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Subject: 
Re: Parts Library Posted to ldraw.org
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw
Date: 
Sun, 18 Jun 2000 10:01:34 GMT
Viewed: 
757 times
  
In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, Steve Bliss writes:
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.


Good Idea.
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.

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...

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.

Yes.

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 ...


Or bypass this entirly and work with IP packets directly!


3. A mechanism to query on the current library release number.  This might be
just another file in the /library/ folder.

Yes, needed another CGI script?


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.


Try looking at a system called Soft CD.

Anybody got other ideas?  I'm not an internet-communications guru, so I'd be
interested in geekier approaches to any of this. :)

Well from a Computing student here in the UK, here are some ideas:

work using http::/ request as above- might be cumbersome but easy to do.

Use SoftCD from a central server.  Not good. Limits on what can be done.
Proprietay technology.

Write and publish a protocol standard to be implmented in furure DAT browsers.
When writing or adpating a DAT browser the code to do multiple part requests
over the net could be built into the code! Most OS-Platforms now suppourt BSD
style Sockets?

Of course to do that would need a protocol standard... As well as a custom
written server. Know any C programmers? :-(

Another technology you might wnat to examine is the Common Object Resource
Broker Architecture. This is a framework used for development of Distributed
Systems.  It is now an international standard. I also see To recall that a
number of freeware tools for working with it were availble on the net...

Alex



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Parts Library Posted to ldraw.org
 
(...) I was hoping to keep at a level that most semi-geeks can grok. I don't think there's a need to move to the demi-geek level. ;) (...) Right. One or the other. Steve (24 years ago, 19-Jun-00, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)

Message is in Reply To:
  Parts Library Posted to ldraw.org
 
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 (...) (25 years ago, 10-May-00, to lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw)  

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