While I usually don’t blog LDraw part updates, I’m making an exception since, as far as I can tell, it’s the biggest yet, with 601 new parts on offer. In addition to an increase in the number of new parts available, the library of 12V train system parts is almost complete. Many thanks must go out to all parts authors and reviewers, especially those who’ve recently started, and to Chris Dee (the Parts Library Administrator), Phillipe Hurbain and Steffen for the huge work they’ve put in to this latest release. And to those who’ve never heard of LDraw, or are interested in checking it out, please visit. Did you know you can make a 3D laser scanner out of LEGO bricks and a few custom parts?

Nor did I until today. Did you know you can then use your LEGO model to scan LEGO parts and turn them into 3D CAD parts to make virtual LEGO models out of? Phillipe Hurbaine () is well known for his clever software, hardware, LEGOware and general LEGO-mechanical skill but I have to say his just takes the cake. And as if making a 3D scanner wasn’t enough he has actually used it to model some LDraw parts.

Your business among over 26,000 items; Add It to Shopping CartAfter choosing your perfect template just add it to shopping cart & provide your order info. Purchase Your ProductYou can use for purchase plastic card or popular payment systems: Get Product Via EmailIn a few minutes after purchase the download link will. SR 3D Builder 0.5.1.4 free download, review. Create 3D Lego models. SR 3D Builder can construct virtual Lego models in 3D. It supports dat files, ldr files and mpd.

I think this is probably the best working LEGO thing I have ever seen. According to my post there are a bunch of readers of this blog who use LDraw. But can only work with a steady stream of volunteers to for use in new parts releases.

(I also forgot to pimp the ) Reviewing parts is a great way to get involved without having to get too technical. Has written a very what is involved and how to get involved. If you feel you’d like to give something back to LDraw this is a great way to get started. It is also a good start to if you wish to pursue that path. If you understand 3D software which can output 3DS format you can even get involved with LDraw part creation without leaving your known environment.

Simply team up with someone who does understand the LDraw file format and make and convert a file from your preferred tool to LDraw format for tidying. There are also other ways to get involved such as running for elected office (not for a year or so now) and helping out with the. If you think you might be interested in these roles please contact me privately. Remember that without volunteers the LDraw library would grind to a halt.

Fresh faces are always welcome and necessary. If you like LDraw please consider helping it. Image credit to LDraw.org, Elroy Davis () and from top to bottom. A at raised questions about the future of in the fan community. Oddly enough I feel I’ve seen a resurgence in LDraw work recently but of course like all of us I tend to see what I want to see so I figured I’d throw some questions out to a wider audience.

The first question is, obviously, have you ever heard of LDraw? And if you have do you know what it is? Have you ever considered using it but decided against it? Did you know the parts are all designed by volunteers? To quickly give an overview it’s a CAD system and associated library designed to let you build LEGO models on your computer. It’s not the editors (those are things like MLCAD, LeoCAD and Bricksmith) or the renderers (like LDView) but the system all of these use and the parts library.

Like LDD but more versatile. All the pictures in this article are recent creations designed in LDraw compatible software.

If you are a user I’d really like to know what you use LDraw for? Do you use it to document old models? Corel Photoimpact X3 Activation Code Serial Number. To make instructions?

To make nice pictures? To make things you don’t have the bricks for? To design models you later build in bricks? Other reasons? Personally I feel that LDraw has enriched my LEGO hobby immeasurably and I am constantly thankful to all the volunteers who have dedicated their time to making it such a good system. I don’t ever want to see it die a slow death and I don’t think I will.

I would, however, like to know what a newer and broader audience thinks. So please, comment here, on, or on. But please do comment if you are remotely interested. Image credit to LDraw.org, Tyler Clites (), Mike Pianta () and Robin Chang () from top to bottom. Today we feature a guest editorial by on virtual building.

As some of you may have noticed I share a lot of these thoughts with Matt and find the prejudice against LDraw to be quite thoughtfree. Anyway, I’ll pass you over to Matt.

Thanks to Andrew and Tim for the chance to share some of what I know about. First off, I want to make it clear that by no means do I represent the entire LDraw community; I’m only one of many virtual LEGO builders out there. What I’d like to share is this: Five things you might not know about LDraw: • LDraw is free.

Anyone can download and use LDraw (and MLCAD and all of the associated programs), and the most often-used rendering program (called POV-Ray) used to create the 3D images is also free. Get started at • LDraw’s parts library is both unlimited and limited. Anyone who’s used the program knows that the extensive part library allows you to click and drag into your virtual model to your heart’s content. But since LDraw is not officially licensed by LEGO, all those parts files are created by everyday users out of polygons and groups of polygons called primitives. And since nobody’s getting paid for their work, the creation of parts is slow and up to the community. Takes these parts and releases official parts updates periodically after ensuring that each part meets their quality requirements; however, no official parts updates have been released in over 5 years. Parts that are created in the meantime get placed in the “unofficial” parts library on the LDraw website, but have varying degrees of quality and mistakes until they are approved as official, and some parts that you might hope to find simply haven’t been created in LDraw yet.

