Quick-Renderer

Basically it allows doing POV-Ray rendering directly from LDDP. It hasn't been thought as a substitution for LPub though. Clicking a button in the External Bar LDDP runs the code trough L3p and starts up POV-Ray (-pov) for a test-rendering. An additional tab in the Options... dialog offers some basic L3P settings like:

• A switch to turn On/Off the LEGO sign (-q<n> Quality level 3 or 2)
• Camera Globe position -cg<la>,<lo>[,<r>]
• Background color -b[<color>]
• Don't substitute any primitives in the P directory with POV equivalents -p
• Width and Height of the image in a combobox (160x120, 320x240, 400x300, 640x480, 800x600) should be enough for testing.
• A switch to turn On/Off the shadows

While the remaining settings like

Camera Angle -ca<a>, Always use default light sources -ld , would be hardcoded and no light source globe position would be set in order to force L3p to use its default values.

calling windz your part gets automatically the correct winding.

Integration of Edger into LDDP

Lumox's java application either as plug-in or directly coded into LDDP

 PT error check

Submitting files to the PT usually it performs some testings:

• max 64 caracter in the title
• all lines have at least one of the filetypes assigned, which is especially true for comments. a code like this would never make it through:
  
  

• correct subpart refernce in the header - on a regualar basis I forget to set the "s\":
  
  0 ~Subpart Minifig Torso with Cavalry General Pattern - Button
  0 Name: s\973pw1a.dat
  
• ... there are some others I don't recall right now

I wish I could test these before I go online to submit.

Player

Hitting the start button the cursor would go down automatically line by line based on a speed slider. This would allow watching the part or model building itself in L3Lab or LDview with "Poll to selected line only". It makes easier spot errors in your code.

Would it be possible to add a top level above:

[<Parent Group>]
<Menu Text>=<Insert Text>

'cos I already identified two new candidates:


Insert new header

Inserts the header below allowing me to delete the things I don't need and at the same time reminding me of entries I might forget:

*******************************************************************

0 PartDescription
0 Name: Filename.dat
0 Author: RealName [UserName]
0 !LDRAW_ORG Unofficial_Part| Unofficial_Subpart| Unofficial_Primitive |Unofficial_48_Primitive|Unofficial_Shortcut (Alias | Physical_Colour )
0 !LICENSE Redistributable under CCAL version 2.0 : see CAreadme.txt

0 !HELP Optional free text description of file usage
0 !HELP Second row after user's line break to simulate paragraph

0 BFC ( CERTIFY ( CCW | CW ) | NOCERTIFY )

0 !CATEGORY Category name
0 !KEYWORDS words, more words,…,
0 !KEYWORDS words in second row, …, final words

0 !CMDLINE LDraw run-time command(s)

0 !HISTORY YYYY-MM-DD [UserName] Free text description of change. This can wrap to a
0 !HISTORY YYYY-MM-DD [UserName] second row with the same date if necessary. However authors should lean toward writing longer
0 !HISTORY YYYY-MM-DD [UserName] single !HISTORY lines(and not feel constrained to the historic 80-character limit on line length)

0 // Comments

********************************************************************


Insert Linetype (Primitive?)

A new catergory above/below the Insert > META Statement inserting "empty" linetype code:

 This is more of a reminder. Now and then I do not remember if the subpart has to be written with a slash or a backslash. Get cond.lines color 24 or 16? "Man, so many "0" and "1" to type in to get a nice code for my zerobase.dat - I wish LDDP would offer code snippets".


Insert Color comments

A new catergory above/below the Insert > META Statement + mirroring in .ini entries inserting comments containing the main color names from 0 to 15. May be it's just me with my tendency towards patterned parts but I usually group my code by color, labeling it with a color comment:

 At this point I suggest to export the whole Insert menu to the Insertmenu.ini(?) file ;-). something like:

{<Sub Menu>}
[<Parent Group>]
<Menu Text>=<Insert Text>

{Linetypes}
Part=1 16 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 partname.dat
Edge=2 24 0 0 0 0 0 0
Triangle=3 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
...

