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Subject: 
Re: "Tore's" boxes, special file naming instructions
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.cad.dev, lugnet.cad.ray
Date: 
Thu, 30 May 2002 08:48:56 GMT
Viewed: 
967 times
  
In lugnet.cad.dev, Michael Horvath writes:
I looked in the primitves directory and saw that some of the files in the 48
directory had the same filename as those in the P directory.

After a year or so of thinking - well I have thought of other things, too :)
- I have come to a decition that suits me and my needs. I work with large
.DAT models (Datsville) and I mainly use my own utilities towards L3Lab and
L3P. I suppose most LCad software will accept it but of course not actively
support it.

Since some software won't accept the *.box files at all (I don't remember
which ones) and since my solution gives the opportunity to keep the files
relatively well organized, this is my decition:

I keep my simplified parts in the PARTS\B folder and my simplified models in
MODELS\B or a \B folder in the model's folder. Instead of \B, I could have
called it BOX, MIN, TTORE, or whatever, but I wanted it to be short to
minimize the typing when manually editing. I could have had more folders for
all different kinds of minimizing, but that would have made the programming
and program usage exponentially more complicated. Besides, L3P offers a
great deal of simplification for preview purposes.

When it comes to model simplification, I have put it on an almost invisible
level: Just replacing those bricks and plates that have no visible studs.
For example, a reference to 3001.dat is simply replaced by B\3001.dat. So
far, I've just simplified Town Hall and Datsville University. When rendering
Town00.dat and Town01.dat together and with just those two buildings
replaced by their B\ versions, 40% of parsing and rendering time was saved!
I could think of two other useful levels of simplification: On is very
easily achieved: replace all bricks and plates with their box alternatives.
This saves about 60% of the rendering time and works fine on distant objects
(though they turn a little brighter due to fewer shadows). The other is more
attractive and would probably save at least 95% of the time, but also much
harder to do: replacing walls and maybe even roofs! That could call for a C\
and D\ system, I don't know, and I don't really like the idea. So for now, I
settle with the first level.


If 3001.box is renamed to 3001.dat, and I place it in the /primitives/boxes
directory, will this screw Mlcad?  Currently, I've added the "X x X Box"
description, so that they will be categorized properly by description if the
*.dat extension is added.

It will certainly not! Sadly, I lost your box files with descriptions but I
now have 54 box style .dat files in my PARTS\B folder.

I don't expect this B\ system to officially endorsed by the LDraw community,
but it's a pragmatic solution - or at least a step towards one - useful for
us who wish to render LEGO towns.

/Tore



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: "Tore's" boxes, special file naming instructions
 
I looked in the primitves directory and saw that some of the files in the 48 directory had the same filename as those in the P directory. How does Ldraw/Mlcad differentiate between these files? If 3001.box is renamed to 3001.dat, and I place it in (...) (23 years ago, 13-Sep-01, to lugnet.cad.dev)

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