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  pictures at tracker
 
Hi all, I have a suggestion about the tracker. Everytime when I search for a part at the tracker I must download .dat file to see if it's the right one. So I would suggest that there could be a picture at the tracker. Not directly in the list but at (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Perhaps the offscreen rendering version of ldglite could be used at ldraw.org to generate these pics on the fly in a CGI script? Don (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I think this is a great idea. How well does it work for primitives and subfiles, though? If this could be done it would really increase ease of use of the tracker. Rather than putting it on the detail page though, I would suggest the Peeron (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Don, do you want to work on this? If you do, I can point you in the right direction, as far as scripts to alter and such. It's been my plan to use ldglite offscreen for this. But we should cache the images after they're generated, since CPU (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) It wouldn't be too hard to apply different zoom amounts, based on the file's subdirectory. It also might be nice to apply some other analysis to the file being displayed - use a different scale/viewpoint for baseplates, zoom in on very small (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Um I think I hit send too fast because I *was* talking about the list page... the detail page probably should just always show the image but on the list page, let the user toggle. Right now the list page is one big list though, which is very (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
Here's a wacky idea for the detail page. Would anyone be interested in a java applet on the page where they could actually zoom in/out and rotate the part without DownLoading the Dat, or starting any other tools? I'm not sure how different this (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Technic Gears
 
The 24 and 40 tooth gears in my MLCad system are described as needing more work. I've got all the updates loaded and have run mklist. Are these parts being worked on? I hate to ask for this kind of thing, but I've had my head buried in the RCX for (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(I thought I'd replied to this already, maybe I forgot to click Post? Or maybe this will be a duplicate...) (...) Ah, ok. That makes sense. (...) Yes and no. Serving up 500+ images on a single page could be considered counter-productive. I (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Probably. Depends on how big (bytes) it is. And what (if anything) needs to be specially installed on the user's machine (I'm fairly ignorant about java applets). And how powerful it is. (...) If it runs in the browser, it would be noticeably (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
Steve Bliss wrote: > In lugnet.cad, Kyle McDonald writes: > >>Here's a wacky idea for the detail page. >> >>Would anyone be interested in a java applet on the page where they >>could actually zoom in/out and rotate the part without DownLoading >>the (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I thought a java applet doesn't have access to the local file system for security reasons. A java application on the other hand can access the current local parts library, but you can't run that from a browser without jnlp or something like (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) It can access the local filesystem if the user grant it permission to do so. Signing the applet can help with this also. The Java WebStart/JNLP thing is another alternative that I might explore. It would allow the user to start the application (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Yes, all the individual files are available. Getting a zipped version would require looking at two or three different files (sort of--I'm ignoring that rogue "linux downloadable", that doesn't play by the rules). Steve (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I suppose we should get back to figuring out an appropriate agreement that makes packaging (and thus also downloading) the whole parts library in a single file "non-rogue". Jacob (who is guilty of creating the rogue "linux downloadable") (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) This is the approach I prefer. Jacob (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) That's settled, then. ;) One other problem -- ldglite needs to search both the unofficial and the official libraries for files. Otherwise, we can't be sure we're picking up the right subfiles. Steve (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I take it the unofficial libraries follow the same directory structure. Should it try unofficial files first, or should that be a commandline option? Should it have an option to save the pics in a similar directory structure? Right now I think (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) There's another problem with it too - if the main part file is uploaded before the sub-parts / primitives, it may display with incorrect older versions, or none at all. Maybe there needs to be a scan when a sub-part / primitive is submitted to (...) (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: Technic Gears
 
