Subject:
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Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad
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Date:
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Wed, 30 Apr 2003 06:06:08 GMT
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Viewed:
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2381 times
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In lugnet.cad, Jake McKee writes:
> I can totally respect that. I would just ask that you give the benefits
> equal thought too. What do you get by buying in?
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.
But if that's the case, then why wouldn't the LCAD community just raise the
LDraw format's capabilities to the level of LXF's capabilities and forget
about native LXF support?
Additionally, if LEGO releases parts in LXF format, and someone writes an
LXF-to-LDR converter, what's to be gained by adding native LXF support to
tools like MLCAD when it would be easier simply to convert all the LXF parts
to LDR parts?
Also, if LXF promises increased modeling capabilities (because it's a lot
more sophisticated file format), why will developers spend their time
learning to work with a proprietary format when they could instead be
developing a free and open format? (I'm not saying they won't, I'm just
having a little trouble seeing the motivation.)
It seems to me that the real gain here for the LCAD community, long term,
may simply be exposure to cool algorithms and data structures. To really
benefit from these doesn't require recoding software to support the LXF
format -- only enough to understand the cool stuff well enough to
reimplement it in an open and free way. But maybe that won't happen. Maybe
enough people will be fine with using a proprietary file format that it will
reach critical mass.
> I swear that we are not the "big bad company", and we aren't out to take
> advantage of anyone.
I hope I didn't give them impression that I thought that. I think LEGO is
acting in what it believes to be its best interests from a business
perspective. My questions arise from the belief that what's in LEGO's best
interest, however, isn't necessarily the same thing as what's in the LCAD
community's best interest. I think having an additional file format to
choose from (LXF) sure is a nice thing, especially if it opens new doors.
But clearly a free and open file format would serve the LCAD community's
interests better than a proprietary format. Obviously LEGO believes that a
proprietary format will serve LEGO's best interests. Time will tell. It
worked splendidly for Adobe.
> [...] We have no interest or intention of releasing a
> standard file format that doesn't allow the community to add their own
> parts.
Yay!
So why didn't you just say that in the first place? :-)
BTW, does this mean that people can add their own unofficial versions of
official LEGO parts, or will people only be allowed to add unofficial
non-LEGO parts? (I realize that probably sounds like a dumb question, but I
just want to clear up any possible ambiguity on what "their own parts" could
mean.)
Can people add MEGA-BLOKS(R) parts or do they have to stick with LEGO(R)
parts? What if someone creates and releases a library of MEGA-BLOKS parts
in LXF format?
> As mentioned in the announcement, for the forseeable future, the
> LDraw format and LXF will probably live side by side.
When you say "in the forseeable future," do you mean that LXF may replace
the LDraw format someday as the format of choice among cadders? Would LEGO
like to see LXF replace LDraw someday? Or would LEGO like to see LXF and
LDraw co-exist indefinitely?
> [...]
> By the way, the thing that we "want" from the community on this
> collaboration is not to have you write software for us, we are already
> working on that (Digital Designer). Rather we felt it was important to share
> as much as possible with you in order to help drive community.
What if the community embraces the _concepts_ regarding how to describe
parts, but ultimately rejects the LXF _file format_? (I don't mean that as
a hypothetical question -- I think it's a real possibility, albeit small.)
> Imagine if
> the original Mindstorms software had focused on kids, but we had also
> released the details of the RCX to the AFOLs at launch. It wouldn't have
> made much difference to the kids market, since a 10-12 year old wouldn't
> have developed NQC, for instance. But man, it would have made it easier to
> develop that language.
Hmm, well, I think people wanted to program the RCX directly because the
software that LEGO released with it was designed for kids, while the RCX
hardware itself was powerful enough for adults. It's entirely clear to me
why people would want to program a sophisticated piece of hardware like the
RCX, but it's not entirely clear to me why people would want to make tools
which read and write LXF files when the only LEGO product that supports LXF
files is designed for kids. I guess it's kind of a chicken and the egg
problem, huh?
> More information tomorrow!
Ok, thanks for shedding light on questions tonight! Looking forward to more
of your answers tomorrow!
--Todd
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | 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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Message is in Reply To:
| | 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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