SylvainLS

An MPD file actually contains multiple LDR files, each one a group/submodel, in a hierarchical manner. Changing the extension won’t change the file’s structure. If you import an MPD (whatever its extension) in LDD, all the submodels are imported on top of one another, and only once for each. Basically, LDD just imports the parts, not caring about the submodels and the multi-file structure (as far as LDD is concerned, submodels are just big parts it doesn’t know about and all the rest is “comments”). “Flattening” means replacing all the submodels by their parts, at the right places and orientations. You then have a single model, “flat” because there’s no hierarchy anymore above the part level, no groups, no submodels. You could do that in Studio by “releasing” each and every submodel one by one. I thought about writing an ldr2lxf along with lxf2ldr but couldn’t see the real use (compared to the work). Though, if I have a little time, I’ll make a portable Javascript tool to flatten MPD files in the next few days.

Use smarter tools, like lxf2ldr.html

LDD can import LDR files (not MPD). You need to Flatten your MPD file into an LDR file (I don’t know which tool can do that (MPDCenter?), I have a simple Ruby script if necessary), Use an up-to-date ldraw.xml file, like this one.

And also, in Studio, deactivate snapping and collision detection when moving large submodels. Or simply use the connection tool: no movement, so no drag

What JopieK says. Moreover, LDD is a 32 bits application. Those are limited to, at best, 4 GiB RAM usage on a 64 bits OS (and most often to 2 GiB). It won’t magically scale.

That’s what I thought and tried but never managed to do it… And now it works! I’m sure it did it on purpose! (And, of course, the default is the wasd, not asdf. I should have looked at a keyboard )

You can rotate 45° with shift+arrows. You can move along the grid with asdf. Preferences | Shortcuts | BrickControl The problems are: 45° isn’t very fine (but still better than 90°) Only left/right + forward/backward, not up/down. At least, I never find how….

Parts can be moved along a grid (brick, stud, plate, or 1xLDU, depending on the chosen grid and direction). It’s rather easy. You can use keys or the mouse. It’s like with other LDraw editors (the ones that don’t have autoconnect). It’s just that there’s no connection, so you can’t select “connected parts” or, rather, you have to remember to add the custom part(s) to the selection before moving it. It’s also problematic for hinge rotations (the custom part can’t move/rotate with the other parts and blocks/collides with them).

Yes, you can use custom LDraw parts in Studio, they only lack connectivity (you need to move them “manually” but for the rest they behave the same way). Just search the forum for a howto. A dedicated tool to add custom parts should be released any time now (promised for April, there’s a (for now 404) link on the main page of BrickLink). Power Up has just been added to LDraw, it should eventually come to Studio.

Update 2019-04-17 Added: 27328 / 27328.dat Hose Flexible 10M (doesn’t export with LDD, use lxf2ldr) Importable: 55707c.dat =Minifig Bar with Wings md5sum: fc78e4602108d1e012a5590e7083c01e

That’s not hearsay, that’s obvious sarcastic exageration.

Yes. You can only create a part list (and then export it) on your own account. You can also upload the .io directly into a rebrickable part list but it’s up to you to trust the site only read it to get the parts and not to sell your design to Lepin behind your back And I’m not sure Studio actually uploads the whole .io file to BL: when you upload a WL from Studio, it opens a webpage with the XML version of the WL pasted in, and the next step is verifying the list in a proper HTML form with images, when you use the website to upload, the .io file is uploaded and verified with only a simple message, and then you verify the list form, no XML version in between, and there are conversion errors in the web uploading that don’t happen in the direct Studio/XML version, so I think Studio sends the part list in XML form, not the actual .io. Another solution is to unbuild your model before uploading; scatter the parts all around the workspace….

Rebrickable can read CSV files with BL IDs.