(...) There's a new version of the 24 tooth on the parts tracker here (URL) but not certified yet. You'll need to download all the required sub-parts, too. Use at yer own risk! ROSCO (22 years ago, 15-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Hey... this is starting to sound like build/make dependency analysis. Any chance of getting good old "make" itself to do the work of figuring out what needs to be regenned when a file is uploaded? The dependency calculation seems (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Yes, that's correct. (...) Would it be best to have a commandline option like -LIBPATH=libpatha;libpathb;... where the libpathX are all paths to any number of LDraw part libraries? Otherwise, yes, for this purpose it needs to look in the (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) That'd be fairly straightforward to implement. The PT already keeps a dependency file. Or two. And there's always grep... Steve (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) That seems reasonable. The dependencies are fairly straightforward, and can be checked by simple mod-date comparision. (...) Hmm. Can it deal with files being in subdirectories? Like, if the search path is /home/tracker/unoffi.../official, and (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I forgot to mention - the files total to several megabytes - not something you want to redownload every time the applet starts up. (...) *sigh* yes, we should. Steve (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Well, not sure. Bear with. Remember that make doesn't actually make things. Or find things. It just uses other programs to make them or find them based on production rules. In this case it's actually LDGlite that needs to find the correct (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Yes. Even if you had to go back and forth one part at a time, it would be better than having to download the DAT file each time. I hear you about not downloading 500 images but there is a lot to be said for Peeron and the contemplative power (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Actually, when it does it's timestamp comparisons to decide if things need to be made, it *does* need to find them. See my other post. -Kyle (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
Steve Bliss wrote: > In lugnet.cad, Larry Pieniazek writes: > > >>Hey... this is starting to sound like build/make dependency analysis. Any >>chance of getting good old "make" itself to do the work of figuring out what >>needs to be regenned when a (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Lots of this stuff can be done different ways, but I think I should have written those as: in 3001.dep: 3001.pic: 3001.dat stud4.pic box5.pic stud.pic and in stud.dep: stud.pic: stud.dat 4-4edge.pic 4-4cyli.pic 4-4disc.pic [Note .dat changed (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I was thinking it could work like Peeron's [ref] links, and pop up another window. Not a great solution, but easier than having to remember to right-click the hyperlink all the time (IMO). (...) I agree. But I think (and I could be wrong) that (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Hmm. I don't think that would quite work -- files with duplicate names can exist in different subdirectories of the library. Sometimes this is on purpose, sometimes it's accidental. Would it make a difference (good or bad) if the files are (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) And thinking about it, I don't really think images for sub-parts & primitives would be super useful - generally these would be certified in conjunction with a part which references them, no? ROSCO (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Generally, make doesn't search at all - the program which creates the dependencies pinds the right version & sticks the path in there with it. See "man makedepend" which is the program that does it for C sources. All make does is check the (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  RE: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I'm going to step in here and volunteer my efforts as a make expert to the group. I use make every day and have an extensive system that allows me to build embedded software for multiple platforms and hardware versions from one source tree, (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Actually, I like Larry's suggestion about using symlinks better. Could the parts tracker maintain symlinks to all the official parts in the unofficial library. If a new version comes in, the symlink gets replaced with an actual file. When the (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Now that is a way cool offer! Awesome! (...) Me too. I don't USE make every day but I know it's one of the niftiest things there is in the computer world. Make can make *anything*. Well, just about: $ make love make: do not know how to make (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  RE: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I'm just now restoring all the messages from this thread (I wasn't sure I could help until make came up :-) I'll review them and see if I can do anything that makes sense. Hopefully the result won't be: make: *** No rule to make target (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Yep, that's the right place to focus. I think Rosco may be right too, subpart images are not as useful. Does that cut the volume down at all usefully, though? (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  RE: pictures at tracker
 
Larry Wrote: (...) This is the key point - if ldglite needs to have things in certain places in order to work correctly, the output of our make sessions needs to set up that structure correctly. (...) Yes, symlinks are super-powerful (and (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I think you and Larry are right. I'd prefer to keep a separate library of symlinked files. That way, the unofficial library stays clean. And I don't have to change any of the existing scripts that read through the unofficial library. So, when (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker  [DAT]
 
Replying to a couple of things at once (and resisting the urge to XFUT lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, which should have happened 30 messages ago...). (...) That sounds great! That's if it's ok with Jacob. (...) We've basically got one, although it might (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Sort of. Primitives should stand alone, and not be considered intimately tied to the file(s) which use them. And it's still useful to see what the subparts look like, especially when the descriptive title is somewhat undescriptive. Steve (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) There are 139 subparts on the tracker now. I'd say that's a fair percentage of the 661 total files. Another place that I think images would be useful is in the "required files" and "related files" lists on the detailed pages. In those lists, (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) not*"building*, no... but *make*-ing is quite feasible since it would be incremental and unless the upload was a major major basic primitive, not of huge effect, right? I am thinking that you run make as a background job from cron every 2 min (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) So something could be written that would convert this to Make format or it could read the files themselves. (...) Yes, because the s/ is in the datfile, and if it was kept in the dependency file, Make would look for s/973s01.dat in all the (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  RE: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Thanks. I knew that keeping make in the toolbox would come in handy! (...) Me too, but sometimes you need to make sure! (...) Yes. (...) Exactly. Inference rules can take care of this. Another option would be to run one of: make all - builds (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Right. But Ralph was asking about *building*, not *make'ing*. :) (...) Err, I'm not seeing how that would work. The symlinks would have the same names (and file extensions) as the actual part files. If we introduction a production for .dat, it (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Or the something that creates the file could write the Make format itself. (...) OK. The current dependency file already includes the location (up to p/ or parts/), but if that work could be pushed off on make, it might be worth it. (...) I'd (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) The reason I suggested this is not necessarily volume, but ease - if you limit images to top-level parts, all you need to do is when a part is uploaded, go through your dependency list, and re-image all top-level (non sub-) parts that use it. (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  RE: pictures at tracker
 
All, I've got my Linux system runnig on the test machine, now I need to ldglite up and running. I got the mesa lib, but does anyone have a pre-built version of ldglite I can use? I'll work on things this weekend and let you know how things are (...) (22 years ago, 17-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Nothing is ever missing from my Linux systems, but I may (more or less consiously :-) have decided that it should not be there. Jacob (22 years ago, 17-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Yeah, but that would be doing the job of make -- reinventing the wheel, so to speak. It should be easier to maintain a dependency file for each unofficial file, and let make figure out what needs to be updated when. Side thought: Kyle (...) (22 years ago, 17-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  RE: pictures at tracker
 