For example, the minifig heads with facial expressions other than the benign-looking smile, as well as all of the new male and female hairpieces, all pieces that have been available for years now in real life LEGO pieces, are still unavailable in LDraw. • LDraw has its own unique challenges. It is true that gravity and tension are not something you need to worry about in LDraw: as the program is basically placing bricks in a 3D space, it is possible to place a 2×4 brick going right through another 2×4 brick, something virtual builders call “impossible building.” This may be why some people consider LDraw to be less of a challenge than building with actual LEGO pieces. But building pieces at an angle, something that may require only the positioning of a hinge piece or the click of a bracket in real life, is much more difficult in LDraw. Anything built using is harder than in real life.

Large models become very cumbersome in LDraw. Doing these things is possible, but they require complicated extra steps involving multi-part files and careful aligning of connections and angles. • Publishing LDraw models can also be a challenge, something that can become more complicated than photographing with a lightbox. LDView is a great program that creates a clean-looking image of your virtual moc in seconds. But for those who want to approach the realism seen in some of the virtual modelers who’ve been featured on Brothers-Brick before, you need to learn how to use POV-Ray: a free ray-tracing program.

POV-Ray allows you to place light sources, floors, skies, backgrounds, and other tools to enhance your model’s presentation. POV-Ray also has a feature called radiosity which is something that adds a lot of light and realism to a render, but also stretches out render times to several hours or even days. There are a few tutorials out there on how to use some of these advanced features with POV-Ray; Brichkhelf user Koyan’s is one that I have used. • Virtual LEGO and real-life LEGO can complement each other. Say you’re wanting to build a new model, but you don’t have all of the pieces you need. You want to make sure you can fit everything together the way you’re imagining. You can build it in LDraw first to best visualize your model.

Then you know exactly which parts you need to order on Bricklink. Or here’s another scenario: you’ve just built an amazing model out of pieces that you have, but another contest comes along that requires the use of pieces that are tied up in that last creation. You hate to have buy new pieces this time, so what do you do? Build it in LDraw and save a virtual version of your model, so that you can archive it forever and free up those precious bricks.

I hope I’ve helped broaden your views on LDraw and virtual LEGO in general, and hopefully I’ve dispelled some of the misconceptions that cause virtual entries to be prohibited from competing in LEGO contests.

Quick guide about how to install lastest SR3D in your PC (Windows 7 o newer) I have uploaded the lastest free available version(0.9.7.81), you can download it. SR3D uses a very particular software and windows functions to run in and it is hard to get it running correctly.

Usually when try to install SR3D in your PC the installation finish correctly without any advise. But when you try to execute the program and error message window appears and you can't use it. I bought a new PC a few months ago and I spend more than 6 hours to find a solution to get the SR3D work properly. I downloaded the newest drivers for all PC devices, newest DirectX, all Windows updates, trying with older SR3D versions, anything you can imagine and nothing worked. But finally I found a very easy solution for this problem. Actually I don't know why it works, but it does.

This solution worked for in two differents PC, so I hope it work for you too if you can't get the SR3D run correctly. 1 - Uninstall any version of SR3D and LDraw you have in your PC. 2 - Download the lastest version of LDraw All-in-One which included SR3D Builder, it was the 2013_1_v1 version. You can download it 3 - Instant LDraw software tools including at least MLCad, LDraw and SR3D Builder (0.8.9.16 version), I recomend install all tools because they need just a few MB in your HDD. 4 - When the LDraw installation end open SR3D, and finish the instalation (rebuild part list).

5 - When SR3D finish it must work properly with all its functions, but it is not in the lastest version. Then you can keep in that version if you want, or upgrade it.

6 - To upgrade it just close SR3D and install the lastest version (0.9.7.81) normaly. When the instalation finish it should work properly. Now if you want you can upgrade LDraw if you want to any version you wish.

I hope this short guide can help you. Anonymous said. I got it to work like this: (no Ldraw or any of the other programs pre-installed which come the the 'All-in-on-installer') 1.) Installed latest dot-Net framework, and DirectX module 2.) Downloaded SR3D installer from your link (see above: version(0.9.7.81), you can download it HERE) 3.) On my computer the program was installed into this folder: C: Program Files (x86) SR 3D Builder 4.) During installation a window will pop up asking you to unpack the self-extracting archive 'FullDownload.exe' 5.) If you simply click [OK], then it'll extract into the same folder. 6.) The self-extracting process will create these folders: Conns, Images, Images_L, Model, p, parts, Temp, TPart, Unofficial. 7.) These are the folders, SR3D tries to find when it asks for 'Choose base LDraw Folder (the one you choose for extracting part library)', so select the parent folder, in my case folder 'C: Program Files (x86) SR 3D Builder'.