 | | Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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All, I would like to take this opportunity to announce a cool new project many years in the making. I hope you find this as exciting as I do. == A new LEGO building application == LEGO has been making building software for many years now (like LEGO (...) (21 years ago, 29-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.general, lugnet.announce, lugnet.lego.direct) !!
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Perhaps Digital Designer could offer third-party "plug-in" capabilities (import/export) for reading and writing LDraw files...similar to the way Adobe Photoshop works. But having some command-line tools to do the conversion would probably be (...) (21 years ago, 29-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Sounds great! (...) Have you considered following that spirit all the way and making the software open source? I know that's a big step, but other big companies have done the same with great success. I'm particularly concerned that this very (...) (21 years ago, 29-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) I don't think LXF is going to be a parts format, it sounds like it's a way to exchange models only (think of it as LDraw with only type 1 lines). Out of curiosity, how do you plan to solve the problem of different parts library having parts (...) (21 years ago, 29-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) By that I assume you mean true ABS. <grins and smirks> Nothing beats the real thing for complex and powerful... IMHO... Seriously though, I think what you are announcing here is great for the future of the community and its ability to further (...) (21 years ago, 29-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) [...] I'm excited about the progress, and thankful for your sharing the news with us, Jake. It's good to know that TLC/LD continues to take into account the adult community's dreams and hard work, while planning for their future. -Suz - Yet (...) (21 years ago, 29-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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Lots of good comments, this is very exciting stuff, ne? (...) Those aren't the only two alternatives. It could well be closed (changes controlled by LEGO only, rather than by a standards committee) but still well documented rather than (...) (21 years ago, 29-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Is this the program announced three years ago? "And in 2002, we will begin a program where LEGO builders will be able to build any three dimensional creation using free software to create building instructions for their model - and then order (...) (21 years ago, 29-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Oooh. I had forgotten about that. If this option of ordering the elements needed for a design were included in the package, I would suddenly develop a better liking for CAD... :) (...) Software in general, as I have noticed, tends to be (...) (21 years ago, 29-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) FWIW, the VP at TLC who is quoted as saying this actually ended up leaving TLC not too long after the 7 Dec 2000 press release. On 18 Mar 2001 (101 days later), a Bang & Olufsen press release announced that Sørensen had left LEGO and would (...) (21 years ago, 29-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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This is great timing and I'm very encouraged by what you've outlined here. I'd like to throw in my "me too" post about supporting other platforms in addition to Microsoft Windows(TM) and that the LXF spec be publically documented. It's reasonable (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Ok, maybe things have changed. Originally TLC was talking about releasing parts as files. My understanding is that they have three "quality" levels of parts: high quality, medium quality, and low-quality. The high quality parts are what their (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Ya, that would be a lot like Adobe's approach to PostScript. It's a closed language in that Adobe has decreed that they are the official purveyors of enhancements to the language, but it's an open language in that it's extremely well (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) But, whether or not it's meant to compete, it will compete, won't it? Or will it have such a limited parts selection that only kids would want to use it? What about the more complex powerful LEGO building tools mentioned below? Won't those (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) I also hope you're proven wrong, but the presence of an NDA would seem to indicate otherwise. Either way, I'm willing to work on cross platform tools if the Digital Designer software is more popular with my kids than Creator was. (...) I don't (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Oh! That's interesting! The upside of thisof course is that at least some of the LXF format -is- documented. That's good. Hmm, I wonder which countries LEGO has obtained this patent in, or if it's even enforceable in the U.S.? Does anyone at a (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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In my opinion, what killed the community's enthusiuasm for working with LEGO was LEGO's intention to patent the file format (and complicate it to do so.) Since then, LEGO has obtained a government monopoly on CAD that is so broad, it could even be (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Not at all offended. I knew there would be some questions and concerns. There have been a number of things raised that I will work on getting solid answers for, since I'm not well versed in the details of this project. Before much of this (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) More on this post tomorrow, but a couple of quick answers. By compete, I just meant that our DD software isn't meant to compete with, say MLCad. It is designed for use by kids around the age of 7 or 8. MLCad, I would assume, doesn't really (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Honestly, I don't see any benefits for the LCAD community in supporting the LXF format, unless the LXF format is so many more light years ahead of the LDraw format that the effort of supporting LXF would be miniscule compared to the benefits. (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) I don't know if anyone's done an age study, but that sounds about right. (...) Which end? ;-) (...) Is it mine in the sense that I can legally implement the same method in another file format? (...) Naturally, part of my job at LUGNET is to (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) That's raises an interesting moral and ethical dilemma: Is it morally acceptable to support the LXF format? Do you think anyone will boycott it? (...) Aren't millions of copies of USENET articles dating back to 1994-5 documentation enough? (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Does this mean there will be a complex, powerful LEGO building tool to be released later or does this mean the graduation towards the LDraw tools such as MLCAD? (...) Multiple file formats never seem to work out too well (can you say BETA vs. (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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Hi Jake! (...) Sounds great! (...) I'm very excited by this idea. I'm glad you are planning to work with what the community has developed and used. As you mentioned in the previous paragraph, this provides an excellent opportunity for kids using LDD (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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I have been watching this thread with interest. Personally I find the prospect that LEGO is going to potentially open up some of their intellectual property to the community pretty interesting and not something you see happen very often. How they do (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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In lugnet.cad, Jake McKee writes: <snipped Jake's announcement for brevity - since I'm sure you've all read it already!> First of all, this sounds very spiffy. It shows that LEGO is really taking the AFOL community seriously, and that is (and always (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) I agree and I think it'll represent a great step toward enhanced collaboration with the community. (...) I don't get that impression... I think LEGO will strive to work with the LCAD/LDraw community to establish new standards. I think the (...) (21 years ago, 1-May-03, to lugnet.cad)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) I don't think that's really a fair and answerable question. As a parts designer, I'd rather work in the format that is (a) the least work for me and (b) gives me the results I want. As a parts designer, I'm not terribly concerned about (...) (21 years ago, 1-May-03, to lugnet.cad)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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I can see this being a great thing as long as: 1.it doesnt have any artificial limits on it 2.the LXF file format is documented and there are no restrictions on using it (ref the TLC patents mentioned earlier in the thread) 3.it has support for all (...) (21 years ago, 1-May-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Parts Library (was Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0)
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How complete will the parts library for this program be? Will it include all the parts TLC has 3d computer models of or will it be limited somehow? What about decorated/printed parts? Minifig parts & accessories? Stickers? Sails and capes and such (...) (21 years ago, 1-May-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Isn't that redundant? [ -> .off-topic.geek ] (21 years ago, 1-May-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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(...) Just one simple question - MacOS X support? Do you intend to provide support for MacOS X? Thanks, Ed Cox (21 years ago, 1-May-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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