Hi everyone,
I'd like to present BrickStep - a new tool I've developed, which helps in creating building instructions for MOCs. I've spent the last 4 years of my spare time on it, and now I feel it's stable enough for a first beta release.
BrickStep is not a visual editor. You need a dedicated program to build your model, such as Studio or any other LDraw-compatible editor. After you've completed your model, you can upload it to BrickStep which will automatically split your model into subassemblies, generate building steps, and arrange steps on pages. You can then download the instructions file and use Studio or LPub3D to make adjustments and export to PDF.
If that sounds interesting, you can try it out here: https://brickstep.net/
Or you can take a look at some sample instructions generated by BrickStep and rendered in LPub3D:
Garbage Truck (20011)
Deep Sea Creatures: Whale (31088)
Cherry Picker (42088)
The website is quite easy to use (I hope). Simply upload a file and wait a few minutes for the result. You can also adjust some configuration parameters. For example, if you don't like automatically generated subassemblies, you can define them manually and let BrickStep generate steps and pages. Refer to the help page for more details. Keep in mind that it's a beta release so some features are not yet complete. For example, flexible parts are not fully supported. Also, the server that hosts the website has limited resources, so it can't process larger models yet (it may have trouble with models with more than 600 parts). I'm working on addressing these limitations.
I'd really appreciate constructive feedback and information whether you found BrickStep useful. Please don't hesitate to email me at contact@brickstep.net.
Although BrickStep only supports Lego bricks now, the underlying algorithms are quite generic. So, with some adjustments, it could generate instructions for alternative brick brands, or even for something entirely different than building blocks. In case you or your company would be interested in something like this, please get in touch.
Thanks for reading,
Mikolaj
