Superkalle

Brickshelf is temporarily down.

I have SSD too, so the speed was good - but it was the graphics that crashed. What card do you use?

Excellent idea (And I really like those nice little flying vehicles. Very adorable, and very well rendered )

Very nice! Thanks for sharing. An extraordinary MOC that I think fits good in the Digital Design forum, if not else as a reference to see if ones computer can handle a really big data load. (I had to lower the graphics settings )

Hi Ham17 Welcome to the Digital Design Section! Please note that all MOCs (also made in digital tools), should be posted in their respective theme forum. The DD forum is mostly for discussion tools, techniques, issue, rendering etc etc. So, I'm moving topic the Town forum.

@ penguinz Good work on those SW models The 75021 and 75020 I analyzed, and they are both illegal designs from the SW department. It's been a lot of those errors lately from there. 75017 (crate in rock) is a bug in LDD. The file path for 75019 - AT-TE is not correct. Can you check that please?

Hi Yeah, I remember. good to hear from you And yes, do please send me the code. I'd love to see it.

Odd, but I haven't tried LDD Manager with 2013 myself. Let's see what legolijntjes finds out Not at the moment. I'll see if I can compile a 64 bit version for the future. Yes, but it will mostly be a maintenance release to update the brick data. I will however try to fix so that color 315 and 316 will be mapped also.

That's how LDD Manager started too You can install a Windows emulator. I'm not an expert, but I don't think it's much work. About the questions: 1) The peeron list is most likely not actively maintained, but I don't know. Most importantly it's the LDD > BL color that is most important, and that is most likely not updated. So mapping TLG colors is not completely relevant, since not all relevant TLG colors are available from the palette in LDD 2) No 3) Maybe 4) No, the MDB-file is compiled and protected and cannot be opened. As for starting an own topic, yes, I think that's a good idea. Just create one and you can use that a "collection" topic for your web tool.

Good point - didn't think about that

What kind of input were you looking for? And what is the website going to be used for? In general though I could mention a few things to consider: Pre-conversion: Users need to be able to check if the bricks are available in that color. Just allowing people to convert a LXF is not much idea if all they get are "red" warnings during BL import, and they don't now which color the brick needs to be changed to import correctly. Then there is the conversion itself. There are many traps. a) One Brick ID in LDD can correspond to several in BL. This is very problematic when also considering colors and I had to device a special lookup function in LDD Manager to deal with this. b) One BL ID can correspond to several bricks in LDD. This is not such a big problem though from a mapping table perspective (but could be worse for the builder who may rely on a features that can be seen in LDD but has gone unnoticed by BL catalog admins). c) Assemblies and Decorations mapping (which you mention). These require separate mapping tables. Then there is off course the main "core", i.e. the work of mapping between LDD and BL. The most problematic here is not the one-time job of doing the complete mapping, but the maintenance. Both to keep track of bricks added when LDD is updated, and changes at BL. This is were most of the time goes for me. I spend probably an hour every week doing this, both manually and through scripts. This is particularly tricky in relation to a) and b) above. And to add to this, there is off course the color mapping, which is a chapter in itself. The mapping at Peeron that most people use as a reference is unfortunately not 100% accurate, so a lot of hours were spent to make an improved mapping for LDD Manager.

But that example requires a lot of scaffolding and fiddling around any way, and then a small rotation is not a the biggest problem, or? But on the other hand, the day we DO get free placing of parts in LDD (through some nice feature), then free rotation will be much more relevant.

OK, now I understand, and it's an interesting idea. I guess the problem will be to decide which axis the brick should rotate around, and how the user should select that axis. That is the benefit with the "simple" system that is today; The axis is a connectivity point and you select it by simply connecting bricks and click on the "arrows". An open question: If there would be a free rotation too, which would be the prefered axis that the brick should rotate around? 1) Brick geometrical center 2) Center of gravity 3) Brick zero point (which in LDD is normally the first stud on the brick, so actually not the geometrical center) 4) a connectivyt point centerline For a normal 1x1 brick, it's easy to percive the geometrical center as the rotation point and it would be an easy case, but for more complex and organic shapes, it can be less intuitive.

I'm not sure I follow guys. How do you mean complicated. I think it's pretty straight forward. You select a brick to rotate and have three choices 1) click on the green arrows in the model (good for simple rotation, or rotation a brick to a "stop" against another brick) 2) click on the rotate wheel (perfect for 45 or 90 degree rotations) 3) you enter a free value.(perfect for fine tuning)

You are singled handely increasing the traffic to the Digital Designer forum by 50%

Interesting read. Thanks for the link

I would recommend you start a topic in General LEGO if you want to talk about these kind of things.

Yes, that one's illegal too. You can read this document if you want to learn more

This is only for bugs. There is anther topic for whishing for new bricks to be added to LDD. This was an interesting case, but I don't know what is causing it. Good find anyway! Good find. Seems to be some kind of miss in the assembly of these parts.

+1 What you wrote Holodic, is exactly what LEGO is all about. If you start going away from that, you can just as well become a traditional model builder using clay, balsa wood or whatever. OK, ranting over. What 3D-printing could be used for: - Testing ideas for new parts (typical TLG use) - Testing market responsivness for new concepts (TLG use) - Placeholders while waiting for real bricks to arrive (fan use) - Minifig accessories (for those into that). - Replacing lost bricks (typically for kids or parents replacing a few bricks.. But thinking about it, I guess they would then need the digital designs....and then it might be simpler to order from LEGO Customer Services or BL....but...maybe Toy-stores in the future can offer quality assured 3D-printed parts over the counter? Hm, tricky one). What 3D-printing is not suitable for - "True" MOC-ing. For the reasons given above. - Replacement for normal bricks. The surface tolerances, colors and shape precision is not even close to molded parts, and probably won't be a for a long, long time. Also, safety aspects (toxic contests in plastic, sharp edges on breakage etc) can never be controlled in the same was as with real LEGO bricks. Just imagine the scenario with a DUPLO-printed part that breaks and parts get's stuck in a childs throat...and the legal consequences after that. Who is responsible, how will it affect the good reputation of LEGO as building toy, what will be the implications?

It works quite fine for me. The rear pieces will move and the body will stay still. Please remember that you need to click on the black pieces many times. Each time you click you will change the rotation point. If you have selected the right rotation point, the rear pieces will move nicely until they collide with another brick (marked in blue in the image), and then LDD will try to rotate around the "obstacle". Personally I think a better behavior would have been if LDD didn't try to be "smart" here and just stopped rotating when pieces collide. PS: Nice little model. I like the insect like look of the...thing

One problem with DUPLO in LDD is that TLG has this really strong policy not to mix System with DUPLO. I think it have something to do with child safety perspective. I'm guessing it is what is keeping the LDD Team from adding DUPLO. That, and that the target group for DUPLO is not the target group for LDD.

OK, now I remember. There was a small bug-fix update to the brickset in LDD between 1007 and 1033. But since there wasn't any new bricks, I didn't release and update to LDD Manager. So there is no problem - you can use the current version of LDD Manager and just disregard the message. However, I will prepare an update anyway, to get the latest data from BrickLink into the system. But it will probably be a couple of weeks.

I have to check this up....hold on....

Well, in this case the solution is simple....update LDD Manager Go to the the Help & About button, and check the link at the bottom there.