Subject:
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LPub Orientation and Half-Size LDraw files
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad
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Date:
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Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:01:24 GMT
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Viewed:
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997 times
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One of the "features" of LPub is to create part list images and bill of
materials images, modeling those concepts found in LEGO building instructions.
One of the issues I noticed years ago when I first used LPub for book authoring
was that not all the LDraw parts are oriented in a way that gives a consistent
orientation feel within a PLI or BOM.
To overcome this issue, LPub uses a file called orientation.ldr provided with
the LPub install package. When LPub needs to render a given part/color, LPub
looks to see if the part is listed in orientation.ldr. If it is found there,
LPub uses the part orientation found in orientation.ldr. If not, the default
orientation is used.
The problem is that each release of LPub overwrites orientation.ldr, erasing any
changes you might have added. It leaves me wondering if there isn't some way to
manage this file better.
I wish there was an easy way for people to update a global (in the real world
sense) version of orientation.ldr so that all could share in the modifications
of the file. I do not know of any easy way to do this for non-programmers.
Making the file available through a source code control system makes sense for
us programmers, but is it a workable solution for non-programmers?
I want to write a little program to let me walk visually through parts.lst and
orientation.ldr, displaying a rendered image of the part. The tool would then
let you perform simple rotations and rerender, until you are happy with the
orientation. In the end, you have a new orientation.ldr file for all the parts
in your system. However, this still leaves all the orientation process local
for each of us who invest in orientation.
I realise as I write that I should add the overwrite of orientation.ldr as
options at install time, to at least avoid overwriting local changes.
half_size.ldr lets you select parts to render at half the size of the natural
render. For large parts like base plates and RCX's reducing the size makes for
better PLIs. It suffers the same maintenance problems as orientation.ldr.
Anyone got good ideas on how to better manage these files?
Thanks,
Kevin
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: LPub Orientation and Half-Size LDraw files
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| (...) Kevin, Could Lpub check for a new orientation.ldr using http to some well known website every time it's started, or on demand? A CGI on the website could allow for submissions of updates for specific parts. (...) Why not have Lpub use a search (...) (19 years ago, 30-Jun-05, to lugnet.cad)
| | | Re: LPub Orientation and Half-Size LDraw files
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| (...) If you use the sourceforge, the files in CVS are automatically made available via http by the CVS web interface. I think a web page could be constructed that always points to the latest. (...) You could do this by launching any of the viewers (...) (19 years ago, 30-Jun-05, to lugnet.cad)
| | | Re: LPub Orientation and Half-Size LDraw files
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| Hi Kevin, --SNIP-- (...) I think that is a good idea. I've never changed it myself but I'd be mighty annoyed if it got overwritten. Another possibility is have one file in the LPub directory (for the defaults) and another in LDRAWDIR/LPub for user (...) (19 years ago, 30-Jun-05, to lugnet.cad)
| | | Re: LPub Orientation and Half-Size LDraw files
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| (...) What if you changed it to check for an individual (*.ori?) file for each part? If the file exists, it contains the orientation info. That way an upgrade would only add new files that don't already exist. The only problem then is if an already (...) (19 years ago, 1-Jul-05, to lugnet.cad)
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