| |
I thought I would save my first post to Lugnet for something good.
It is time to announce the completion of Bricksmith 1.0, my new LDraw editor for Mac OS X. Bricksmith provides a number
of features which have hitherto been lacking on the Macintosh, including:
- A fast, comprehensive part browser
- One-click access to the full Lego color palette
- Fully-functional MPD capabilities
- Steps, step display, and step exporting
- Undo, Copy, and Paste
- Drag-and-drop reorganization of model contents
- Primitives
This project has taken me about six months to complete, so I hope that you find
it to truly be LDraw for the Rest of Us. That’s not to say it’s perfect. My goal
in creating this program was to create a superb tool for instruction-creation,
and a usable 3D model viewer. In fact, I finished over three-quarters of the
source code before I actually drew a single pixel of LDraw. Consequently,
Bricksmith’s instruction-making tools are superb, but the model viewer is not
yet as pretty as Mac Brick CAD’s.
Bricksmith requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later,
and may be download it at http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net/.
So have fun,
all you Mac-loving Legophiles!
Sincerely,
Allen Smith
Camas, Washington
|
|
| |
In lugnet.announce, Allen Smith wrote:
| |
I hope that you find it to truly be LDraw for
the Rest of Us.
|
Dang. Thank you... now I really *will* have to update my OS to Panther (I’m
at 10.2 right now). Looking forward to it when I’ve got an updated system (or if
you can back it down to 10.2).
--
Brian Davis
|
|
| |
In lugnet.announce, Allen Smith wrote:
| |
I thought I would save my first post to Lugnet for something good.
It is time to announce the completion of Bricksmith 1.0, my new LDraw editor for Mac OS X. Bricksmith provides a
number of features which have hitherto been lacking on the Macintosh,
including:
- A fast, comprehensive part browser
- One-click access to the full Lego color palette
- Fully-functional MPD capabilities
- Steps, step display, and step exporting
- Undo, Copy, and Paste
- Drag-and-drop reorganization of model contents
- Primitives
This project has taken me about six months to complete, so I hope that you
find it to truly be LDraw for the Rest of Us. That’s not to say it’s perfect.
My goal in creating this program was to create a superb tool for
instruction-creation, and a usable 3D model viewer. In fact, I finished over
three-quarters of the source code before I actually drew a single pixel of
LDraw. Consequently, Bricksmith’s instruction-making tools are superb, but
the model viewer is not yet as pretty as Mac Brick CAD’s.
Bricksmith
requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and may be download it at
http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net/.
So have fun, all you Mac-loving
Legophiles!
Sincerely,
Allen Smith
Camas, Washington
|
NICE! I loaded it last night and the program is really well-done...I do need to
figure out how to build on it though:-)!
Joe
|
|
| |
I’m not a Mac user, but I can recognize good news when I see it!
Congratulations on getting your product to market!
James Wilson
Dallas, TX
|
|
| |
In lugnet.announce, Allen Smith wrote:
| |
I thought I would save my first post to Lugnet for something good.
It is time to announce the completion of Bricksmith 1.0, my new LDraw editor for Mac OS X. Bricksmith provides a
number of features which have hitherto been lacking on the Macintosh,
including:
- A fast, comprehensive part browser
- One-click access to the full Lego color palette
- Fully-functional MPD capabilities
- Steps, step display, and step exporting
- Undo, Copy, and Paste
- Drag-and-drop reorganization of model contents
- Primitives
This project has taken me about six months to complete, so I hope that you
find it to truly be LDraw for the Rest of Us. That’s not to say it’s perfect.
My goal in creating this program was to create a superb tool for
instruction-creation, and a usable 3D model viewer. In fact, I finished over
three-quarters of the source code before I actually drew a single pixel of
LDraw. Consequently, Bricksmith’s instruction-making tools are superb, but
the model viewer is not yet as pretty as Mac Brick CAD’s.
Bricksmith
requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and may be download it at
http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net/.
So have fun, all you Mac-loving
Legophiles!
Sincerely,
Allen Smith
Camas, Washington
|
Only 6 months!
You certainly have worked really hard!
Congratulations :)
I don’t own a MAC but it’s always good news when LDraw is lesser and lesser
confined to the Microsoft world. Anyway i have seen the pretty screenshot,
downloaded the archive and extracted the “Krystonian Freight Sled”, then loaded
it in MLCad. To make MLCad happy i had to suffix all subparts with “.dat” But
even then MLCad is still not happy because Bricksmith can include subparts
within subparts when MLCad can not. As it is, “Krystonian Freight Sled” is not a
valid MPD file, subparts within a subpart are not allowed in a standard MPD
file. I guess it’s a testimony of how Bricksmith is flexible, but providing a
standard-compliant example is always a good idea.
