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When authoring new elements, how important is the level of detail in LDraw
format? That is, for more complex curves and surfaces, is it necessary to
get as close to the real thing as possible? As an alternative, is it
acceptable to get pretty close (like the way the 8-8sphe.dat primitive is
"close" to a true sphere in LDraw) and to inline some POV-Ray code to make
the finished product look extra nifty?
Dave!
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In lugnet.cad.dev, Dave Schuler! wrote:
> When authoring new elements, how important is the level of detail in LDraw
> format? That is, for more complex curves and surfaces, is it necessary to
> get as close to the real thing as possible? As an alternative, is it
> acceptable to get pretty close (like the way the 8-8sphe.dat primitive is
> "close" to a true sphere in LDraw) and to inline some POV-Ray code to make
> the finished product look extra nifty?
For general features, the standard rule of thumb is to model details which are 1LDU
or larger. To cleanly model some features, you certainly can run into decimal places
-- I typically go to 2 or 3 decimal places in part files. Any use of the curved
primitives is considered 'exact' -- if you use 1-4edge.dat, you are drawing an
'exact' arc of a circle. We know it's really a 4-segment polyline, but the intent is
for it to be an arc of a circle.
AFAIAC, the jury is still out on inlined POV-Ray code. I'm not real keen about
coding another graphic language into LDraw parts, so I would recommend doing it with
restraint.
Steve
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In lugnet.cad.dev, Steve Bliss writes:
> In lugnet.cad.dev, Dave Schuler! wrote:
>
> > When authoring new elements, how important is the level of detail in LDraw
> > format? That is, for more complex curves and surfaces, is it necessary to
> > get as close to the real thing as possible? As an alternative, is it
> > acceptable to get pretty close (like the way the 8-8sphe.dat primitive is
> > "close" to a true sphere in LDraw) and to inline some POV-Ray code to make
> > the finished product look extra nifty?
>
> For general features, the standard rule of thumb is to model details which
> are 1LDU or larger. To cleanly model some features, you certainly can run
> into decimal places -- I typically go to 2 or 3 decimal places in part
> files. Any use of the curved primitives is considered 'exact' -- if you use
> 1-4edge.dat, you are drawing an 'exact' arc of a circle. We know it's really
> a 4-segment polyline, but the intent is for it to be an arc of a circle.
>
> AFAIAC, the jury is still out on inlined POV-Ray code. I'm not real keen about
> coding another graphic language into LDraw parts, so I would recommend doing
> it with restraint.
Hi Steve--
Thanks for taking the time to answer so thoroughly. All I can say is
that I'm glad I'm not modelling official elements! Clone brands have quite
a few odd cones, arcs, and domes that just don't fit the official
primitives, and if I approximate the shape with linetype 2- and 4-
statements, I get an unattractively faceted appearance. A couple of people
(including you, IIRC) helped me out greatly by going over the basics of
POV-Ray inlining, and it's been a godsend. If I model any real LEGO bits,
I'll avoid the inlining, but for MegaBloks et al, I guess I'll keep it in place.
The problem for me hasn't been at the LDraw/L3Lab/MLCad level but rather
at the POV-Ray level, where the faceted surfaces really look shoddy compared
to the real elements. That's not a criticism of the systems per se; after
all, I can't mouse-click the elements in POV-Ray to move them around! It's
just that I like the smoothed-out final image, and I don't want to pester
Lars to accommodate any clone-primitives I might come up with!
Thanks again,
Dave!
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