need help rotating road

[alienwar9]

I need help rotating this road piece. I can't get the road to fit just right between the sets of 1x6x5 roof tile pieces on the sides. The entire road needs to be rotated about half a degree or a degree. The point of rotation is the white dot in the picture, and I need to rotate from there counter-clockwise so that it will fit properly in-between those.

I can't get LDD to rotate it properly, and I am no good in MLCAD so I was wondering if anyone could help me out here.

Here are the LDD file and an Ldraw file.

Ldraw

LDD

Thanks for any help! This was such a pain.

[Mr. Lego-builder]

Hi.

I've downloaded and tried to rotate the road in a way that would allow the bricks to fit properly. I think I may have found a alternate way for the bricks to fit.

Do you have a link reference to the real part (e.g. from Peeron or Bricklink)? Also, is your design inspired from some source? I'd like to take a look at that too to compare and troubleshoot.

EDIT: Is it possible for you to send a personal message with your email address so I may send the modified file? Thanks.

[alienwar9]

thanks for the help with this!

http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/30249

That is the only part that has the right angle I need for the road. I believe the piece is 55 degrees, but I haven't checked.

http://www.gallaghersart.com/mikeslego/Roads/index.html

I based it off of Mike Gallagher's road designs, specifically the SNOT road on baseplate with 1 tile increased height sidewalks. I then plan on placing the slope pieces next to the road, holding it in place, while setting them up on plates to level them with the rest of the sidewalks. I guess it might be hard to understand from my poor description though. But I'm hoping it will work.

And I'm not sure if I want to have the baseplates on an angle underneath the road like in the models, or keep the baseplates continuing from surrounding buildings, and try and find connection points for the holding edges to those baseplates. I hope that makes sense.

I'm going to scrap some sets for these pieces to build a test model just to make sure this works. The previous idea test worked out until I realized the colors made the road look more on an angle, and I couldn't get the center line properly.

[Superkalle]

I saw "mr. Lego Bildurs" reply, but since I can't see his proposed fix, I went on to do my own. (@Bildur: you can attach small files directly in the forum, handy feature).

Let's start with the angle of the brick you're using (30249 - Slope 55 6 x 1 x 5). As the name implies it's a 55 degree angle brick when used on it's own. HOWEVER, stacking multiple on top of eacher other, the angle become slightly more (approx 56 degrees) since there is a slight offset at the base (i.e. when the bricks are stacked there is a slight staircase pattern). Maybe you knew, but I mention it here anyway.

Next step, making the right angle in LDD.

First, I noticed some design flaws in your LDD file. For example, the 1x1 technic brick with hole on the side is a very tricky pieces to use. The hole in the brick is about 1/10 of a mm to high compared to the "right" height, so any bricks used to attach with a peg is out of line - just slightly, but enogh to be an "illegal Lego building principle", and that's why LDD will not allow it. Read more here:

http://bramlambrecht.com/tmp/jamieberard-b...stress-bf06.pdf

On the other hand LDD strangely allows other illegal building principles, like this one:

Also, big up for spotting that the 16x8 and 16x32 baseplates are not the same height. That seems like an error in LDD.

OK, with that said, I've managed to get the 55 degree angle (actually 56 as mentioned above) that I suppose you wanted. See attached file.

cross_road_fixed.zip

[Mr. Lego-builder]

SuperKalle's suggestions seem to work very well! The reason I was having trouble with the original file were a few things:

- I did not have the modified LDD parts files, which made it difficult since brick errors kept occurring.

- The road was quite large, making it fit on the screen a bit difficult.

As for my proposed solution, I must say it is not nearly as elegant (or for that matter, as effective) as SuperKalle's, but it better keeps the faith of the original design (e.g. baseplates are kept, it is of similar length). There are a few drawbacks to my design: The rotation is not fixed; it is worked around.

You can better see what I did in the following two files:

The first version has the proposed changes only: http://cid-c55c2a3e10b5d929.skydrive.live....ad-modified.lxf

The second version has an added sidewalk, making it flush with the tiles on the opposite edges of the road: http://cid-c55c2a3e10b5d929.skydrive.live....dified-alt1.lxf

I hope this helps.

[alienwar9]

Thanks guys!