Will i dare a critic?
Yes i will: too many trailing zeros.
Otherwise, the only thing i can say is: remarkable work, very encouraging, the
future of the LDraw library is brighter than ever.
- damien
lego web page: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/alphablock/
|
|
| |
In lugnet.announce, Allen Smith wrote:
| |
It is time to announce the completion of Bricksmith 1.0, my new LDraw editor for Mac OS X.
|
First, let me say: Great work, Allen! We Mac-using ALEs really appreciate
efforts like this.
Initial impressions:
- Wow -- an LDraw editor that I can just download and use! I didn’t have to install anything extra or futz about with paths; I just downloaded the complete package and double-clicked the icon. Beautiful.
- You’re assuming a bigger screen than I have. With the default window size, and the part browser drawer open, the bottom of the drawer is cut off. (I’m using a 15” Apple LCD, 1024 x 768 IIRC.) But it’s easy to resize the window.
- I dig the parts browser, especially the ability to rotate the part so I can get a better look before I plop it into the model. A search function would be nice, something like an editfield where I can type a key word or two, and you narrow the list to only the parts containing those key words.
- Part drawing in the main view isn’t very pretty — it seems to be in wireframe mode. Solid might make a better default. Oops, now I see that’s how you show the selected piece. I wonder if just putting an aqua-blue bounding box around it might be better.
- In the toolbar, I can only see three rotation tools: +X, -X, and +Y. The other three are in the overflow menu. A better order would be to put +X, +Y, and +Z first, so you have all three axes available even when the window’s too small for all six. Also, the docs claim there are toolbar buttons for moving the selected part, but I don’t see any such (nor any way to customize the toolbar).
- The inspector is cool, but is it the only way to change the color of a part? I’d rather a pop-up menu somewhere on the editor window itself -- perhaps a bevel button at the bottom, that shows the color of the selected part and when clicked, pops up a palette of available colors. (The inspector floater keeps getting in my way, so I’d like to leave it closed most of the time.)
- Inserting a submodel: you probably already have ideas for better ways to do this. But why not just have an “Insert Submodel” command in the Model menu? You could even make this a simple submenu that lists all the other models in the document, and when you pick one, it just plops it in. That’d be much better than having to insert a nonsense piece and change its name.
- While in Step Display mode, I can’t find any indication of which step I’m displaying. That’s really needed -- either in the title bar, or somewhere in the window, or (at the very least) by selecting the corresponding step in the contents drawer. Also, while in Step Display mode, selecting steps in the contents drawer seems to add those parts to the display, while not removing parts from other steps... it’s rather confusing.
- The only missing feature I noticed was a parts inventory. The main reason I can imagine making a virtual model is so that I can know what to order on BrickLink, instead of having to go back three times for additional parts (as is my usual outcome). So a simple organized list of part type, color, and quantity would be very helpful.
All said, it’s by far the best LDraw program I’ve tried, and if I ever do find
enough time to do any LEGO cadding, this is certainly what I’ll use! Keep up
the great work.
Best,
Joe
|
|
| |
Sorry, two more suggestions:
- Changing the color of multiple parts appears to be a royal PITA, because the Inspector palette just says “Multiple Selection”. Well, yes, I know I have a multiple selection -- I want to inspect it anyway! You could still show the average position (and allow this to be changed), and as for color, show the color swatch -- perhaps with a line through it or some such if there are multiple colors, but still allow me to click it to set all the selected parts to a new color.
- Also, while moving parts around with the keyboard is probably good for detail work, I’d really like the option of dragging them around with the mouse too. Perhaps you could support control-drag (or 2nd-mouse-button-drag) for this.
Best,
- Joe
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Joe Strout wrote:
| |
- Wow -- an LDraw editor that I can just download and use! I didn’t have to install anything extra or futz about with paths; I just downloaded the complete package and double-clicked the icon. Beautiful.
|
Sure it’s handy, but i wonder whether the LDraw Standard Commitee and the
Jessiman family will agree.
- damien
web page: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/alphablock/
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Damien Guichard wrote:
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Joe Strout wrote:
| |
- Wow -- an LDraw editor that I can just download and use! I didn’t have to install anything extra or futz about with paths; I just downloaded the complete package and double-clicked the icon. Beautiful.
|
Sure it’s handy, but i wonder whether the LDraw Standard Commitee and the
Jessiman family will agree.
|
Yeah, you aren’t suppose to distribute the library with your app. The cool
shniz would be to have the app auto find the library or download it for you if
it can’t find it though! The path should never change:
http://www.ldraw.org/files/unix-complete.tgz
Haven’t looked at the app yet but I’m sure I can come up with a list of feature
requests! ;)
If you give me a text snippet and an appropriately sized thumbnail, I can add
your app to the Mac getting started page on www.ldraw.org. I can’t remember who
is responsible for the downloads listing, but I would use the ldraw contact on
their site so you can get your app listed in the download database.
