[Software] LDCad - LDraw cad

[roland]

Sure, I am moving only one end part, not whole tube...strange.

And yes, I am talking about pneumatic tube.

You might have somehow ungrouped the endings. They exist out of two parts (a cap and a point) which are grouped by default but when it is allowed to ungroup them. Try to regroup them by using the 'update auto groups' item from the selection/grouping menu. It's ether that or you discovered a bug in the 1.5 alpha version :)

Part bin filter display - when I change some settings and click SET AS DEFAULT they are reset upon next run of your SW

Have you unpacked the archive at a general writable location. e.g. it won't work correctly if you place it in the program files location, you need the use the installer for that. I did not make an installer for 1.5 as it is a test version.

ALT+LMB - in many SW this combinations makes duplication of selected brick, not in your SW...I also did try SHIFT+LMB and still nothing so could you please implement this? I know I can select a brick and CTRL+C/CTRL+V but it is much faster with ALT+LMB

Like Philo wrote this is done using the ins key, but new in 1.5 is the ctrl+d key combo which pretty much does the same it only act different on single selections. The ins key will insert the working part when only one part is selected, ctrl+d will now always duplicate. I also look into the alt+lmb way but I'm kinda avoiding the use of the ALT key as it controls the windows/linux window menus by default which makes it act weirdly in some situations.

Right, actually it was problem of LDcad crashing thus not saving its settings but upon next run when I did those changes, closed the sw normally and then reopen all was as it should be

When did it crash? Do you remember what you clicked/did. As It should never ever crash :)

problem with crater baseplate - "Renderprep failed" = no preview picture nor actual baseplate in the field

Is that 3947.dat, it might be a resources thing as it rather large (27000 poly's/40000 lines) what kind of VGA hardware are you on?

Edited May 17, 2015 by roland

[___]

Are you sure that you are in nested mode editing (necessary to edit flex parts into model). Nested mode means that you edit submodels in the context of main model. You switch to nested mode in top right of screen.

Yes, I am in nested mode exactly as you're saying.

[___]

You might have somehow ungrouped the endings. They exist out of two parts (a cap and a point) which are grouped by default but when it is allowed to ungroup them. Try to regroup them by using the 'update auto groups' item from the selection/grouping menu. It's ether that or you discovered a bug in the 1.5 alpha version :)

I have no clue, that said: could you PLEASE show us one step-by-step how exactly place and bend a hose (with commenting all the steps if needed, please)?

Have you unpacked the archive at a general writable location. e.g. it won't work correctly if you place it in the program files location, you need the use the installer for that. I did not make an installer for 1.5 as it is a test version.

"general writable location" - what? Isn't one "normal" HDD where I have my other stuff automatically your "general writable location" (if it wasn't I would not be able write, it is extraxt there anything, right?). Or maybe I really do not understand what you meant by that...I understand your sw as kind of "portable", which means it does not install anything anywhere outside of its directory, so wherever I place such extracted program it should work, right? Or did you just mean it cannot be placed anywhere deeper than root (like C:\, D:\ etc.)?

Like Philo wrote this is done using the ins key, but new in 1.5 is the ctrl+d key combo which pretty much does the same it only act different on single selections. The ins key will insert the working part when only one part is selected, ctrl+d will now always duplicate. I also look into the alt+lmb way but I'm kinda avoiding the use of the ALT key as it controls the windows/linux window menus by default which makes it act weirdly in some situations.

I am used to SHIFT+LMB or ALT+LMB from many sw like Adobe...

When did it crash? Do you remember what you clicked/did. As It should never ever crash :)

Well, during intensive POVRay rendering...

Is that 3947.dat, it might be a resources thing as it rather large (27000 poly's/40000 lines) what kind of VGA hardware are you on?

ATI Radeon HD4600 on Win7 Ultimate with 8GB DDR

Edited May 17, 2015 by bublible

[roland]

I have no clue, that said: could you PLEASE show us one step-by-step how exactly place and bend a hose (with commenting all the steps if needed, please)?

There seems to be a bug in 1.5 Alpha concerning working with multiple paths (e.g. pneumatic hoses). It will mess with the auto groups. This is probably why bublible is having troubles with them. So please keep using 1.4b if you want to do serious work involving bendable parts. It will be be fixed in the next (alpha) version.

