Subject:
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Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct
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Date:
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Wed, 30 Apr 2003 01:56:11 GMT
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Viewed:
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2494 times
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In lugnet.cad, Jake McKee writes:
> It's targeted at kids and novice users, so it's not meant to "compete" with
> the powerful tools that have been developed for the LDraw file format.
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 compete with tools that have been developed for the LDraw
file format?
Sorry, I'm not trying to be a thorn in your side, Jake. I'm just getting
mixed signals. Some of my data is old, so I understand that things may have
changed significantly.
When Brad Justus spoke of this 2 1/2 years ago, he said specifically that
LEGO wanted to release a file format for parts, with the intention being
for that format to become the standard for interchange of LEGO models online
and among friends in person. He said that LEGO would provide tools for
converting between LEGO's proprietary file format and LDraw format (and
vice-versa) but that LEGO wanted to control the LXF file format. Now I
didn't get the impression that LEGO wanted to compete head-to-head against
LDraw per se but that LEGO was more concerned about some competitor (e.g.,
Mega-Bloks, etc.) coming in and beating LEGO to the punch and establishing
itself as the de-facto standard first, which would weaken LEGO's position.
Brad asked us for our opinions on how this might be received when it was
pitched to the LCAD community. We said it probably would be received well
but expressed concerns over the nature of the file format. I said that I
thought it would be well received *if* LEGO could reassure people that the
file format would be well documented so that anyone could write their own
tools, and not have to go through a proprietary SDK to read and write LXF
files, and that it probably would not be well received if the file format
were completely proprietary, binary, and undocumented. Suzanne said that
she hoped people in the community didn't end up feeling used after all is
said and done. All in all, we thought it would be received well, regardless
of the details of the file format.
Anyway. I didn't sign an NDA back then, so I wasn't able to get very many
details...only what was volunteered by Brad. I've kept silent on this since
Nov 2000 out of respect for the fact that this project wasn't public, but now
that the LXF file format project and DD is announced publicly, I think it
would be great if we could all talk about our concerns publicly, for those
of us who have concerns.
Whether or not LXF is designed to "compete" with LDraw isn't really something
that worries me... What worries me is wondering what life will be like in a
world where LXF files can only be manipulated via an SDK, and where we won't
be able to create our own parts in LXF format if LEGO doesn't provide all the
parts.
I see at least one way that LEGO benefits from having tools like MLCAD support
the LXF format, but if the LCAD community is not in the target market for this
product, what does the LCAD community gain by supporting the LXF format? I'm
worried that all the good LCAD developers will, two years down the road, be
bound by NDA and restricted somewhat in freedom of movement. For example,
what if LEGO has come up with some totally ingenious method for encoding
part connections, and that method is covered under NDA? It would hard for
the community to implement the same method in LDraw format or some successor
of it.
I'd love to be wrong, though. But part of my job is to be skeptical. :-)
> As they learn, they would hopefully graduate to more complex powerful LEGO
> building tools.
This sounds encouraging! :-) Do you mean that Digital Designer 1.0 is but
the first in a sequence of ever-more-powerful and exciting software coming
down the pike from LEGO? Do you think LEGO ever might release something as
powerful as MLCAD?
> - Will your new building applications open DAT/LDR/MPD files?
> Probably not, but we hope to provide some tools for translating DAT/LDR/MPD
> into LXF.
What about the other direction? Will LEGO be providing tools for translating
LXF files into DAT/LDR/MPD?
> There are many complex issues involved and we will be asking for
> information from the LDraw community to help with this goal.
Yay, I'm glad to see this level of interaction!
BTW, will this input take place publicly or behind closed doors?
> [...] We would definitely like to see the tools necessary to go back and
> forth between the two formats, because there is a lot of great stuff out
> there in the LDraw file format.
Does LEGO plan to release software that converts both directions or would
the LXF->LDR conversion be left to the community? If the latter, would
that developer be bound under NDA?
> - Are you going to release a parts library?
> It makes a lot of sense for us to release parts, as LEGO is the source of
> all official parts anyway. However, we do not yet have a complete plan for
> how or if we can do this, and it's highly unlikely that we'd be able to
> release every part all at once. Your input on this issue is more than
> welcome; please tell us what would be useful for you.
It would be useful to me to be able to download new parts as individual files
as well as ZIP-file collections. I wouldn't mind paying a licensing fee to
use and adapt the parts.
I assume I won't need to pay a licensing fee to publish LXF files on the
Internet.
> - Is the LXF format going to be open, will you publish it and will we be
> able to extend it?
> We will provide all of the necessary information in the SDK so that
> independent developers can make their own tools that use LXF. However, as
> many developers will tell you, it's good to try and manage the growth of a
> format to some extent, so we would like to maintain the official list of
> what the format includes.
I understand that answer to mean that we will not be able to extend the
format. How about the first half of the question, just so we understand
100% and can put speculation to rest. :-) Will LEGO be publishing any
documentation on the file format itself? Will that documentation be freely
available or will a person have to sign an NDA in order to obtain a copy of
it?
Thanks,
--Todd
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | 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)
| | | 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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