James
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Damien Guichard wrote:
| |
In lugnet.announce, Allen Smith wrote:
| |
I thought I would save my first post to Lugnet for something good.
It is time to announce the completion of
Bricksmith 1.0,
my new LDraw editor for Mac OS X.
|
|
It’s always nice to see new stuff like this. Especially with the
source code available in CVS on the sourceforge site. Cool!
| |
I don’t own a MAC but it’s always good news when LDraw is lesser and
lesser confined to the Microsoft world. Anyway i have seen the
pretty screenshot, downloaded the archive and extracted the
“Krystonian Freight Sled”, then loaded it in MLCad. To make MLCad
happy i had to suffix all subparts with “.dat” But even then MLCad
is still not happy because Bricksmith can include subparts within
subparts when MLCad can not. As it is, “Krystonian Freight Sled” is
not a valid MPD file, subparts within a subpart are not allowed in a
standard MPD file. I guess it’s a testimony of how Bricksmith is
flexible, but providing a standard-compliant example is always a
good idea.
|
Hmm, I don’t know, the file looks OK to me. I don’t remember any
*official* limit on nested MPD subfiles. And I also don’t recall
anything official about requiring file extensions. Really, the only
iffy part is the spaces in the filenames, but I thought we recently
came an unofficial agreement on that one supporting the MLCAD format:
Anything after the numbers is part of the filename. With the recently
added support for this, it displays in ldglite just fine, so I suspect
it’ll should read just fine into the “soon to be released” version of
l3p as well. (Whenever that comes out. I didn’t miss it, did I?)
| |
Will i dare a critic?
Yes i will: too many trailing zeros.
|
Yeah, it’d be nice to trim those off. Makes the files more human
readable.
| |
Otherwise, the only thing i can say is: remarkable work, very
encouraging, the future of the LDraw library is brighter than ever.
|
Yes, very nice, the more the merrier.
Enjoy,
Don
|
|
| |
Dear Joe,
I’ll write more about your previous (good!) suggestions when I have more time
later. For now, I’ll point you in the direction of the Tools menu, where you’ll
find a “Show Colors” selection. You’ll notice that the Colors palette tracks
whatever you have selected, inspector or no inspector. You can change the colors
on mulitple parts by selecting them and just choosing a new color in the
palette.
Mouse-dragging is something for a future release. In the meantime,
you can adjust the course grid to use larger graduations
Thanks for having
fun.
Allen
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Allen Smith wrote:
| |
I’ll write more about your previous (good!) suggestions when I have more time
later. For now, I’ll point you in the direction of the Tools menu, where
you’ll find a “Show Colors” selection. You’ll notice that the Colors palette
tracks whatever you have selected, inspector or no inspector. You can change
the colors on mulitple parts by selecting them and just choosing a new color
in the palette.
|
Perfect. Sorry I missed that before, and thanks for pointing it out!
Best,
Joe
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, James Reynolds wrote:
| |
| |
| |
- Wow -- an LDraw editor that I can just download and use! I didn’t have to install anything extra or futz about with paths; I just downloaded the complete package and double-clicked the icon. Beautiful.
|
Sure it’s handy, but i wonder whether the LDraw Standard Commitee and the
Jessiman family will agree.
|
Yeah, you aren’t suppose to distribute the library with your app.
|
Well that just sucks. They don’t want too many people using LDraw, I guess?
Because many users simply won’t jump through that many hoops to get started.
They’ll download a CAD program, double-click it, see scary messages about LDraw
not being found, and (in many cases) give up at that point and go do something
more fun. This is especially true on the Mac, where many users just want to use
the dang thing rather than spend all day fiddling with it. ;)
So I hope Allen can convince them to let him continue distributing his app both
with and without LDraw contained. I don’t see how this hurts anyone, and it
makes it accessible to people who just wouldn’t succeed with it otherwise.
| |
The cool shniz would be to have the app auto find the library or download it >
for you if it can’t find it though!
|
Well yes, that would be cool, though not as cool as having it just unpack and be
ready to run. And it’s a lot more work for the developer.