"general writable location" - what? Isn't one "normal" HDD where I have my other stuff automatically your "general writable location" (if it wasn't I would not be able write, it is extraxt there anything, right?). Or maybe I really do not understand what you meant by that...I understand your sw as kind of "portable", which means it does not install anything anywhere outside of its directory, so whenever I place such extracted program it should work, right? Or did you just mean it cannot be placed anywhere deeper than root (like C:\, D:\ etc.)?

Some locations are protected by Windows (e..g program files) and weird things will happen when programs try to write directly to those places (after they've been installed). The archive version should be unpacked in some user's private folder e.g. 'my documents' which does not have those constrains.

ATI Radeon HD4600 on Win7 Ultimate with 8GB DDR

I think the 4600 should be enough to handle that base plate, If you can mail me the contents of the logs folder after you loaded the plate I might be able to see what's going on exactly.

[___]

There seems to be a bug in 1.5 Alpha concerning working with multiple paths (e.g. pneumatic hoses). It will mess with the auto groups. This is probably why bublible is having troubles with them. So please keep using 1.4b if you want to do serious work involving bendable parts. It will be be fixed in the next (alpha) version.

Hmm, I rather wait for the new Alpha version and till then I stick to my LDD

Some locations are protected by Windows (e..g program files) and weird things will happen when programs try to write directly to those places (after they've been installed). The archive version should be unpacked in some user's private folder e.g. 'my documents' which does not have those constrains.

Well, just to clarify things: I am professional IT technician so things like "not saving my personal stuff to system partition" are quite usual (actually it is Z:\ in this particular occasion), that said you can be easy as it is not this case (I have extracted it to its unique folder there on my Z partition)

I think the 4600 should be enough to handle that base plate, If you can mail me the contents of the logs folder after you loaded the plate I might be able to see what's going on exactly.

Now as I think about it I am not sure but it might be that I downloaded and extracted Darats LGEO files before trying out your sw and he writes in his post about his parts that it may do some problems, maybe that is the case...anyway I can send you the log file via PM, OK?

Edited May 17, 2015 by bublible

[___]

Now as I think about it I am not sure but it might be that I downloaded and extracted Darats LGEO files before trying out your sw and he writes in his post about his parts that it may do some problems, maybe that is the case...anyway I can send you the log file via PM, OK?

So I just tried opening the crater baseplate in MLCAD and there is no problem with it THEREFORE it probably is not caused by Darats LGEO parts but it's something in your sw (most probably I guess...)

[roland]

Now as I think about it I am not sure but it might be that I downloaded and extracted Darats LGEO files before trying out your sw and he writes in his post about his parts that it may do some problems, maybe that is the case...anyway I can send you the log file via PM, OK?

Unless it overwrites .dat files with .pov content while keeping the .dat filename it should not matter. Logs through pm or email (see site) will be fine thanks. Just make sure the problem occurred in the last three program usages as only the last 3 log files are kept.

So I just tried opening the crater baseplate in MLCAD and there is no problem with it THEREFORE it probably is not caused by Darats LGEO parts but it's something in your sw (most probably I guess...)

MLCad does nothing with OpenGL so it's only limited by cpu/memory limits. LDCad tries to move the info to OpenGL which might fail in certain situations. One thing you could try is disabling 'VBO' in the prefs/opengl menu but it will slowdown rendering considerably.

[___]

Unless it overwrites .dat files with .pov content while keeping the .dat filename it should not matter. Logs through pm or email (see site) will be fine thanks. Just make sure the problem occurred in the last three program usages as only the last 3 log files are kept.

I guess it only writes stuff to LGEO folder, you can check Darats' post HERE

MLCad does nothing with OpenGL so it's only limited by cpu/memory limits. LDCad tries to move the info to OpenGL which might fail in certain situations. One thing you could try is disabling 'VBO' in the prefs/opengl menu but it will slowdown rendering considerably.

I will try disabling it tomorrow

Also I noticed that you can have opened more projects in LDcad but there is no visible indication about it so you could maybe think about implementing tabs so one clearly see those other opened projects and can switch them easily + the same goes for parts editing: I did not found any easy and quick and visible option to turn back to my model cos many times I accidentally switch to part editing mode and I am almost instantly lost having no straightforward option to turn back (with tabs all this would be solved)

Edited May 17, 2015 by bublible

[roland]

Also I noticed that you can have opened more projects in LDcad but there is no visible indication about it so you could maybe think about implementing tabs so one clearly see those other opened projects and can switch them easily + the same goes for parts editing: I did not found any easy and quick and visible option to turn back to my model cos many times I accidentally switch to part editing mode and I am almost instantly lost having no straightforward option to turn back (with tabs all this would be solved)

