[Software] Blueprint, a building instruction generator for LDD

[msx80]

On 15/10/2017 at 3:49 AM, dip88 said:

Hi, when I click import lxf the program starts loading the pieces, but when it finishes nothing appears. does anyone tell me how to make it work? thank you

perhaps it's an outdated format, try to open the file in LDD and save it anew

[Darth Hammy]

I can't use it. Says java is not a recognized command

 

[supertruper1988]

4 hours ago, Darth Hammy said:

I can't use it. Says java is not a recognized command

 

You will need to make sure you have the latest version of java installed on your system...

[Darth Hammy]

12 hours ago, supertruper1988 said:

You will need to make sure you have the latest version of java installed on your system...

OK thx

 

[Darth Hammy]

I tried a 5619 part file and it ended up repeating this "Exception in thread "JavaFX Application Thread" " What happened?

 

[supertruper1988]

5 hours ago, Darth Hammy said:

I tried a 5619 part file and it ended up repeating this "Exception in thread "JavaFX Application Thread" " What happened?

 

I am not sure what you mean by "part" file. This software only works for things created in LDD so the individual part files like from LDraw do not work here. 

[Darth Hammy]

11 hours ago, supertruper1988 said:

I am not sure what you mean by "part" file. This software only works for things created in LDD so the individual part files like from LDraw do not work here. 

5619 lego bricks

[kokkie20]

How much memory you have in your pc?
Can be a memory issue.... not sure tough

[Darth Hammy]

4 hours ago, kokkie20 said:

How much memory you have in your pc?
Can be a memory issue.... not sure tough

65.7 gb

[kokkie20]

You sure that is not your hard drive size?

Or do you realy have 64GB of ram ? 

[Darth Hammy]

OH 4 gb ram

 

[supertruper1988]

3 hours ago, Darth Hammy said:

OH 4 gb ram

 

If you want to PM me a link to the file I would be happy to open it on my system and save the blueprint file. I have 32GB RAM and I have opened many large files. 

[Darth Hammy]

19 hours ago, supertruper1988 said:

If you want to PM me a link to the file I would be happy to open it on my system and save the blueprint file. I have 32GB RAM and I have opened many large files. 

Ok

 

[supertruper1988]

Hey @msx80 Would it be possible to have a way to adjust the colors or add a back ground image in the page setup dialogue box? and is there a way to save those settings so that I am not always having to reset them?

[kokkie20]

Settings saving he would look into, 

Image you can do here:

%appdata% (or C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming ) 

then blueprint.ini open with notepad. 

Add this line:

page.background=C:\Users\Johnny\Desktop\Lego\Background.png  (change to your own path of the image) 

Not sure but if i remember correctly you can also put hex color there (like #FFFFFF) 

[supertruper1988]

Yeah but that doesnt work on mac :(

[kokkie20]

im not sure about mac, sorry :/ 

Have you found the ini file tough? If so you can drop the image file in a terminal to get its full path or else wait for other mac user/msx to reply

Edited October 31, 2017 by kokkie20

[Carl86]

Hey @msx80,

Quick question. I want to merge the exported pdf from blueprint with another pdf file (not from blueprint).
The tool I use (and I treid a couple already) wouldn't let me do this. (unfortunately it doesn't give me a reason why)

So I'm in investigation.
Do you know in which version the pdf is exported, e.g version 1.5? and are there any layers active on the exported pdf?
Are there also other pdf specifications that you know of that Blueprint uses?

Looking forward to you reply.

Cheers, Carl

 

[iceleftd]

After a lot of small-scale projects, I'm finally making my first serious set of instructions (sending it to a professional printer) and have uncovered a few things that would help.  Most of these issues can be overcome with some manual post-processing but that's not the best way to handle it.

• Page Margins - Most printers cannot print all the way to the edge of the paper. Rearranging every page by hand to create margins is tedious and results in irregularities.  Page Setup should include page margins.
• Box Padding - The boxes around parts and around callouts have no padding.  You can't create padding by hand because the box moves with its contents.  Page Setup should include box padding.
• BOM Box - The elements of the BOM are bounded by a box, sort of.  Only the top, left, and bottom seem to move.  I'm not sure of it's visual purpose and I can't get rid of it without dragging a part into each corner.  Maybe that could be fixed?
• Callout background color control - The current background color scheme is awkward and, unfortunately, is not tied to the document.  Worse, you can change the background of submodels, but not the callouts.  I ended up editing the .blueprint file by hand to fix it.
• Cover page - Blueprint allows me to add a cover page to the document but doesn't allow me to place an image or text on that page.  I can't even use a background image to do it because Blueprint only supports one for the whole document.

On a separate note, How do you determine the orientation of parts in the parts lists and BOM?  I ran into a problem with element 2444 - when it appears in the parts list for a step, or in the BOM, it looks like a 2x2 plate.  If it's orientation was changed it would be more obvious that it has one pin hole underneath.  It appears that there is no transform for that in the file but perhaps you have a default orientation for that element that you can correct.

Lest I be labeled a complainer, I think this is a great tool and am quite grateful for it!

[newfie675]

On 11/5/2017 at 8:18 AM, Carl86 said:

Hey @msx80,

Quick question. I want to merge the exported pdf from blueprint with another pdf file (not from blueprint).
The tool I use (and I treid a couple already) wouldn't let me do this. (unfortunately it doesn't give me a reason why)

So I'm in investigation.
Do you know in which version the pdf is exported, e.g version 1.5? and are there any layers active on the exported pdf?
Are there also other pdf specifications that you know of that Blueprint uses?