Best,
- Joe
|
|
| |
Allen Smith wrote:
> I thought I would save my first post to Lugnet for something good.¬
> ¬
> <<http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net/images/icon32.jpg>>¬
> ¬
> It is time to announce the completion of <http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net/
> Bricksmith 1.0>, my new LDraw editor for Mac OS X. Bricksmith provides a number
> of features which have hitherto been lacking on the Macintosh, including:¬
>
> * A fast, comprehensive part browser
> * One-click access to the full Lego color palette
> * Fully-functional MPD capabilities
> * Steps, step display, and step exporting
> * Undo, Copy, and Paste
> * Drag-and-drop reorganization of model contents
> * Primitives
>
> This project has taken me about six months to complete, so I hope that you find
> it to truly be LDraw for the Rest of Us. That's not to say it's perfect. My goal
> in creating this program was to create a superb tool for instruction-creation,
> and a usable 3D model viewer. In fact, I finished over three-quarters of the
> source code before I actually drew a single pixel of LDraw. Consequently,
> Bricksmith's instruction-making tools are superb, but the model viewer is not
> yet as pretty as Mac Brick CAD's.¬ ¬ Bricksmith requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later,
> and may be download it at <http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net/>.¬ ¬ So have fun,
> all you Mac-loving Legophiles!¬ ¬ Sincerely,¬ Allen Smith¬ Camas, Washington
Wow, my first impressions are that it is very cool. I poked it with a
stick and here are some observations that I made...
*I'd love to have preset views like other LCad programs (press 1, 2,
3... etc for different views of model)
*automatically add ".dat" to the text field in the inspector window when
a part number is entered. I'm lazy and I don't really want to have to
type ".dat" every time I enter a part number.
*lower detail during rotation to speed up rotation on older computers.
Rotating a complete (moderate to large) model isn't all that smooth on a
Dual 2.5 G5 either.
*is it just me or does the glass looks trans red?
*drawing speed when moving parts is too slow
drawing speed for the model seems good
slightly slower than Mac Brick Cad 2.4
much faster than LDGLite for Mac.
However, LDGLite is a faster editor than ether MBC or Bricksmith. I
don't know how Don (LDGLite's) author does it, but when LDGLite moves a
brick, it draws the model without the brick, and then just draws the
brick without redrawing the model each subsequent movement of the brick.
Here is an example.
In Bricksmith (and in MBC)
Select a brick on a model and move it (hit the arrow key once). The move
is done in 2 seconds (pretty good for a good sized model). Hit the arrow
key 3 more times, and the move is done in 6 more seconds (pretty slow).
So, it took 8 seconds to move the brick 4 spaces, and every space takes
two more seconds.
In LDGLite
Select a brick on a model and move it (hit the arrow key once). The move
is done in 7 seconds (pretty darn slow). Hit the arrow key 3 more times,
and the move is done instantaneously. So, after the initial 7 second hit
to redraw the model, virtually no time is required for any of the
subsequent moves. I can further speed up LDGLite by lowering the detail
if I wish. For example, if I turn on draw studs as line, then the
initial hist is only 2 to 3 seconds. Bricksmith and MBC are way better
than LDGLite in many ways, but when it comes to moving bricks around
LDGLite is still the champ.
Anyway... I love this new entry into the Mac LDRAWing space, and I will
add it to the lineup of tools that I use to draw my stuff :)
Thanks,
Chris
|
|
| |
Dear Joe,
I’m glad you like the program! Further comments are interspersed below:
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Joe Strout wrote:
| |
In lugnet.announce, Allen Smith wrote:
| |
It is time to announce the completion of Bricksmith 1.0, my new LDraw editor for Mac OS X.
|
First, let me say: Great work, Allen! We Mac-using ALEs really appreciate
efforts like this.
Initial impressions:
- Wow -- an LDraw editor that I can just download and use! I didn’t have to install anything extra or futz about with paths; I just downloaded the complete package and double-clicked the icon. Beautiful.
- You’re assuming a bigger screen than I have. With the default window size, and the part browser drawer open, the bottom of the drawer is cut off. (I’m using a 15” Apple LCD, 1024 x 768 IIRC.) But it’s easy to resize the window.
|
Oi! So small! I just switched my computer to 1024 x 768, and I can promise you,
Mac OS X was not made for that resolution!
| |
- I dig the parts browser, especially the ability to rotate the part so I can get a better look before I plop it into the model. A search function would be nice, something like an editfield where I can type a key word or two, and you narrow the list to only the parts containing those key words.
|
My thoughts exactly. But I wanted to get this program released, even if it
didn’t do everything I wanted it to yet. I hope you don’t mind.
| |
- Part drawing in the main view isn’t very pretty — it seems to be in wireframe mode. Solid might make a better default. Oops, now I see that’s how you show the selected piece. I wonder if just putting an aqua-blue bounding box around it might be better.
|
Using wireframe is fairly standard. (Mac Brick CAD does it too.) the nice thing
about wireframe is that you can see through the part while doing tricky
positioning. That’s really handy.
| |
- In the toolbar, I can only see three rotation tools: +X, -X, and +Y. The other three are in the overflow menu. A better order would be to put +X, +Y, and +Z first, so you have all three axes available even when the window’s too small for all six. Also, the docs claim there are toolbar buttons for moving the selected part, but I don’t see any such (nor any way to customize the toolbar).
