ebox44

I don't believe that's true for everyone, certainly not me. I don't have a lot of money but I've spent more than $200 on bricks. I'd be willing to spend that much on really good software that would let me design a hundred huge crazy models that I could never afford to buy the bricks to build. The free software that's available is good but I'd be willing to buy something better. I don't know how many other people feel the way I do, but we know there are lot of LEGO fans out there.

It has been correctly pointed out that the LDD download page says The LEGO Group is no longer supporting LDD version 4.3.10, and version 4.3.11 is available, so I might be wrong about them dumping it altogether. However, I can't find any way to navigate from the lego.com homepage to the LDD download page, even with their search engine. I can only find it through Google, which kind of makes me feel like they're shelving it. Even if they do make a new version of LDD, I'd still be interested in purchasing a Pro version. By 'Pro', I don't literally mean people would use it to make money. I mean something more advanced, primarily for hobbyists that would have the best features of MLCad and LDD combined. Maybe calling it 'LDD Pro' was a bad marketing strategy on my part. How about 'LDD Advanced' or something else. What do you all think? From this forum, I just heard about Stud.io, I've downloaded it and it looks very good, but I haven't had a chance to learn it. If it isn't the best one yet, it certainly has the potential to be. But I'm also not against having even more choices for LEGO design software. Competition benefits all of us. And competition isn't just about money. There's pride in knowing you produce the best product. LEGO bricks are the product of The LEGO Group, they should have the best software, and they could, provided it was at least profitable. This is the question. I'm not sure anyone on this forum really knows how many people would be willing to pay for advanced LEGO design software, or how much they'd be willing to pay. That's what I'm trying to find out. I read that employees at LEGO use Siemens NX (Solid Works+Pro Engineer) for design. This would be overkill for most hobbyists. But who knows, maybe The LEGO Group could develop a platform that would work for some of their employees as well as for hobbyists. I don't know what's going to happen, but I don't see any harm in imagining the possibilities. Isn't that what LEGO is all about?

WE NEED LEGO Digital Designer Pro!!! The LEGO Group is no longer developing or even supporting LDD. I assume this is because it wasn't financially sustainable. In a few years the LDD version that is still available now may become increasingly difficult to find, and worse, may be obsolete with newer operating systems. I also realize that a majority of designers might prefer MLCad with the LDraw Library because it is superior to LDD in many ways. But not in every way! I mean no disrespect to MLCad, Ldraw, thier creators or users. These are AFOLs who wanted to give us something great, and they did! That said, I think LLD bricks and models look better, and more realistic. Since they were created by The Lego Group, they are arguably more accurate ( I did say arguably). Unless someone can correct me, in MLCad, you cannot manipulate bricks in the 3D view pane. This is very frustrating for me because I like to work quickly while I'm inspired. LDD feels a lot more like you are handling real bricks. I can't pretend to know anything about the financial concerns of The LEGO Group, but it at least seems plausible that a professional version of LDD which sells for maybe $200 could pay for its own development. Digital products are certainly inexpensive to distribute and virtually free to 'manufacture'. These days, AFOLs, children and educators have proven to be willing to spend hundreds of dollars on LEGO sets, so why wouldn't they be willing to spend that much for software? The cost would be justified by improving some of the features of LDD that are weak and adding new features, some of which could be inspired by MLCad. Then we could have the best of both worlds! If anyone reading this agrees with me, please respond and maybe we can start a campaign to convince The LEGO Group that this idea is worth pursuing, They have already put a lot of resources into developing LDD and even with its shortcomings, I still love it! It would be a shame to let this code go to waste instead of continuing to develop it! I hope you're with me. WE NEED LDD Pro!!