{META Statements}
[BFC Statements]
CERTIFY CW=BFC CERTIFY CW
CERTIFY CCW=BFC CERTIFY CCW
...

{Color Comments}
Black=Black
Blue=Blue
Green=Green

hmm ... Standard Part Header has no sub-submenues and the content is partly tied to the options entries ...

Insert CATEGORY comments

A new menu above/below the Insert > META Statement menu inserting comments containing the category you've put on LDraw's website. You know all that brick, plate, flag, minifig, tyre ... stuff. The entries would be editable through the .ini file. BTW I'd like to see a new category: Sticker

Bendable object

Split the curve generator back out and add preview to it.

I usually work with trail'n'error to get the control points right. I generate the hose check the result in l3Lab and "Undo" the processing to get rid off the generated parts. Then I open the generator a second time. It has fortunately saved the values I entered the first time BUT I have to uncheck/check the "Manually Enter Control Points" checkbox otherwise the creator will use the previously saved values. I would appriciate that the generator saves yes the values for reuse but uses the new values for generation when I change them without all that uncheck/checking-thing. I would also like to see the "manual" currently stored in the readme.txt

Supported File Types:
73590B.DAT Hose Flexible 8.5L with Tabs (750.dat for endpoints)
73590A.DAT Hose Flexible 8.5L without Tabs (752.dat for endpoints)
Technic Ribbed Hoses (79.dat for endpoints)
Technic Flexible Axles (stud3a.dat for endpoints)
Technic Flex-System Hose (76.dat for endpoints)
Hose 12L (Parts not yet official)

Usage:
Place the endpoints where you want them. Ensure they are listed on adjacent lines
Select the two lines with the endpoints.
Select Generate Bendible Object from the Tools menu

added to the diaolog + a hint that you should insert absolute values (say that the control points are not intended relative to the start and end points like in MLCad.

Font

Have the possibility to change the font used for the triples.

Highlight triples

I do a lot of copy'n'paste of existing triples to form new edges, triangles or quads. I pick them from different lines and it would ease the choice if I could mark the candidates previously by assigning them a special color or make them bold, italic.

Split window

Because I group my parts by colors or sections and usually place the edges at the very beginning of the part and cond. lines at the end, triples which go together are spread all over the code. Instead of extracting code and group it by copy'n'paste I wish I could work in a splitted window like in MS Word.

Just a button, menu, contextual menu to "shortcut" the: 3-blank-color_number-blank, 4-blank-color_number-blank, 1-blank-color_number-blank ... entries in the text search. The dialog should offer a color chart like the one in the Search & Replace Color Dialog and their should possibly also be the chance to find the next color.


Select same items

Selects all linetype 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5

If you double-click on a value it gets selected
completely, including minus sign, integer part, fractional part and dot.


Line select mode (Philo)

In that mode selections would occur line by line. Using
Ctrl this mode would also allow selecting non adjacent lines.


Select same color

An extention of the search color feature. Selects all lines of the came color:

Icons

Export the "color randomizer" and "Rounding" to the toolbar; plus assign them a shortcut.

Process my LDView batch files trough LDDP

Call me nuts, but I would love to write my LDView batch files directly in LDDP and the run it through LDView from the process menu. I wouldn't need Notepad and all this doubleclicking-command line crap. LDDP could offer all the fancy LDView comand line commands in its insert menu and I hadn't to doublecheck the syntax time and again. Check out my batch tutorial at:
www.holly-wood.it/ldview/batch-en.html

Save comma delimited file (Gene)

I'd like (and again because I use excel to author parts) to be able to save a comma delimited file (.csv) so I can easily import into excel.

LDDP should not round values except with the rounding function
(presently many functions such as the change winding or mirror does affect
precision).