|
Control-click in the toolbar. That is a standard OS X feature. But I’ll try to
remember to put in a “Customize Toolbar...” menu item too.
| |
- The inspector is cool, but is it the only way to change the color of a part? I’d rather a pop-up menu somewhere on the editor window itself -- perhaps a bevel button at the bottom, that shows the color of the selected part and when clicked, pops up a palette of available colors. (The inspector floater keeps getting in my way, so I’d like to leave it closed most of the time.)
|
I answered this already in a reply. To repeat, just leave the color palette
open.
| |
- Inserting a submodel: you probably already have ideas for better ways to do this. But why not just have an “Insert Submodel” command in the Model menu? You could even make this a simple submenu that lists all the other models in the document, and when you pick one, it just plops it in. That’d be much better than having to insert a nonsense piece and change its name.
|
Actually, I didn’t have better ideas. Yours is a good one. Thanks.
| |
- While in Step Display mode, I can’t find any indication of which step I’m displaying. That’s really needed -- either in the title bar, or somewhere in the window, or (at the very least) by selecting the corresponding step in the contents drawer. Also, while in Step Display mode, selecting steps in the contents drawer seems to add those parts to the display, while not removing parts from other steps... it’s rather confusing.
|
I know, I know...sigh. About your step-selecting problems: if you select a step,
Bricksmith automatically advances the step display to what you selected. It’s a
convenience so you don’t accidentally start moving a part that isn’t even
visible.
| |
- The only missing feature I noticed was a parts inventory. The main reason I can imagine making a virtual model is so that I can know what to order on BrickLink, instead of having to go back three times for additional parts (as is my usual outcome). So a simple organized list of part type, color, and quantity would be very helpful.
|
Again, you read my mind.
Incidentally, making a virtual model is also really good for making
instructions. (Hint, hint.)
| |
All said, it’s by far the best LDraw program I’ve tried, and if I ever do
find enough time to do any LEGO cadding, this is certainly what I’ll use!
Keep up the great work.
Best,
Joe
|
Thanks again,
Allen Smith
|
|
| |
| |
Oi! So small! I just switched my computer to 1024 x 768, and I can promise
you, Mac OS X was not made for that resolution!
|
Nearly all of my computers use this resolution. On my main machine I at least
have 2 monitors.
James
|
|
| |
| |
| |
Yeah, you aren’t suppose to distribute the library with your app.
|
Well that just sucks. They don’t want too many people using LDraw, I guess?
Because many users simply won’t jump through that many hoops to get started.
They’ll download a CAD program, double-click it, see scary messages about
LDraw not being found, and (in many cases) give up at that point and go do
something more fun. This is especially true on the Mac, where many users
just want to use the dang thing rather than spend all day fiddling with it.
;)
So I hope Allen can convince them to let him continue distributing his app
both with and without LDraw contained. I don’t see how this hurts anyone,
and it makes it accessible to people who just wouldn’t succeed with it
otherwise.
| |
The cool shniz would be to have the app auto find the library or download it
| |
for you if it can’t find it though!
|
|
Well yes, that would be cool, though not as cool as having it just unpack and
be ready to run. And it’s a lot more work for the developer.
|
Yes, but it is the best way. When the library isn’t found, just display a
window asking “1). browser for library”
“2). search for library”
“3). download library and install (New uses select this)”
That should keep the low-attention-span Mac OS X users a few more seconds.
(LOL, I’m one of them too) Anyway, the url at ldraw.org is always the same, and
it isn’t actually that hard to download it. I have some Cocoa code somewhere
that does url downloads and it is only 1 or 2 lines. Unpacking is probably only
a few lines (unless it is an NSTask, but still it isn’t that hard).
There are a few reasons for not distributing the LDraw library.
1). Legal reasons. I don’t remember what they are, I just know that James
Jessiman’s family owns the rights to the core of the library and they have made
their decision. Since the formalization of the LDraw Steering Committee, the
licensing might have changed. I’m not sure.
2). Updates. People were distributing the library with their app and it quickly
got out of date. Really out of date. And it was hard to get them to update
their downloads. And it was a mess. For me. ;) In fact, I don’t think anyone
really updated their downloads. Oh well.
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, James Reynolds wrote:
| |
| |
Oi! So small! I just switched my computer to 1024 x 768, and I can promise
you, Mac OS X was not made for that resolution!
|
Nearly all of my computers use this resolution. On my main machine I at
least have 2 monitors.
|
Yes, that’s my setup too. This machine is actually owned by my company, which
is too cheap to buy me a cinema display, but is happy to buy me two 15”
displays. And there are some minor advantages to this setup (mostly, if one
dies, I can live on the other one until the broken one can be replaced).
