[Software] LDCad - LDraw cad

[Jeroen Ottens]

Hi,

I'm digitizing my next model and I hit two obstacles:

1) Somehow I messed up my part bin & color bin windows. I think I clicked & dragged the colorbin, panicked, deleted the whole bin and the part bin windows. Then I made them reappear again with View -> New part bin window & View -> new color bin window. So far so good. However the stepcounter and the editing compass do not take into account these windows anymore and have moved themselves all the way to the right of the editing plane, behind these two windows...

Any idea how I can get the default setup back (ie next to the windows instead of behind them?)

2) I'm trying to model PF leds. But the only part I can find is the LED itself. Is there a template for the PF lights? And if not, what is the easiest way to model them?

[legolijntje]

Regarding question 1: I think you have floating windows now. Select the top bar of the part or color window, hold CTRL and drag it to the side. Repeat the process with the other one. and drag it to where you want it. Then resize however you like it. After that, you can go to Prefs > GUI > Lock docked windows to lock them so you don't accidentally remove or replace them.

I'm not sure about question 2 though. Never really thought about that one (now I think of it, I actually never had to use PF lights in an LDraw model)

[Jeroen Ottens]

Thanks for the quick reply

If I drag-CTRL either part of color window it will become as high as the editing window... I can now only place them side by side instead of above each other... Any suggestions?

[legolijntje]

Thanks for the quick reply

If I drag-CTRL either part of color window it will become as high as the editing window... I can now only place them side by side instead of above each other... Any suggestions?

You can place the windows anywhere you want. If you want the original GUI, drag (with CTRL) the color window to the side (yes, it becomes very high now). Then drag the part window the same side, but in the lower (left) corner, it should pop under the color window. Then just resize the two windows using the gray bar between them, like normal

[Jeroen Ottens]

Ahh, that does the trick. Super. Thx

[roland]

Hi,

I'm digitizing my next model and I hit two obstacles:

1) Somehow I messed up my part bin & color bin windows. I think I clicked & dragged the colorbin, panicked, deleted the whole bin and the part bin windows. Then I made them reappear again with View -> New part bin window & View -> new color bin window. So far so good. However the stepcounter and the editing compass do not take into account these windows anymore and have moved themselves all the way to the right of the editing plane, behind these two windows...

Any idea how I can get the default setup back (ie next to the windows instead of behind them?)

2) I'm trying to model PF leds. But the only part I can find is the LED itself. Is there a template for the PF lights? And if not, what is the easiest way to model them?

1: Like legolijntje wrote you can place one window inside another to split it. To mimic the original layout place the color bin at the top of a docked part bin this forces the part bin to use the 'left over' space when the whole window resizes.

2: Currently there is no template for this because ti would need a wire split feature in the path generator. The alternative is to make two templates, one for the connection brick upto the split and one for the single light and its wire. To make those would need an (official) subpart for the split section. This is currently not available though.

[Philo]

Ahem.... 62501c01.dat is in official library!

[roland]

Ahem.... 62501c01.dat is in official library!

Somehow I was thinking about a normal wire split not an actual brick :) I'll add templates for them in 1.6

[Alasdair Ryan]

For Version 1.6 or 1.7 is there any chance of a complete new UI which is comparable with one of the professional modelling tools?

Truth is any time I want to quickly make something I would much rather use LDD or MLcad,Your program had the "features" minus selection,but rather falls down on the whole user experience.

[roland]

For Version 1.6 or 1.7 is there any chance of a complete new UI which is comparable with one of the professional modelling tools?

Truth is any time I want to quickly make something I would much rather use LDD or MLcad,Your program had the "features" minus selection,but rather falls down on the whole user experience.

Maybe for 2.0, I really don't understand the big issue though given MLCad and LDD both basically use the same layout (bins left, buttons top, editing leftover). Is it the menus?

[Alasdair Ryan]

Its a combination of the camera being "hard" to use ,part orantation and the menus.

I want to shot a quick video of me using inventor "assembling something" that might explain better where I am coming from.

[legolijntje]

Its a combination of the camera being "hard" to use ,part orantation and the menus.

I want to shot a quick video of me using inventor "assembling something" that might explain better where I am coming from.

If you like to use LDD and find LDCad's camera hard to use, try to switch from TBL (trackbal) camera mode to SPN (spin) camera mode in the menu in the bottom right corner (with the 3 colored arrows). SPN mode is like LDD and I personally like it a bazillion times more than TBL mode.

Also, regarding the UI. Yes, it's not world's prettiest UI (I personally can see LDCad looking very nice in a MS Office kind of GUI with a 'ribbon interface), but it doesn't really impact usability and easyness right?

[Alasdair Ryan]

I know about the camera modes,the ribbon style is what the Autodesk programs use.I think there needs to be a "view cube" instead of that "grid view" presently.

I am speaking of a ribbon layout because of all the features you could easily have ie: colours,grid setting,camera settings,sub models,instructions,animation,bendable parts etc....

I made a

of me in inventor,I don't know if you will get any ideas but perhaps a "quick align feature" similar to the "constraints" might be a good feature.

[djm]

<snip>

... perhaps a "quick align feature" similar to the "constraints" might be a good feature.

