MLCAD to SR 3D Builder

[bats]

Hi. I am finishing up a project in MLCAD and I am trying to import it from SR 3D builder because I heard SR 3D builder works well with aligning Technic pieces which is what I am having a problem with. I have never used SR 3D builder before but I opened it up and imported my MLCAD model to it. When my model got there, everything was in the wrong place. Does this always happen? How can I make it import correctly?

Thanks,
Nathan

[legolijntje]

Some more information would be useful to help you. For example what OS do you use, which version of the software etc. And the most useful would be: share the model.

If you don't want to make it public, you can also PM me if you want. So I can try it out and see what happens at my PC

[xSergio74]

Hi Nathan,

It usually works quite fine. Problems may occur in 2 cases:

- When using Unofficial parts (that may have changed their displacement or orientation along different versions)

- When trying loading complex .mpd files. In this case export to .ldr before importing into SR3DBuilde.

Hope this can help you

Sergio

(Author of SR3DBuilder)

[bats]

My OS is Windows 7. I have MLCAD 3.4 and SR 3D Builder 0.7.3.12. My project does have submodels but it already is a .ldr file. I don't think I am using any unofficial parts either. What seems to happen is when I import the file, it keeps all the submodels together but puts them in the wrong places. So it isn't as much the pieces out of place, it appears to be the submodels.

Here is my project:

RoboArm Shooter.zip

[legolijntje]

Hmm, it doesn't work here either. It looks like it is centering many parts. I have to look better into it. I'm thinking it might be a problem with buffer exchange. I don't know if Sergio has added import support for buffer exchange (I don't mean that it can use buffer exchange, but that it knows it is buffer exchange and so it should skip that, unless Sergio adds supoport for using buffer exchange in SR3D Builder, which would be fantastic).

I'll take a better look at it.

[bats]

I do have a few buffer exchanges in it. I hid the pieces that were floating along with the arrows while I was building so I wouldn't get confused.

[Alasdair Ryan]

I do not think there is any support yet for buffer exchange,the only way forward would be to delete all of the 'buffer exchange commands',build the rest of the model in SR3D then add the buffer commands in at the end using MLcad.

[bats]

Maybe I will need to do that.

[Philo]

Indeed, you have to export the submodels in a folder before opening main model in SR3D. You may do that in MLCad (Multipart -> export models). After that, for some reason, SR3D didn't like the long name "Ball Magazine and Sensors.ldr" and didn't import that submodel. After renaming file and reference to "Magazine.ldr", it imported fine.

Speaking of compatibility issues, SR3D also doesn't like ROTSTEP END statements, it crashes on them.

My workflow is opposite, build the whole model in SR3D, group parts and export groups separately, then import everything in MLCad for LPub building instructions preparation. Note that some forms of group statements used by SR3D does crash MLCad, so I remove them with a text editor before import in MLCad.

Attached your model in SR3D format. Indeed, you have some work to do to align things properly (So much that I think that I would dump the MLCad file altogether and rebuild it with SR3D!!!)

[Calabar]

These are good finds, maybe Sergio will fix the problem in one of the next version.

If he don't appear in ths topic again, I'll report him the discussion.

[bats]

Ok. I'll start working.

Thanks,
Nathan

[Palathadric]

My workflow is opposite, build the whole model in SR3D, then import everything in MLCad for LPub building instructions preparation.

Yeah, I do the same, although I haven't worked with LPub for a while now.

Edited June 23, 2013 by Palathadric

[bats]

My workflow is opposite, build the whole model in SR3D, group parts and export groups separately, then import everything in MLCad for LPub building instructions preparation.

Could you just build the whole model in SR 3D? Does it not work with LPub?

[Alasdair Ryan]

Lpub is not the problem,The problem is that SR3D does not read MLcad's step commands.

For ease is better to split the model down as we go along in sub-models,which later we will add all the files together in MLcad/Lpub.

Edited June 23, 2013 by Alasdair Ryan

[legolijntje]

What I do when creating instructions:

1. Create the model in SR3D Builder with the sub-models I want in the instructions created in a seperate group
   
2. Export all the groups
   
3. Import and place the groups in MLcad
   
4. Add the (if needed) other things like ghost parts in MLcad
   
5. Make the instructions with LPub
   

[bats]

Ok. I'll do that from now on.

Thanks,
Nathan

[xSergio74]

Indeed, you have to export the submodels in a folder before opening main model in SR3D. You may do that in MLCad (Multipart -> export models). After that, for some reason, SR3D didn't like the long name "Ball Magazine and Sensors.ldr" and didn't import that submodel. After renaming file and reference to "Magazine.ldr", it imported fine.

Speaking of compatibility issues, SR3D also doesn't like ROTSTEP END statements, it crashes on them.

My workflow is opposite, build the whole model in SR3D, group parts and export groups separately, then import everything in MLCad for LPub building instructions preparation. Note that some forms of group statements used by SR3D does crash MLCad, so I remove them with a text editor before import in MLCad.

Attached your model in SR3D format. Indeed, you have some work to do to align things properly (So much that I think that I would dump the MLCad file altogether and rebuild it with SR3D!!!)

These are good finds, maybe Sergio will fix the problem in one of the next version.

If he don't appear in ths topic again, I'll report him the discussion.

Hi,

please be a bit more detailed on what should good to be fixed.

Please note that I'm not going to change the grouping syntax used in SR3DB at least for now...

Thanks

Sergio

[Philo]

Hi Sergio,

Things that would improve compatibility between SR3D and MLCad:

- MLCad crashes when it encounters "group 0" statement that you use to indicate a part that belongs to main model. All other group statements are "digested" by MLCad (even if grouping is lost), only "0 GROUP 0" prevent opening of some L3B files. Now it's clear that this is a MLCad bug, but chance it is solved one day is much better on SR3D side ;)

- SR3D crashes when it encounters a 0 ROTSTEP END statement. Other forms of ROTSTEP statements seem to import fine.

- Some mpd doesn't import correctly in SR3D. One failure case is when a submodel contains a MLCad arrow (the submodel is not displayed at all). Attached an example.

testmpd.zip

Edited June 24, 2013 by Philo

[xSergio74]

Hi Sergio,

Things that would improve compatibility between SR3D and MLCad:

- MLCad crashes when it encounters "group 0" statement that you use to indicate a part that belongs to main model. All other group statements are "digested" by MLCad (even if grouping is lost), only "0 GROUP 0" prevent opening of some L3B files. Now it's clear that this is a MLCad bug, but chance it is solved one day is much better on SR3D side ;)

- SR3D crashes when it encounters a 0 ROTSTEP END statement. Other forms of ROTSTEP statements seem to import fine.

- Some mpd doesn't import correctly in SR3D. One failure case is when a submodel contains a MLCad arrow (the submodel is not displayed at all). Attached an example.

Hi Philo,

I fixed the 0 ROTSTEP END and the MPD submodel problems.

For the 0 GROUP 0 sintax, as told, I'm not going to change it since I will have backward compatibility with already created model. A change for that require a bit of time for testing and I hope to publish next version in this week so nothing to do for now.

byes

Sergio

[Palathadric]

Awesome, can't wait for the new release.