Best,
Joe
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, James Reynolds wrote:
| |
There are a few reasons for not distributing the LDraw library.
1). Legal reasons. I don’t remember what they are, I just know that James
Jessiman’s family owns the rights to the core of the library and they have
made their decision. Since the formalization of the LDraw Steering
Committee, the licensing might have changed. I’m not sure.
|
Well, I suppose that as long as we’re stuck with lawyers in our society, we have
to face realities like this. We don’t have to like it, though.
| |
2). Updates. People were distributing the library with their app and it
quickly got out of date. Really out of date. And it was hard to get them to
update their downloads. And it was a mess. For me. ;) In fact, I don’t
think anyone really updated their downloads. Oh well.
|
Making LDRAW-using apps harder to use doesn’t really help this, though. People
who stick with it long enough to get LDRAW installed someplace are (in general)
going to be no more likely to update it thereafter than people who got it
conveniently included with the app. It’s not like it’s hidden in Bricksmith --
it’s right there next to the app in a folder called “LDraw”. I’ll see it every
time I go to launch Bricksmith. In fact, I’d argue that I’m more likely to
update it this way, than if I’ve installed the dang thing in some library folder
as some previous app (Mac Brick CAD?) required.
Ideally, as far as point 2 goes anyway, a CAD program would come with a copy of
LDraw so you can just launch it and run (even if, for example, you happen to be
setting on an airplane when you get around to unpacking and trying it), but it
would also check for LDraw updates, and automatically download and install
them, whenever the network is available.
Best,
Joe
|
|
| |
Joe Strout wrote:
> In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, James Reynolds wrote:
[snip]
> conveniently included with the app. It's not like it's hidden in Bricksmith --
> it's right there next to the app in a folder called "LDraw". I'll see it every
> time I go to launch Bricksmith. In fact, I'd argue that I'm {more} likely to
> update it this way, than if I've installed the dang thing in some library folder
> as some previous app (Mac Brick CAD?) required.
Well, not actually required; rather, that location was recommended. Both
LDGLite and Mac Brick Cad will use an LDRAW library where ever it is as
long as you set the location using the Preferences panel. I think the
programmers (Don and Andrew) independently reached the same
conclusion... since the ldraw library is a library it should go in the
Library folder. It kinda makes sense since different programs can use
the same library. From an end user standpoint, it is a little confusing,
especially for the less technically inclined.
> Ideally, as far as point 2 goes anyway, a CAD program would come with a copy of
> LDraw so you can just launch it and run (even if, for example, you happen to be
> setting on an airplane when you get around to unpacking and trying it), but it
> would {also} check for LDraw updates, and automatically download and install
> them, whenever the network is available.
Can;t disagree with you here :) Updating an LDRAW library is annoying.
The contents of the update directories have to be added to the LDRAW
directory and the subdirectories within without obliterating the files
in the subdirectories that haven't been updated. A simple drag and drop
won't do that. If you don't want to open each update subdirectory and
manually move the contents to the appropriate folder you are left with
using the terminal. I think "ditto" does the job.
> Best,¬
> Joe
Chris
--
http://users.rcn.com/cjmasi/lego/
Learn about brittle bone disease
http://www.oif.org/
|
|
| |
In lugnet.announce, Allen Smith wrote:
| |
This project has taken me about six months to complete, so I hope that you
find it to truly be LDraw for the Rest of Us. That’s not to say it’s perfect.
My goal in creating this program was to create a superb tool for
instruction-creation, and a usable 3D model viewer. In fact, I finished over
three-quarters of the source code before I actually drew a single pixel of
LDraw. Consequently, Bricksmith’s instruction-making tools are superb, but
the model viewer is not yet as pretty as Mac Brick CAD’s.
Bricksmith
requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and may be download it at
http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net/.
So have fun, all you Mac-loving
Legophiles!
Sincerely,
Allen Smith
Camas, Washington
|
Very cool. Which IDE did you use.. XCode 2.0 ?
I just installed XCode 2.1 on the new iBook. Very spiffy stuff.
Ray
|
|
| |
Allen,
Congratulations on your work, I had a quick look and you present some nice
elegant and "Mac Like" solutions with a pleasant interface.
Some competition might be what I need for me to make the time to further my own
project.
If you want some technical discussion or just an opinion I'm only too willing to
help (and feel free to contact me directly if you wish). You'll should also be
made welcome by all the Mac using community who offer excellent assistance in
our endeavours.
Andrew...
|
|
| |
In lugnet.announce, Allen Smith wrote:
| |
I thought I would save my first post to Lugnet for something good.
