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When the Lego Universe Team has started to share rough data of 80 parts
http://www.ldraw.org/Article489.html and soon after I've got feedback from part
authors that because of their excellent quality those parts were heavyweights
and would give us a hard time reducing the file size I was curious to what
extend I could strip them down. After approx. 10 working hours my part was cut
by 92%.
After I had chosen the “44572.dat - Hinge Panel 2 x 4 x 3 & 1/3 Locking” from
the L(EGO)Draw parts chart at http://www.ldraw.org/Article490.html I added my
name to the chart (kind of easy with admin rights ;-) to let people know I was
working on the part.
First I compared the part with the similar and already certified „2582.dat -
Hinge Panel 2 x 4 x 3 & 1/3” in MLCad. I was wondering if the LEGO Universe Team
had done a good job on the overall size and orientation. The part was excellent
but to my amazement it had an offset of 0.4 LDU on the x axis and the studs were
way to small.
After correcting the position and substituting all the quads and edges building
the studs with the „stud2.dat - Stud Open“ primitive I tackled the section with
the Click-lock hinges. The click-locks created with the stl2dat conversion tool
were 0.25 LDU larger on the x-axis than our primitive „clh4.dat - Click-lock
hinge half dual finger for bricks and plates“ is (deside the fact that clh4.dat
makes usage of cylinder primitives to get a smoother look)!
We know that the source for the L(EGO)Draw parts are the original shapes,
created for the molding machines – in short they are the REFERENCE. A this point
I had to take a critical decision: fix the clh4.dat and all the parts using the
primitive (and there are quite a lot) in order to be faithful to the REFERENCE
or fix my part. I opted for the latter. I can live with a 0.1 mm tolerance – if
you cannot feel free to fix clh4.dat. As a side note it might interests you that
LEGO's part designers in Billund use Rhino http://www.rhino3d.com/ for
prototyping and not SolidWorks as suggested by the stl2dat conversion tools – as
I was told by the LEGO Master Builders present at the 1000SteineLand 2007 in
Berlin.
Using Syncedit http://news.lugnet.com/cad/?n=13926 (strangely it is not listed
on Anders' website) through LDDP I trimmed all the figures where the click-lock
primitives touch the body. Furthermore this involved deleting/fixing the
superfluous triangles and quads.
Back in MLCad the next step was getting rid off of 50% of the overall file size
by cutting the part in two and deleting one half of it. It was clear right from
the start that I would subfile most of the code to allow patterned versions and
since I can mirror the subpart using the matrix there was no need for an entire
part.
With the LDraw Primitives Reference http://www.ldraw.org/library/primref/ at
hand I once more looked out for portions of the part I could replace with boxes
and cylinders.
Finally I run the rest of the code through LDDP's Error Checking, fixed
non-coplanar quads or code with bad vertex sequence I had messed up when I cut
the part in two, sorted and BFCed the part by polling to LDView. Last step was
subfiling plus sanding the header using DATHeader.
The original L(EGO)Draw part weights 173 KB. The version I submitted to the PT
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptdetail.cgi?f=parts/44572.dat is (including the
subpart) 14 KB! Thx to Philo and Mike the part needs only a review by the
PT-Admins to be shipped.
w.
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Thanks, Willy, for this very informative article... I discovered many things
(among them, Syncedit that looks VERY interesting - how did I miss its
announcement???).
In lugnet.cad, Willy Tschager wrote:
> When the Lego Universe Team has started to share rough data of 80 parts
> http://www.ldraw.org/Article489.html and soon after I've got feedback from part
> authors that because of their excellent quality those parts were heavyweights
> and would give us a hard time reducing the file size I was curious to what
> extend I could strip them down. After approx. 10 working hours my part was cut
> by 92%.
Here you had a favorable situation with mostly flat surfaces. Similarly I
reduced the size of 59349 by 96%... It is much more difficult for parts such as
47844 (http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptdetail.cgi?f=parts/47844.dat) with high
resolution curved surface.
> We know that the source for the L(EGO)Draw parts are the original shapes,
> created for the molding machines – in short they are the REFERENCE.
Are they really? Case in point, 55615 part. Check this image, showing rendering
of LEGO Universe Project file and a photo of the real part
(http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Philo/Misc/55615.jpg). See the differences in
center pinhole collars and orientation of pins...
> Thx to Philo and Mike the part needs only a review by the
> PT-Admins to be shipped.
You're welcome ;o)
Philo
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In lugnet.cad.dat.parts, Philippe Hurbain wrote:
> > We know that the source for the L(EGO)Draw parts are the original shapes,
> > created for the molding machines – in short they are the REFERENCE.
>
> Are they really? Case in point, 55615 part. Check this image, showing rendering
> of LEGO Universe Project file and a photo of the real part
> (http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Philo/Misc/55615.jpg). See the differences in
> center pinhole collars and orientation of pins...
hmm ... looks like we got the "ideal" version as it has been projected by the
part designers but the part was modified during the production.
fact is we stick to the actual part as it comes out of the box and we will have
to get rid off the collars and save even more triangles and quads. fact is also
we asked the LEGO Universe Team for DATA and got PARTS - more than we could ever
hope for and there is no way to blame them for their efforts!
w.
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Willy Tschager wrote:
> Using Syncedit http://news.lugnet.com/cad/?n=13926 (strangely it is
> not listed on Anders' website) through LDDP I trimmed all the figures
> where the click-lock primitives touch the body.
Hey! I have a user :-) Cool!
Now I *must* update the web site...
--
Anders Isaksson, Sweden
BlockCAD: http://web.telia.com/~u16122508/proglego.htm
Gallery: http://web.telia.com/~u16122508/gallery/index.htm
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In lugnet.cad.dat.parts, Anders Isaksson wrote:
> Willy Tschager wrote:
>
> > Using Syncedit http://news.lugnet.com/cad/?n=13926 (strangely it is
> > not listed on Anders' website) through LDDP I trimmed all the figures
> > where the click-lock primitives touch the body.
>
> Hey! I have a user :-) Cool!
>
> Now I *must* update the web site...
it's a fine prog, anders! nonetheless I really wish it were a part of LDDP and
not just a plug in - it doesn't allow polling to a viewer while I edit figures
and to me visual feedback is crucial.
BTW could you please check why Syncedit wipes out all the code when I launch it
and hit "cancel" immediately afterwards without eny editing?
w.
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