Looking forward to you reply.

Cheers, Carl

 

I just tried to combine a PDF generated by blueprint and several other PDF's generated by various methods and did not have any problems. Can you send me your file and I will try to merge it using Acrobat Pro?

Newfie675

[fastlindyrick]

On 11/6/2017 at 9:58 PM, iceleftd said:

I'm finally making my first serious set of instructions (sending it to a professional printer)

Cool!  Would you be willing to share how that goes?  I've thought about having my instructions printed, but places like FedEx office cost close to $1/page and the quality isn't great.  Have you found a way to make glossy prints like official lego instructions?

[Carl86]

On 7-11-2017 at 7:31 PM, newfie675 said:

I just tried to combine a PDF generated by blueprint and several other PDF's generated by various methods and did not have any problems. Can you send me your file and I will try to merge it using Acrobat Pro?

Newfie675

I actually meant when I want to apply watermarks automatically it doesn't let me do that. My tool says it requires pdf version 1.5. Are there different ways to export a pdf in blueprint?

Hopefully @msx80 finds time to answer. I would really appreciate it:)

[vermontcathy]

I am having a heck of a time getting this to run. I have installed the latest version of Java and then rebooted (just in case that is necessary after installing Java). On my desktop computer, when I double click the bat file, I get:

Quote

Operating system detected: Windows
Starting Blueprint v0026.. Good luck!
Current folder: C:\Users\clryan\UVM Larner College of Medicine\OneDrive - UVM Larner College of Medicine\lego\Blueprint0026\Blueprint0026
Initializing database..
Database is located in: C:\Users\clryan\AppData\Roaming\Blueprint\database\brickcache.db
Cache is up to date (1x2248.1)
Exception in Application start method
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
        at com.sun.javafx.application.LauncherImpl.launchApplicationWithArgs(LauncherImpl.java:389)
        at com.sun.javafx.application.LauncherImpl.launchApplication(LauncherImpl.java:328)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
        at sun.launcher.LauncherHelper$FXHelper.main(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Exception in Application start method
        at com.sun.javafx.application.LauncherImpl.launchApplication1(LauncherImpl.java:917)
        at com.sun.javafx.application.LauncherImpl.lambda$launchApplication$154(LauncherImpl.java:182)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no lwjgl in java.library.path
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(Unknown Source)
        at org.lwjgl.system.Library.loadSystem(Unknown Source)
        at org.lwjgl.system.Library.<clinit>(Unknown Source)
        at org.lwjgl.system.MemoryAccess.<clinit>(Unknown Source)
        at org.lwjgl.system.Pointer.<clinit>(Unknown Source)
        at org.lwjgl.system.Platform.mapLibraryNameBundled(Unknown Source)
        at org.lwjgl.glfw.GLFW.<clinit>(Unknown Source)
        at blueprint.opengl.a.<init>(Unknown Source)
        at blueprint.opengl.d.<init>(Unknown Source)
        at blueprint.opengl.b.<init>(Unknown Source)
        at blueprint.b.b.a.a(Unknown Source)
        at blueprint.Blueprint.b(Unknown Source)
        at blueprint.Blueprint.initApp(Unknown Source)
        at a.a.start(Unknown Source)
        at com.sun.javafx.application.LauncherImpl.lambda$launchApplication1$161(LauncherImpl.java:863)
        at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl.lambda$runAndWait$174(PlatformImpl.java:326)
        at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl.lambda$null$172(PlatformImpl.java:295)
        at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
        at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl.lambda$runLater$173(PlatformImpl.java:294)
        at com.sun.glass.ui.InvokeLaterDispatcher$Future.run(InvokeLaterDispatcher.java:95)
        at com.sun.glass.ui.win.WinApplication._runLoop(Native Method)
        at com.sun.glass.ui.win.WinApplication.lambda$null$147(WinApplication.java:177)
        ... 1 more
Exception running application blueprint.Blueprint
Press any key to continue . . .

When I right click the bat file and run as administrator, I get:

Quote

Error: Could not find or load main class blueprint.Blueprint
Press any key to continue . . .

I tried it also on my Microsoft Surface computer. I did install the latest Java and that seemed to go fine. But when I run the bat file (with or without saying run as administrator), I get:

Quote

'java' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

But Java is installed - In the start menu, I see "about Java" and "Configure Java" etc.

UPDATE - on the Surface laptop, I updated the Path Environmental Variable so that it could find Java. But then I get the same error as I got on the desktop (big error list above)

Edited November 10, 2017 by vermontcathy
update..

[vermontcathy]

I'm going to try a different computer this evening, to try and get this software working, but if anyone wants to help me... I just want a reasonable set of instructions for the LXF file here: https://bricksafe.com/pages/CathyVT/cathysfishinglodge LDD gives a terrible sequence of steps - boxing in the space where a window will go, before the window is put in (so you'd have to remove the bricks over top of the window to put the window in), building just a tiny bit of the 2nd floor wall and then building the roof, attached to just a couple studs of the wall, then later building the rest of the wall (which would require removing or at least partially lifting up the roof to get the last wall bricks in), etc.

I'm not picky, just steps that are physically possible to do in that order. Can anyone help?

[SylvainLS]

If it’s for a one-time build: in LDD, hide the parts that are easily accessible, as if you were carefuly breaking / de-building the model. Then use Ctrl-Z to rebuild the model step by step.