It is time to announce the completion of Bricksmith 1.0, my new LDraw editor for Mac OS X. Bricksmith provides a
number of features which have hitherto been lacking on the Macintosh,
including:
- A fast, comprehensive part browser
- One-click access to the full Lego color palette
- Fully-functional MPD capabilities
- Steps, step display, and step exporting
- Undo, Copy, and Paste
- Drag-and-drop reorganization of model contents
- Primitives
This project has taken me about six months to complete, so I hope that you
find it to truly be LDraw for the Rest of Us. That’s not to say it’s perfect.
My goal in creating this program was to create a superb tool for
instruction-creation, and a usable 3D model viewer. In fact, I finished over
three-quarters of the source code before I actually drew a single pixel of
LDraw. Consequently, Bricksmith’s instruction-making tools are superb, but
the model viewer is not yet as pretty as Mac Brick CAD’s.
Bricksmith
requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and may be download it at
http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net/.
So have fun, all you Mac-loving
Legophiles!
Sincerely,
Allen Smith
Camas, Washington
|
Congratulations Allen on getting a 1.0 version out the door so quickly!
I’ve added a quick fix to my Converter at:
linkhttp://www.antonraves.com/converter.php
so that it no longer chokes on the excessive amount of space-characters,
Bricksmith generated LDraw-files can now use the Converter too!
I’ll get back to you with more constructive feedback later, keep up the good
work!
Greetz,
Anton
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Joe Strout wrote:
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, James Reynolds wrote:
| |
| |
Oi! So small! I just switched my computer to 1024 x 768, and I can promise
you, Mac OS X was not made for that resolution!
|
Nearly all of my computers use this resolution. On my main machine I at
least have 2 monitors.
|
Yes, that’s my setup too. This machine is actually owned by my company,
which is too cheap to buy me a cinema display, but is happy to buy me two 15”
displays. And there are some minor advantages to this setup (mostly, if one
dies, I can live on the other one until the broken one can be replaced).
|
Joe,
I just checked your webpage. You work for REAL? That is a hoot! I once looked
at REALbasic. This is all very interesting. You have a 3d modeler that exports
to POV-Ray??? And Brickball looks like it might be cool... Do you have an OS X
verison yet?
James
|
|
| |
| |
http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net
|
Allen,
I notice you are hosting on SourceForge. Are you planning on putting your
source code there? I would be interested in checking it out.
James
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, James Reynolds wrote:
| |
| |
http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net
|
Allen,
I notice you are hosting on SourceForge. Are you planning on putting your
source code there? I would be interested in checking it out.
|
It’s already there in the CVS archive. Check out the
SourceForge project page by
clicking on the link at the bottom left of the bricksmith homepage. Then scroll
down to the Browse CVS link
if you just want to take a peek. The other CVS link contains instructions if
you want to fetch it all.
Enjoy,
Don
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, James Reynolds wrote:
| |
Joe,
I just checked your webpage. You work for REAL? That is a hoot! I once
looked at REALbasic. This is all very interesting.
|
Yep!
| |
You have a 3d modeler that exports to POV-Ray???
|
Yes, Meshwork.
I also wrote a little mini-LEGO-CAD program in REALbasic once. In fact, I think you’ll find it among the 3D examples that
come with REALbasic.
| |
And Brickball looks like it might be cool... Do
you have an OS X verison yet?
|
Alas, no, though it would really be just a recompile. But then there’s packing
it up, updating the web page, etc., and I sort of lost interest in that project
before OS X came out. I do have some other cool 3D games in the works though
(my latest is a turn-based solitaire game of a zombie invasion, inspired by a
thread here on LUGNET about a zombie variant of BrickWars!).
Best,
- Joe
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Anton Raves wrote:
| |
I’ve added a quick fix to my Converter at:
linkhttp://www.antonraves.com/converter.php
so that it no longer chokes on the excessive amount of space-characters,
Bricksmith generated LDraw-files can now use the Converter too!
|
Thanks, Anton. I tried your converter the other day, and it gave me blank
files, so I gave up on it and just downloaded L3D (which worked fine). But now
I’ll give your converter another try too.
Incidentally, though, I don’t find POV-Ray renderings to be the best for
instructions, as they’re too realistic. For instructions, I want something
more diagrammatic, with clear lines delineating the blocks. Does anyone have
any recommendations for such a renderer? (And Allen, would you consider
building it right into BrickSmith?)
Best,
- Joe
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Joe Strout wrote:
| |
Incidentally, though, I don’t find POV-Ray renderings to be the best for
instructions, as they’re too realistic. For instructions, I want something
more diagrammatic, with clear lines delineating the blocks. Does anyone have
any recommendations for such a renderer? (And Allen, would you consider
building it right into BrickSmith?)
|
Look into the MegaPOV enhancement, I think that adds edge lines. (that’s about
all I know, I render using LDLite with fat edge lines configured in when I am
doing instructions. I THINK maybe LDGLite supports that too? not sure)
Hope that helps!