First, the LDraw Official Library is far from complete, even including the Unofficial parts. For instance, at my last count, it’s missing 1278 parts that are available in LDD. And that’s not accounting for patterns, just shapes. (Those parts are available at digital-bricks.de but don’t use the primitives.) And we all know that LDD is missing many parts too. Then, there are many parts whose files are in Studio but that are not directly available. It seems parts in Studio not only need to have connectivity info added but they also need to be added to some sort of white list for their appearing in the palettes. IOW, the parts are there but there are not in the palettes. Just put them in a LDraw (or LDD) file and import that file in Studio and you’ll see the part. The part won’t have connectivity info, it still won’t be in the palettes for other models, but it will be there and “usable” (by copy-pasting) in your model. And as neither LDraw files nor LDD files contain the complete 3D models (well you can with LDraw files but that’s not the default behaviour), that means Studio has them. And you can also verify that by simply browsing its files. See, it’s easy to have doubts and beliefs but it’s also quite easy to prove them wrong: just browse Studio’s files.

That it gives you a way to see were your requests are would already be great. (For now, some bugs are acknowledged, some aren’t, and a few are said “fixed” in release notes. No info in between and the acknowledgement is rather boilerplate.) As for the rest, I’m not overly concerned either but there always seems to be a whiff of “hey, Leonardo used one of our brushes to paint Mona Lisa, we want a share of the Louvre’s entry tickets!” that I don’t quite grasp.

http://forum.bricklink.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=146&p=334&hilit=commercial&sid=fc9f4d483eb7932469e1374355786dd6#p334 http://forum.bricklink.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2077&p=5956&hilit=commercial&sid=fc9f4d483eb7932469e1374355786dd6#p5956

15 months. Hope springs eternal….

That’s dedication! Thanks for your work!

You can remove the axle, select by “connected”, make a submodel, put the axle back.

How about you make a submodel of this selection? It should even help with your rotation problem: I guess that the axle you want to rotate it around is its only connection to the rest of the build.

Update 2019-03-30 Added: 90981 / 90981.dat Animal Spider Web with Bar Corrected: 48489 / 48489.dat Visor with Pointy Sides and Eye Slit (new version) Rematched: 3044 / 3044c.dat Slope Brick 45 2 x 1 Double with Bottom Stud Holder (newer, more versatile variant) md5sum: cc7c5e907b784a91d927fe61e2d73464

Yes. “Interesting” isn’t the word I would have used. “A fine mess” is what it is.

I can’t say exactly. I know Wine 4.0 introduced new stuff (Direct3D 12, Vulkan…) and improved D3D 10 & 11, among other things. And all is working okay here. But Windows applications are weird. For instance, the first versions of Studio worked here without the need for -force-d3d9, then it started needing it, without any update to Wine, or to graphics libraries I could trace. I thought it was Studio’s fault so I went back to its previous version (I use git on my .wine directory to avoid clutter and keep stable points), but it didn’t work anymore without -force-d3d9. I also have two computers with the same versions of Wine and the OS: each one has problems / behaviours the other doesn’t have, even when I use the same .wine directory That’s the sort of things that made me quit using Windows more than twenty years ago As for GPU rendering, I didn’t look into it further because I don’t have a recent NVidia card but it should be possible to use one through Wine, you “just” need to use the proprietary NVidia drivers (package nvidia-modprobe).

Well, the posts’ contents ought to be somewhere in a database on the machines. And someone ought to have access to the machines. Therefore extracting the raw data ought to be possible. Not easy to retrace but possible

You need a more recent version of Wine. After 3.16, -force-d3d9 isn’t even needed anymore. Note though that some versions have problems with the installer or with the renderer (EyeSight). But that looks like usual Windows hit and miss: works on a machine but not on another with the same versions. On one machine, I had to install with an older version of Wine before switching to the newer version to get rid of -force-d3d9 and have EyeSight work. Here are instructions to add Wine’s own repository to get a newer version for Ubuntu/Mint. You’ll need wine-devel.