 Workaround for MLCad's stripping blank line behaviour

MLCad strips white lines (which is annoying when authoring a part). Another feature would be to auto-magically make white lines comment lines with some keyword that would later allow stripping.

New building possibilities in addition to triangle/quads combination (Philo)

* Build quad from 2 lines. Only quads planar enough would be allowed. If a vertex is common then a triangle would be created
 * Build a line/condline between 2 triangle/quads (they must have 2 common vertices)
 * Border a triangle/quad with lines
 * I would also like a quad to tri split, but since there are 2 possibilities I don't see a good way to let the user choose


Combine two quads into one quad

Same feature as the "Combine Trinagles Into Quad" function but combining 2 quads by get rid of the vertices they have in common. The resulting quad has the right vertex sequence and takes the color of the first quad. You can do multiple combination in one go by separeting the double of quads that belong together with blank lines. Lddp also checks for coplanarity and if the resulting quad would be concave. If this is the case it warns you by indicating the line number.

Before				After
4	1	0 -20 0 40 -20 0 40 20 0 0 20 0		4	1	-40 -20 0 40 -20 0 40 20 0 -40 20 0
4	4	-40 -20 0 0 -20 0 0 20 0 -40 20 0
				4	14	-40 20 0 40 20 0 40 60 0 -40 60 0
4	14	0 20 0 40 20 0 40 60 0 0 60 0
4	2	-40 20 0 0 20 0 0 60 0 -40 60 0

The mirror line should also act properly on type1 lines. Perhaps simple
rotations around main axis could be added too? (might avoid some travels to
MLCad)


Scaling

this would multiply the matrix with the entered number . Preferibly with a slider + insert box and preview.

A Plug-In just for me

it should convert the pov -ray output of my crappy cad-prog into LDraw-code by substitut commas, arrows and the rest with Ldraw relevant blanks. this code:

(lot of blanks)triangle { <-24.4472,-1.9981,16.6015>,<-24.5686,-1.9981,17.3247>,<-23.9798,-1.9981,17.3921> }

would become like this:

3 16 -24.4472 -1.9981 16.6015 -24.5686 -1.9981 17.3247 -23.9798 -1.9981 17.3921

I'd like to poll to LDView using different quality rendering modes. "Low quality" uses, no antialiased lines, no smooth curves, low quality studs, say an extremly fast rendering mode while "High quality" showes you all the beauty. I don't know it the polling menu is the right place or it is more suitable in the options dialog. May be some preset modes using LDViews Preferences will do the job may be not. May be Travis could give you a helping hand. Travis, I would also like to see something like this directly in LDview , preferibly hardcoded :-)

LDDP starts with "Poll every 2 sec". I wish I could set my prefered settings "Poll to L3Lab & LDView" "Poll to selected line only" and "Poll every 0.01 sec" in the options in order to save time because I don't have to tick them every time I launch LDDP.

Custom poll interval

Now that you provided the F12 shortcut for the winding, BFCing has gotten so fast that the "Poll every 1 sec" interval has become unbearable long. If only I could set the intervals manually in the options to 0.5 sec or 0.1 sec. + at key stroke.

LDDP should check for an external file change and propose to reload document


Custom directories

the possibility to set custom directories like in LDView and MLCad. Currently it is not possible inline parts which aren't stored in Part, P ...

Please check the coordiantes below. LDDP combines the two trinagles into a quad, while LDView will mark it as a concave one.

I still have no idea what this box is about. I thought it is a some kind of short cut for dithered colors (instead on browsing the colors you could just type in your color number but it seams to be broken.

Since we have the LDConfig.ldr file I think it should substitute LDDP's "Colors.pal"

Currently you can copy'n'paste only one value from the sheet to the replace dialog. Either the "Search for: " or "Replace with:" content has to be entered manually or by modifying the value you've just copied in the other box. It is not possible to turn back to your text, pick up another, say, triple and copy it in the other box, because the replace dialog won't allow it.