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Don Heyse wrote:
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, James Reynolds wrote:
| |
| |
http://bricksmith.sourceforge.net
|
Allen,
I notice you are hosting on SourceForge. Are you planning on putting your
source code there? I would be interested in checking it out.
|
It’s already there in the CVS archive. Check out the
SourceForge project page by
clicking on the link at the bottom left of the bricksmith homepage. Then
scroll down to the Browse
CVS link if you just want to take a peek. The other CVS link contains
instructions if you want to fetch it all.
|
Ah. I was using
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sf.net:/cvsroot/bricksmith checkout bricksmith
instead of
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sf.net:/cvsroot/bricksmith checkout Bricksmith
|
|
| |
| |
Congratulations on your work, I had a quick look and you present some nice
elegant and “Mac Like” solutions with a pleasant interface.
|
Thank you for the compliments, Andrew. I’ve admired Mac Brick CAD for a long
time, and I’m impressed by all the work you’ve put into behind-the-scenes
operation. I do Cocoa programming at work, but I have no professional experience
with OpenGL. Furthermore, I enjoy making GUIs far more than I like mucking with
polygons. It shows in my program: I like the interface a lot, but the
performance ought to be better.
Anyway, considering the recent release of
Lego Digital Designer on our dear platform, I think we both have a bit more
competition!
Sincerely,
Allen Smith
|
|
| |
| |
Incidentally, though, I don’t find POV-Ray renderings to be the best for
instructions, as they’re too realistic. For instructions, I want something
more diagrammatic, with clear lines delineating the blocks. Does anyone have
any recommendations for such a renderer? (And Allen, would you consider
building it right into BrickSmith?)
|
Oh Joe, what a can of worms that is. You’re absolutely right that POV-Ray is
useless for instructions. It’s very nice for the picture on the front of the
box, but it doesn’t outline edges. The good news is that there is a solution.
The following method was explained to me by Steve Barile, and produces lovely
output:
First, you need MacMegaPOV 0.7. It’s a variant of POV-Ray with an
easy-to-understand GUI. But when I did instructions last, Mac MegaPOV was up to
version 1.0, but which did not include the edge-tracing feature. There is a
newer version now; I don’t know if edge-tracing has been restored. If not, I
have a copy of 0.7 I can e-mail. I do not think the old version is otherwise
available on the internet.
Once you have MacMegaPOV 0.7, things are real
easy. Just add the following line to the top of you your POV-Ray file from L3P:
#version unofficial MegaPov 0.7;
|
|
Then paste in this block at the bottom:
global_settings {
post_process {
find_edges {
2, //depth difference required for line
0.35, //angle difference required for line
0.2, //color difference required for line
1.1, // 2.0 default line width
20, // 1.4 default line sharpness
rgb 0 //color of line
}
}
}
|
|
Tweak the values as needed.
For high-quality instructions, render the scene at some absurdly large
resolution. I used 2048 x 1536 or so for a 16x16 baseplate. The more RAM, the
merrier. I think I needed about 512 MB (physical + virtual) when I did it. The
good news is that you can decrease the rendering quality to Level 1 or so,
because all you really need is plain color. MegaPOV’s post-processor will then
find the edges, and you’ll have instructions to die for. They look nearly as
good as Lego’s.
Once you have the software (e-mail me!), this is a very easy
process, and the results are extremely rewarding.
Sincerely,
Allen Smith
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Joe Strout wrote:
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Anton Raves wrote:
| |
I’ve added a quick fix to my Converter at:
linkhttp://www.antonraves.com/converter.php
so that it no longer chokes on the excessive amount of space-characters,
Bricksmith generated LDraw-files can now use the Converter too!
|
Thanks, Anton. I tried your converter the other day, and it gave me blank
files, so I gave up on it and just downloaded L3D (which worked fine). But
now I’ll give your converter another try too.
Incidentally, though, I don’t find POV-Ray renderings to be the best for
instructions, as they’re too realistic. For instructions, I want something
more diagrammatic, with clear lines delineating the blocks. Does anyone have
any recommendations for such a renderer? (And Allen, would you consider
building it right into BrickSmith?)
|
Yes, LDGLite or LDView (both available for OS X). This renderers can produce
very good rendering at high resolutions.
-Orion
|
|
| |
In lugnet.cad.dev.mac, Orion Pobursky wrote:
| |
Yes, LDGLite or LDView (both available for OS X). This renderers can produce
very good rendering at high resolutions.
|
One thing, though. LDView can’t be used to make instructions without using
LPub, since it doesn’t itself support the STEP command. And of course, LPub
hasn’t been ported to the Mac.
--Travis
|
|
|
