol. However I want to get a rough idea of how many bricks i need for a project. i used lego desginer which was ok but it did not tell me how many bricks i used or how its size, maybe i missed it (was a friday afternoon). I hear people use cad etc but that seems a over kill if its like autocad that i used to use

[simonwillems]

...I used lego desginer which was ok but it did not tell me how many bricks i used or how its size,

That's right: it doesn't.

When you upload the model to Lego Shop at Home it only tells you how many bricks you used, but you will never get an inventory showing which piece is used how many times.

There is one solution, a time consuming one, I have done it myself.

- Save the HTML instructions, that way you can see what kind of parts you used (just not the number)

- Print the pieces

- Follow the steps of the digital instructions (there is a part call out for every step)

- Take a pen and tick the parts on your piece of paper.

Depending on the size of your model you can spend hours doing this....

[Burf2000]

So is lego desginer used by alot of you?

[KimT]

This sounds like a General LEGO virtual design discussion and therefore I'll move this to another forum.

[Yoshi648]

There is actually a way you can get the part inventory, but you need another program called LDraw. I'm sure most people here actually use that since it has a much wider part selection then Lego Digital Designer. You can get LDraw itself from step one here: http://www.ldraw.org/Article89.html After that you will see on step 2 to choose a second-generation editor. I use MLCad since it has more features and I find it easier to use. With that you can import your models from Lego Digital Designer and using the Part List feature in MLCad it will give you a nice list of what parts you need to make the model.

[Burf2000]

Oh cool are these free programs

[Quarryman]

Oh cool are these free programs

Yes, both LDraw and MLCAD are free to use.

[Davey]

If you're thinking of getting into LDraw, you might want to check out these two books as well.

LEGO Software Power Tools

Virtual LEGO

I have both and they are quite useful as both teaching aides and reference books when using the various LDraw tools. They do not cover LEGO Digital Designer, only the programs associated with LDraw (MLCAD, L3P, LPub, etc). Both books come with easy installation CD's, but you can also download the installer from the LDraw website.

Good luck!

-Dave

[Anders Nolberger]

You can use my program from http://www.nolberger.se/Lego/Wantedbricks to get a partlist from your LDD drawing.

[Milan]

I am working in MlCad for every model of mine, so if you need some help about it, I would gladly assist you!

MlCad is not so user friendly, but once you catch up, it is pretty cool, and it has really good selection of the parts and almost everything you can think of, it has it!

I like to combine it with LDVIEw.

[pesgores]

You can use my program from http://www.nolberger.se/Lego/Wantedbricks to get a partlist from your LDD drawing.

Thank you so much for that program!

[Perterz]

Thank you so much for that program!

I second that, it helps heaps

Something else, it seems I can't run MLCAD after downloading? My system meets the requirements and still doesn't run, I want to try it since LDD is so limited.

Kevin.