Here we are! After some more tweaking on the program, i feel it's stable enough to be usable. So i hereby present:
Blueprint
A building instruction generator for Lego Digital Designer.
How it works:
You import an LXF in the program. The program will generate a default serie of building steps (taking into account LDD group definitions). You then refine building steps by moving parts around, creating steps, submodels and callouts and organizing stuff as you prefer. When you're done, you can move to the "Page layout" and generate the illustrations, that you can adjust as you prefer.
Note that this is still beta software, it may crash or explode without warning taking everything you hold dear with it. Many of the features are there but are awkward to use (see model rotation), waiting for a better user interface. Many of the comforts of mature software are completely missing.
Features:
Handle callouts and unlimited submodels
Per-model and per-step orientation
Easy drag-and-drop steps definition interface
placed part highlighting
Treat LDD groups and subgroups as submodels
Unlimited Undo/Redo
Flexible part support
Stickers support
Multiple export format
etc
Limitations:
no stickers
flexible part are rendered unflexed
multipart pieces may or may not work
no "undo"
may rough edges on the interface
no alert on exit
many more...
Documentation:
A tutorial is available here.
A wiki is available with plenty of documentation.
Issue Tracker:
Have any bug or feature request? Be a good fellow and report it in our shiny issue tracker.
Requirements:
Java8 (revision 8u40 or better)
Opengl capabilities, version 3.2 or better (if you have a semi-recent graphic card, you should be ok)
Lego Digital Designer
Disclaimer:
Use at your own risk, i decline any responsability for anything that may happen to you using the program.
Donation:
Should you like the program and you feel like, you can donate any amount of money here: https://www.paypal.me/msx80 thanks in advance!
Download:
You can download Blueprint version 0026 for Windows here.
Mac version courtesy of @Malou here
Screenshot:
Example Output:
Changelog:
0026:
part lengths for technic parts (customizable)
working arrows and custom texts support
align right/bottom
0025:
You can now set custom colors on pages. There's no UI, you have to change the config file at C:\Users\[you]\AppData\Roaming\blueprint.ini and set properties like this: page.color.0=#d5ecf9 The color is in RGB and the index is the submodel depth (0 main model, 1 first level submodel etc)
There's a new function Merge design: you can now open a model and then merge a second model in it. It's useful if you have some illegal connection: you can split your model into two legal models and then handle it in Blueprint (which of course doesn't have collision detection and such).
0024:
Added an "Add Page" command on the layout.
Solved the CTRL-S bug that unintendedly rotated the step.
0023:
it's now impossible to delete last step of a submodel (should make it impossible to incour into the "ghost submodel" problem, even if not the most user friendly solution)
steps can now be selected by clicking on an image (CTRL+click to select multiple, no shift click sorry), this is necessary for...
selected model can be rotated by keyboard with WASD keys, all selected model will be rotated together.
new steps inherit the rotation of the "sibiling" step
(uh i lot track a little here)
0019:
Compatibility with latest LDD update
0018:
Delete page on canvas
Lighting and shading option in renderer
Bugfix in page setup when loading a model
Image export now reset the counter and pad the numbers
Resizable text element (step num and part counters)
Very very crude first implementation of BOM pages
0017:
Uhm i've forgot to update the page, i'm sure there were many great stuff
https://bitbucket.or...milestone=P0017
0016:
Removed some bug on outlining for multisurface parts
Copy/paste submodel command to move submodels around
Unwrap submodel command to move all steps in a submodel to the parent
Pink highlight now optional
Avoid generating page on lxf import (just a waste of time)
Pdf/cbr/zip export
Drag-select for page layout
Page layout is now flat, not hierarchical
Much improved memory usage (just a single page is now kept in memory)
Textured parts support
Update modified LXF without making a new blueprint file
0015:
unlimited undo/redo. This may still have a couple of little bugs but usually works perfectly. Feels much more like a professional program now!
better memory management. Turns out i was.. ehm.. wasting quite a lot of memory by keeping all the geometries in memory in different formats.. uh.. multiple times.. but hey enough details, the program should be faster and use much less memory now. There is probably more margin to save but that's enought for now.
flexible part support! Chain, tubes, hoses etc should render correctly in most cases now.
Page setup is now available in program (before it was only limitedly available from the settings file). You can specify page size and separate zoom value for assemblies and part lists.
better import of LXF files: no more empty submodels and now it supports subgroups
small bug fixing