@superkalle: I'm a bit confused on some of the design reasoning. when you use the longer technic piece, does that help the road in any way? Also, I've tested the "Lego name height" issue with some bricks to see how it would work with the baseplates, and fortunately the slight offset doesn't cause any issues for roads. So the road template that I have works fine. The light gray tiles on the technic pieces on the sides are supposed to be higher than the road, so the fact that the road is actually higher than the technic pieces doesn't cause an issue either.

Also, when I continued the road the slope pieces once again wouldn't fit. I'm guessing that the angle needs to be slightly more, as the increase from the "staircase" makes it more than 56 when so many are used. I don't know though, my geometry is rusty.

The sloped pieces on the side are supposed to be 1 plate higher than the road btw.

@mr. lego_bildur: Sorry for the large size and extra pieces. I completely forgot I was using the modified LDD parts. The size I just thought would make sure that the angle would fit the actual size the road will be. At one point the road becomes a bridge over a river (possibly a lifting bridge). It crosses 2 intersections and goes "through" a buildings block, so it needs to be at that angle, otherwise if even a 10 degree difference, the whole city would have to be reworked (and I've already done that once).

The first version is what I need, because the buildings and their respective sidewalks will not be on an angle, and therefore will nee to "slide in" next to the slopes (merging the sidewalks to create roughly a 7 stud wide sidewalk. The building walls will be on their own angle, finishing the sidewalk. I'll try and build something quick a post a picture of what I mean.

The hardest part will be the intersections with the roads.

I'd like to ask, how did both of you manage to change the angle or do the work around? I probably will be needing to create walls at the same angle and it would be helpful to know how to do this stuff.

Thanks once again for the help!

Though I'm still up for other options if anyone has ideas!

[Mr. Lego-builder]

For the work around:

1. Examine the right side of the road.

2. Separate the right sidewalk from the road and assemble it as it own stack of slopes with enough bricks to span the entire length of the road.

3. Afterward, in order to better visualize the finished road, copy the pre-built road to the end of the slope stack

4. Then, remove the uppermost light gray 1x2 plate already in the model (From the stack of two 1x2 plates attached to blue Technic pins on the right side.)

5. Next, place a jumper plate where the 1x2 plate originally was.

6. Select the entire stack of slopes.

7. Finally, connect them to the jumper plate, inching it as close as possible without conflicts.

Here are some pictures to show what I mean: http://cid-c55c2a3e10b5d929.skydrive.live....rk%20Around.zip

[ghyde]

On the other hand LDD strangely allows other illegal building principles, like this one:

This is actually possible to build with real LEGO bricks! I just did it and there doesn't seem to be any apparent stress on the bricks concerned. Possibly this is allowed because most LEGO studs have a very slight curve to them. I therefore do not believe this to be in error at all! They should leave this one as is!

If someone wants a photo of this, I can upload one.

The only thing I can think of is that the LDD brick studs are not properly modeled with the curve on top, and therefore this appears to be an intersecting problem when in fact it is not! While I could not discern a gap inbetween the stud and the plate I do believe that this is a legal connection as it connected together without any problems at all.

Edited October 25, 2010 by ghyde

[Superkalle]

This is actually possible to build with real LEGO bricks! I just did it and there doesn't seem to be any apparent stress on the bricks concerned. Possibly this is allowed because most LEGO studs have a very slight curve to them. I therefore do not believe this to be in error at all! They should leave this one as is!

If someone wants a photo of this, I can upload one.

The only thing I can think of is that the LDD brick studs are not properly modeled with the curve on top, and therefore this appears to be an intersecting problem when in fact it is not! While I could not discern a gap inbetween the stud and the plate I do believe that this is a legal connection as it connected together without any problems at all.

You may be absolutely right about this one In my defense I can only say that it was back in April when I was young and immature

The LDD brick model does seem to be off. Thanks for spotting!

But before we close this case, has anyone seen this technique used in a set? It'd be kind of interesting to see in what case it can be used.

[Daedalus304]

You may be absolutely right about this one In my defense I can only say that it was back in April when I was young and immature

The LDD brick model does seem to be off. Thanks for spotting!

But before we close this case, has anyone seen this technique used in a set? It'd be kind of interesting to see in what case it can be used.

Actually, yes! It's not a plate with a stud, but the 4955 Big Rig uses this technique with 1x2 Grill on the top of the truck without any stud clipping, and even when I replace the grill (I have the set ), the studs on there don't clip either. The piece goes right up TO the stud at the very edge, but it doesn't actually press it.