(...) In order for make to process stuff properly, I'll need to tell it the order in which directories shold be searched for dependent files because that information is not in the DAT file itself. We need to build different graphic images (and (...) (22 years ago, 17-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Pre-built? What?!? I thought you were the local make expert. ;^) Seriously though, If an expert at make can't build ldglite then what's the point of the linux instructions. Give them a try: (URL) grab ldglitesrc0_9_5.zip instead of 0_9_4, and (...) (22 years ago, 17-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  RE: pictures at tracker
 
(...) that means I'm lazy too! I was *wondering* why there were no pre-built binaries avaialable. (...) I already got those last night - I just haven't had enough personal CPU cycles to go through the build procedure myself. Nice docs on the linux (...) (22 years ago, 17-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I guess because I'd have to make a bunch of binaries, one for every conceivable linux distribution, and being an engineer myself, I'm lazy too. :) I provide prebuilt binaries for certain closed-source operating systems though because they (...) (22 years ago, 17-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) You listed the order correctly. Unofficial/parts, Unofficial/p, Official/parts, Official/p. (...) For now, let's limit ourselves to discussing graphics images. Some of the distribution files *can't* be built on the server -- I haven't found (...) (22 years ago, 17-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) But we already know exactly when an image needs updating! Using make, you still have to decide when to execute the make command, I'm saying the obvious time to do it is when a file is submitted (update it's image and all those which depend on (...) (22 years ago, 18-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I have to disagree: we don't 'know' exactly when an image needs updating. We have the information needed to figure out which image(s) need updating, but it's in a form that still needs to be sorted through. Sorting through it isn't too hard, (...) (22 years ago, 18-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Yeah, the the only output file option was the one for ldraw output without the ldlite macros. That's probably what I was thinking about. If you want to do some testing I just built a preliminary version of ldglite 0.9.6 on ldraw.org that (...) (22 years ago, 18-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) What format are the current dependency files in, and when are they updated? ROSCO (22 years ago, 18-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) They're in a tab-delimited text file, each line contains a super-to-subfile dependency, the status of the subfile - official, unofficial, or not found, and the title of the subfile. Like this: parts/3001.dat p/stud.dat official Stud The code (...) (22 years ago, 18-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  RE: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Steve, I'm kinda busy here this morning, but I'd like to get going on the project soon. For now, I'll do the development offline on my machine, and when I think we're reasonably far along, I'll get acces to the box for testing. Can you send me (...) (22 years ago, 18-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  RE: pictures at tracker
 
All, I have finally figured out what the essential character of the job of generating images for the parts tracker boils down to... Here's how I see it. 1. Official parts live in one actual, real file tree 2. Unofficial parts live in another actual, (...) (22 years ago, 19-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) And when do they get generated? My point being, that's the obvious time to generate any images that depend on the part as well. So how I'd see it working is: 1. Author submits part / subpart / primitive. 2. Your script generates dependencies. (...) (22 years ago, 19-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) I put a zip file containing the ldglite sources with the -MSfilepath patch on the sourceforge at: (URL) I had to tweak one line of code to get it to build with the old version of Mesa used on ldraw.org. It should work for Mesa 4.0 and above (...) (22 years ago, 19-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) According to Google it seems to be possible: (URL) will check it out. (...) If you can tell which files were deleted, then make _can_ remove them (`zip -doT archive.zip deleted files`). Jacob (22 years ago, 19-May-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) As some may have noticed (did I mention it already? I don't remember now), there are now images for some files on the tracker. An example is at (URL). I'm having a problem -- ldglite sometimes saves the image, and sometimes it doesn't. And (...) (22 years ago, 4-Jun-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Hmmm, it seems to skip the "Write PNG" message if I pass it an empty DAT file. Checking the source, it appears to silently fail if it doesn't find any pixels to save a picture of. It'll report "bmpsize = something" before writing (or skipping) (...) (22 years ago, 4-Jun-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Ok I patched it. Give it a try now. Don (22 years ago, 4-Jun-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Ah. I think that makes sense - the missing files I'm sure of are all subpart files, that are unlikely to have edges. (...) Heh. *That* library isn't actually the LDRAWDIR. Well, it is and it isn't. In order to render correctly, I've (...) (22 years ago, 4-Jun-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) :) Oh, it's trying, all right. The one file I was missing is now there. The remaining missing files should be online in the next little while. One thing I noticed a few minutes ago: some images aren't coming out right. Look at (URL). That (...) (22 years ago, 4-Jun-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Eeek! The old ldglite color bug on ldraw.org rears it's ugly head again. I guess I should go back and review this thread. (URL) now it sounds like you can work around it by skipping the -Q switch for antialiased lines. The Pics won't be quite (...) (22 years ago, 4-Jun-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) OK, I'll do that. Steve (22 years ago, 5-Jun-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Actually I think I've finally fixed this one. I did some testing on ldraw.org and I think I fixed it by inserting an extraneous glFlush() after all color changes. This really looks like a bug in the old version of Mesa on ldraw.org. I did a (...) (22 years ago, 5-Jun-02, to lugnet.cad)
 
  Re: pictures at tracker
 
(...) Great! I'll try it out. :) Steve (22 years ago, 6-Jun-02, to lugnet.cad)

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