You can click on the filename at the top right but I'm not very happy with that method myself. The main (intended) way of dealing with multiple (MPD) models is through the partbin overview groups. You can see me setting it up/using in the 1.5 docking demo clip and the mpd tutorial one. The top right method will change sooner or later, a tab approach has been suggested before but I have seen LDraw models which contain 300+ submodels which will result in way to many tabs :)

[___]

You can click on the filename at the top right but I'm not very happy with that method myself. The main (intended) way of dealing with multiple (MPD) models is through the partbin overview groups. You can see me setting it up/using in the 1.5 docking demo clip and the mpd tutorial one. The top right method will change sooner or later, a tab approach has been suggested before but I have seen LDraw models which contain 300+ submodels which will result in way to many tabs :)

N

No no no, we definitely did not understand each other: I am not talking about MPD when there are several models in one file, no, I am talking about having opened several files at once at the same time, like in MS Office Word, Adobe Photoshop etc., you can have opened many files at once with tabs at the top for each one

[___]

MLCad does nothing with OpenGL so it's only limited by cpu/memory limits. LDCad tries to move the info to OpenGL which might fail in certain situations. One thing you could try is disabling 'VBO' in the prefs/opengl menu but it will slowdown rendering considerably.

I just tried it, and NO, it did not help...still no preview nor actual crater baseplate

[roland]

I just tried it, and NO, it did not help...still no preview nor actual crater baseplate

Weird I'd expected that to work, if you send me the logs I'll try to identify the problem so I can address it.

[___]

Weird I'd expected that to work, if you send me the logs I'll try to identify the problem so I can address it.

OK, I've just sent you a PM

Edited May 18, 2015 by bublible

[roland]

The above moon baseplate loading problems are caused by the LDraw library changes made when using Darats LGEO library. The HQ studs cause an massive inflation of 3D data which triggers LDCad's maximum mesh size protection, as such large meshes usually are caused by LDCad trying to stuff an entire model into a single mesh :) due to wrong header information.

The problem can be fixed by editing the main.cfg file and increasing the vpmPotVCntLimit and vpmPotVCntAutoDisable values, but be aware loading times of the high polygon parts might be very slow.

[___]

The above moon baseplate loading problems are caused by the LDraw library changes made when using Darats LGEO library. The HQ studs cause an massive inflation of 3D data which triggers LDCad's maximum mesh size protection, as such large meshes usually are caused by LDCad trying to stuff an entire model into a single mesh :) due to wrong header information.

The problem can be fixed by editing the main.cfg file and increasing the vpmPotVCntLimit and vpmPotVCntAutoDisable values, but be aware loading times of the high polygon parts might be very slow.

Thanx a lot for solving this, Roland, gonna try it out right now...

[___]

So, Roland, I did all that main.cfg updates but it still does not work : Renderprep failed

[roland]

So, Roland, I did all that main.cfg updates but it still does not work : Renderprep failed

I forgot I made those limits hardcoded a while back, as those defaults are allready 'insane'. Did not realize the HQ studs would cause the limit to be hit. It does prep when using the studlogo2.dat. I'll reenable the custm limits for Alpha 2 (it took >3 minutes to load the moonbase plate on my PC though).

Maybe you should consider using two LDraw libraries, one for the hq stud usage (why do you need those anyway? POV-Ray doesn't use them) and one normal one for drawing to prevent the long loading times.

[___]

I forgot I made those limits hardcoded a while back, as those defaults are allready 'insane'. Did not realize the HQ studs would cause the limit to be hit. It does prep when using the studlogo2.dat. I'll reenable the custm limits for Alpha 2 (it took >3 minutes to load the moonbase plate on my PC though).

Maybe you should consider using two LDraw libraries, one for the hq stud usage (why do you need those anyway? POV-Ray doesn't use them) and one normal one for drawing to prevent the long loading times.

Roland, actually I am LDD builder so when I saw Darats posts his super quality bricks for LDRAW I just grab them without any thinking about anything else as I could not know how things work in LDRAW, that said if all he changed in the crater base was the logo-on-stud then I of course do not need that at all, so if you tell me how to revert back to "normal quality" logo-on-stud I will do that of course

BTW when you plan releasing Alpha 2? I am waiting for it cos because of the flexi hose bug in Alpha 1 I cannot test what I need/want

Edited May 19, 2015 by bublible

[roland]

You can get the latest clean LDraw library here:

http://www.ldraw.org/downloads-2/downloads.html

Just rename your old ldraw folder (if you want to switch back sometimes) and put the content of the complete.zip at the same place (while all software using ldraw is closed).

