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There has been some talk about serving LDraw parts directly from ldraw.org, mostly
to allow rendering programs to fetch part-files over the internet.
To get a start on such a service, the parts library has been made available via
http (it's not quite current, the 2000-01 update is not posted yet). To get a
file from the online parts library, you need to go after a URL of the form:
http://www.ldraw.org/library/dat/<file>
Where <file> is the filename as it is referenced in a DAT file.
Part-files and primitives have been combined into one location, instead of being
stored in two different locations. This should save a bit on 404 errors, which
would occur if programs had to try two different paths for files. BUT, subfiles
and hi-res primitives *are* in subdirectories, for two reasons:
1. The subdirectory for a file (of these types) is specified in the referencing
part file.
2. Filenames are duplicated between primitives and hi-res primitives.
Some example URLs:
http://www.ldraw.org/library/dat/3001.dat
http://www.ldraw.org/library/dat/4-4edge.dat
http://www.ldraw.org/library/dat/48/1-4edge.dat
http://www.ldraw.org/library/dat/s/973s01.dat
For now, that's all there is: the files are hanging around, and you can retrieve
them, if you know what you're looking for.
Jacob and I have exchanged a few e-mails on how this feature could be developed,
I've listed some ideas below.
1. A list of available parts. This is pretty straightforward, it would only
require posting a version of parts.lst to the /library/ folder.
2. A mechanism to retrieve multiple files in one request. The client would have
to provide the list of files, maybe something like:
http://www.ldraw.org/library/getblock?f=3001.dat,3002.dat,3003.dat ...
3. A mechanism to query on the current library release number. This might be just
another file in the /library/ folder.
4. A streaming parts update. This would require a certain amount of groundwork,
because we'd need to have a way of 'posting' file updates to the stream, and the
client would need a way to ask for any available updates.
Anybody got other ideas? I'm not an internet-communications guru, so I'd be
interested in geekier approaches to any of this. :)
Steve
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Parts Library Posted to ldraw.org
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| It is probably a good idea to serve parts directly from ldraw.org like this. However, I would like to know if this is consistent with the terms of use for the LDraw parts library. Specifically, I seem to remember from previous discussions that James (...) (25 years ago, 11-May-00, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
| | | Re: Parts Library Posted to ldraw.org
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| Hey, great idea! Having just entered LDLite into the www.sourceforge.net archive, I think CVS would be a good way to distribute and update parts files. It sure would be easier to make sure everything was up to date, and would make a nice clean way (...) (25 years ago, 12-May-00, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
| | | Re: Parts Library Posted to ldraw.org
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| (...) Good Idea. (...) I can assume any name clashes have been sorted out? And of course there is the perreinal case-sensitvie file name problem nowe that theres LDGLIte on LINux as well... (...) developed, (...) Yes. (...) Or bypass this entirly (...) (24 years ago, 18-Jun-00, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)
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