By this do you mean have a part being able to "snap" into the right place on another part? If so, part snapping was introduced in a recent version but it is disabled by default (see http://www.melkert.n...DCad/faq#faq_ps). If I have misunderstood what you meant by the quick align feature, please ignore this post.

Regards,

David

[Philo]

Someday I'll understand why people make such a difference between these two modes... I have the feeling they work exactly the same except that spin mode has an annoying angle limitation that prevents to work conveniently below the model!

[SylvainLS]

Someday I'll understand why people make such a difference between these two modes... I have the feeling they work exactly the same except that spin mode has an annoying angle limitation that prevents to work conveniently below the model!

In trackball mode, if you move your mouse left, then right by (about) the same amount, you don’t end up at all as you started (before any move).

In spin mode, you can more easily undo or adjust your move.

I don’t know if there’re other factors at play but I just watched Ryan’s video and it’s painful to see him move around.

[Alasdair Ryan]

In trackball mode, if you move your mouse left, then right by (about) the same amount, you don’t end up at all as you started (before any move).

In spin mode, you can more easily undo or adjust your move.

I don’t know if there’re other factors at play but I just watched Ryan’s video and it’s painful to see him move around.

I was not the best video ever,I much prefer that style of camera.What makes it faster is having a view cube like in inventor which you can use to resit the views.

If this style camera setup was really that good it would be found in other 3d modelling environments, I have also used blender and 3DSmax.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Alasdair Ryan

[roland]

Someday I'll understand why people make such a difference between these two modes... I have the feeling they work exactly the same except that spin mode has an annoying angle limitation that prevents to work conveniently below the model!

Sping control uses x/y angles to setup the rotation matrix while trackball mode uses a quaternion vector.

I made a

of me in inventor,I don't know if you will get any ideas but perhaps a "quick align feature" similar to the "constraints" might be a good feature.

Sorry but I'm not sure what you are trying to show there. Because that's a professional engineering program which is a bit of an overkill for modelling LEGO models, Its also way more complex. it's more suited for modelling the pieces them selves something for which LDCad was never designed.

[SylvainLS]

Sping control uses x/y angles to setup the rotation matrix while trackball mode uses a quaternion vector.

Just by curiosity:

For spin, which x/y angles? Yaw and pitch around the scene’s Y and X axes? Or around the projection plane’s Y and X axes?

For trackball, which vector?

Or do you mean that in spin, each (sub)move of the pointer is either yaw if the submove is mostly horizontal or pitch if it’s mostly vertical, and in trackball, it’s a combination of the yaw and pitch rotations (vector = product(quarternion for yaw, quarternion for pitch))?

[roland]

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Just by curiosity:

For spin, which x/y angles? Yaw and pitch around the scene’s Y and X axes? Or around the projection plane’s Y and X axes?

For trackball, which vector?

Or do you mean that in spin, each (sub)move of the pointer is either yaw if the submove is mostly horizontal or pitch if it’s mostly vertical, and in trackball, it’s a combination of the yaw and pitch rotations (vector = product(quarternion for yaw, quarternion for pitch))?

With the spin control I tried to mimic the LDD rotational behavior. X and Y angles are based on the x/y mouse cursor differences, then used as degrees to do: (rotate x degrees around y axis) * (rotate y degrees around the x axis)

The trackball one uses incremental rotations by projecting the mouse current and previous location on a virtual sphere resulting in a quaternion which is then added to the current global quaternion which is converted to a normal rotation matrix whenever needed.

Edited August 9, 2016 by roland

[roland]

I made a short clip which might make things a bit more clear

[SylvainLS]

With the spin control I tried to mimic the LDD rotational behavior. X and Y angles are based on the x/y mouse cursor differences, then used as degrees to do: (rotate x degrees around y axis) * (rotate y degrees around the x axis)

Okay, so equivalent to using X and Y of the projection plane (aka the screen).

The trackball one uses incremental rotations by projecting the mouse current and previous location on a virtual sphere resulting in a quaternion which is then added to the current global quaternion which is converted to a normal rotation matrix whenever needed.

Okay.

I made a short clip which might make things a bit more clear

Thanks. Your moves in trackball mode look way more controlled than mine. I don’t know if it’s because I mostly use a touchpad but trackball is always a pain to me.

(Even more in LDView, where the model starts to spin by itself at a whim.)

[Alasdair Ryan]

Thanks. Your moves in trackball mode look way more controlled than mine. I don’t know if it’s because I mostly use a touchpad but trackball is always a pain to me.

(Even more in LDView, where the model starts to spin by itself at a whim.)

Clicking stops it.

[SylvainLS]

Clicking stops it.

Yes, but then, it has turned in a bad viewing angle that’s difficult (at least to me) to get out of.

I end up entering the angles in the “specify latitude/longitude” dialog.

Besides, I mostly use LDView to export to POVRay.

And that was just an extreme example of bad usability (or bad user ). LDCad’s trackball mode in not that bad.

[Philo]

OK, now I know the theoretical difference, and I even finally managed to SEE some usage difference. But I really don't FEEL it, both modes work just the same for me (except for the angle limitation in spin mode that I don't like - probably because I mostly create Technic models where you often must work from below). Must be some neural cabling of hand/eye coordination, trained by countless hours of LDView usage

Edited August 10, 2016 by Philo