I probably do a Alpha 2 this weekend. I've already fixed the known bugs but I want to also finish a minor feature.

[___]

OK, thanx, gonna try it out + some suggestions for A2:

• PLEASE, separate the search from the bricks "menu", cos it is quite messy (Lionel ) as I never noticed it thinking all the time it is just another brick category, you could inspire with LDD in this: one simple input row above inventory stuff and that's it
  
• ...and as we speaking about input fields: PLEASE, for better orientation "what-is-what" in your GUI could you make them in different color so one immediately registers them by sight? Like make them "normal" input text fields = pure white, or something
  

[roland]

PLEASE, separate the search from the bricks "menu", cos it is quite messy (Lionel ) as I never noticed it thinking all the time it is just another brick category, you could inspire with LDD in this: one simple input row above inventory stuff and that's it

That would break the core part bin approach I've chosen for LDCad.

LDD uses a single view upon a single tree displaying everything. Which forces you to scroll all the time. I've chosen to use multiple groups (sub trees) you can use from multiple views. That way you won't have to scroll as much just change the view to go from e.g. plates to bricks. In this approach searching the whole inventory is just another group, only difference it's a dynamic one.

The way I see it parts are parts no matter if you find them through a search or some subset group but you will always get them from a part bin window view displaying some group. This even goes for models them selves as the recursive nature of LDraw makes them essentially large parts you can use like any other part.

..and as we speaking about input fields: PLEASE, for better orientation "what-is-what" in your GUI could you make them in different color so one immediately registers them by sight? Like make them "normal" input text fields = pure white, or something

Do you mean the part bin window filter field? As that's the only non Windows edit box I can think of, I could give it a different background and or bevels but have to think about that as it isn't a normal edit filed it's more a label (progamming wise).

[___]

That would break the core part bin approach I've chosen for LDCad.

LDD uses a single view upon a single tree displaying everything. Which forces you to scroll all the time. I've chosen to use multiple groups (sub trees) you can use from multiple views. That way you won't have to scroll as much just change the view to go from e.g. plates to bricks. In this approach searching the whole inventory is just another group, only difference it's a dynamic one.

The way I see it parts are parts no matter if you find them through a search or some subset group but you will always get them from a part bin window view displaying some group. This even goes for models them selves as the recursive nature of LDraw makes them essentially large parts you can use like any other part.

Do you mean the part bin window filter field? As that's the only non Windows edit box I can think of, I could give it a different background and or bevels but have to think about that as it isn't a normal edit filed it's more a label (progamming wise).

Ah, my english...

Well, this way: no matter what for some reason MLCAD inventory compared to LDD is for me a big mess (no offense intended): for some reason I am completely lost just by scrolling thru it, to me it is not intuitive, when I am in LDD it's like "BUM, got it!", all is quicker to find etc., but of cpurse you are the programmer of the sw and maybe it is just the matter of getting used to it

As for the input field: sorry, I said it wrong as I was misled again you see? when I see search I expect simple input text field where I write the word I am looking for but in your case it is actually a button which opens another window where one puts its word he is looking for...so I would changed it to: PLEASE could you change the color of the search/filter BUTTON to visibly differ from the background color of other windows and stuff in LDcad?

Edited May 19, 2015 by bublible

[Darats]

Looks like there is some misunderstanding.

I provided high quality parts for LGEO library, which is supposed to be used with Ldview and PovRay. I have never changed the Ldraw parts, that's why I don't understand why my parts could interfer with LDcad.

I need clarification.

[legolijntje]

Looks like there is some misunderstanding.

I provided high quality parts for LGEO library, which is supposed to be used with Ldview and PovRay. I have never changed the Ldraw parts, that's why I don't understand why my parts could interfer with LDcad.

I need clarification.

I was wondering exactly the same...

[___]

Looks like there is some misunderstanding.

I provided high quality parts for LGEO library, which is supposed to be used with Ldview and PovRay. I have never changed the Ldraw parts, that's why I don't understand why my parts could interfer with LDcad.

I need clarification.

Might be but do not blame me, I only said that the only difference I have in my LDRAW inventory are your superquality bricks, and as roland was searching for possible reason of the crashing I suggested him to look at your bricks and then he came with his finding you already saw (post #64)...that said I do not know anything more about the problem just want to solve it as it restricts me usind LDcad, that is all, so for any further explanation you should ask directly @roland, I guess