Suggestions for the Workshop
d.schultz started this discussion in Suggestions and Ideas

Here's a few suggestions I have for the Workshop, specifically.

  • A method to temporarily cut away a section of the model, to more easily access the inside
  • An instruction builder, something like Lego Digital Designer or a number of the other 3D modeling programs
  • More robust part search. Reference the part number that includes the color to the basic part number already listed. This would be especially useful so that you can search the number in an instruction manual instead of having to go to bricklink, then back to mecabricks. This gets tedious.
  • Undo functionality, like CTRL+Z
  • It may be beneficial to rework some of the shortcuts to bring them more in line with the shortcuts of major modeling software like Inventor or AutoCAD
  • Mirror functionality
  • Easy decal/sticker creator, for those bricks that have stickers stuck to them. The bricks that have printed graphics, should indeed be their own brick, but those with stickers should have a way to slap the sticker on and snap to a certain surface of the model.
  • In the same token, it would be cool to be able to generate the graphics, brick graphics or stickers, so that someone can print them out and build the model
  • Malleable strings/chains/ropes/tubes. It goes without saying, this is a much needed function or else the parts library will be filled with 6-100th generation copies of virtually the same parts. LDD even has it. It would also promote using those elements to make your own designs, and could prove interesting. It should be simple to create 5-10 moveable nodes on each part. You could even introduce a gravitation element so that strings and chains fall as they should.
  • Updates to part snapping. I had the most trouble with parts that had holes and I needed things to line up. A shortcut could be introduced to activate "advanced" snapping mode, where each part would have even more snapping nodes, just so that it doesn't get in the way of builds that should remain simple.
  • A "parts bucket". Basically, this would be a way that you could select all the pieces you need, to include colors right away, and put them in sort of a tab, that could later be selected and placed. This would be extremely helpfully in finding out what pieces still need to be modeled before publishing. If you had instructions for a set, you would go through and place them in your bucket, find what you're missing, model them, etc... Your bucket is saved when you exit the workshop, so that you can add parts to it. This may also be a good place to be able to pull the parts listing from. It may take some load off the code that extracts that data.
  • Orthographic, non-projected view option. When clicking on front, back, right side, etc... it give you a perspective view depending on where center is. A non projected view would be great.
  • An official parts/colors section, maybe a tab
  • All other/custom parts/colors section, maybe a tab
  • A click and drag/snap feature, like LDD
  • Addition of "specific to color" part numbers on parts list
  • A PDF download option. This could include instructions, but mainly because who uses CSV 😃 unless you code. User friendly would be nice though.
More…
104 replies · Page 5 of 6

Thanks! I didn’t know those were the official ones. As I said in the other posts, I like to use online instructions for stuff, and I had the bricklink reference catalog pulled up for the set I was building. The reason I asked about the colors was because I like to be able to double check, and I’m colorblind, which makes it hard.

Could you maybe do the colors like you did the parts easier than you could link the two tabs?

Without the added confusion?

Hi all,
First of all - thanks for developing Mecabricks, cool!

My question is around Duplo and may have been answered elsewhere but I can not find a search function in the forum...

With some MOCs I use Duplo bricks, 2x4 to gain hight and stability, before then putting on 2x4 Lego bricks to get back to standard stud size.

Looking around, I see others do similar and some MOCs look really funny inside 😃

Would it be possible to;

Thanks !

And another suggestion while at it 😃

Usually I build with a specific set of parts I have available or which are kind of on stock at home, or more or less affordable. So it's maybe just a "small" selection of parts I then use in a MOC. Finding these in the continuously growing database of parts, takes quite some clicking around and searching.

How about a personal favorites part list with a direct access to the last ~50 parts I used, regardless of what category.

  • List would be personal, stored on mecabricks.com, independent of project
    -- [alternatively the personal list could also be stored and loaded similar to a project?]
  • one list, estimate of ~50 or configurable maximum
  • optionally the list has a [minus] on each item to remove from the list
  • list is populated automatically by adding new unique selected part at the end of list until full
    -- [optionally] simplistic statistic in backend, limited to the personal favorites list keeps them sorted by placed or selected x times, so the most used are on top
    -- [alternative] personal list is configurable by "add to favorites" directly on the part selection or on the not yet populated favorite list as [+] , no automatic population

Might not even be too complicated to implement, I hope 😃

Thanks!

As I'm trying around, here something else:

The export of parts list as described in https://mecabricks.com/en/forum/topic/296 is fine but fumbly. Not everyone will anticipate to search the forum for this solution. Some MOCs may not be ready yet to be "published", but I'm more interested to see how expensive it will be or prepare for LUGbulk.

Would it not be possible to adapt https://www.mecabricks.com/en/account/library so that next to "property" and "links" a third item would display "Inventory" with the same functionality from "Inventory" on https://www.mecabricks.com/en/models/ABC123, including the parts display list.

Essentially re-using your code that generates the HTML lines below :
...

<div id="data-inventory"> Download model inventory: <a href="https://www.mecabricks.com/en/inventory/ABC123.csv">CSV</a> | <a href="https://www.mecabricks.com/en/inventory/bricklink/ABC123.zip">Bricklink XML</a> <div id="inventory-colour-wrapper"> <div id="inventory-colour-select-wrapper"> <div class="label"></div> ....

Would make life so much simpler and not much coding 😃
Thanks!

btw. looking at code in: https://www.mecabricks.com/en/models/ABC123 I found some code that made me laugh; new term of AFOL?
...

<div id="warning"> <div id="warning-title">Warning: Adult Content</div> ...

Hi Scrubs,
May have missed above lines or I have not seen the response?
thanks!

Fully understood, thanks for your time!

Avatar of Scrubs
Administrator

Hello jcc.basel,
I read your message but I am spending all my time to complete this new part system which will be the future of Mecabricks for many years. The code you mentioned is really old and would deserve to be updated. It will be rewritten at some stage and will include these modifications.

Hi,

I'm thinking this will probably be an outright no and understandably so, but what's your opinion on maybe having a custom brick section. My thought was as people are designing and 3d printing so many custom bricks now (e.g. František Hajdekr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/hajdekr/49141025892/in/dateposted/) maybe we could have a locked parts library each where only we can use our own designed parts. I understand this opens a whole can of worms and would probably need a huge amount of regulating to keep this under control.

cheers

Johnny

Avatar of Scrubs
Administrator

@JohnOShea That is another complicated one. Not so much technically but more management wise. I am working on bringing custom decorations first. It will be a first test to see how people deal with custom assets and what the challenges are for me.

Hey? How about making a new mode. So you can actually walk in the creation and open doors. But don't make cars drive. Don't make it so you can live in it. Just so you can get a better look.

i think that a collision mode would be useful
it would help with some designs
i am currently building an x-wing and i need to be able to turn a piece on the top and it turn two side parts, probably to open the wings

also, you still haven't answered my last post

It would

also, some of the newer parts are missing, such as BB-8 (Double Sphere 2X2X1 2/3, W/ Knob, No. 3 + Mini Hat, No. 8, No.1)
also new minifigures

@misterboss4, please use this thread for part requests, https://www.mecabricks.com/en/forum/topic/50

With the new update, I can no longer see the color name of the selected part.

In the Object Tab of the info panel to the right of the screen, it only lists the color code under the Materials section. Am I missing where the color name was moved to, or is the color code only going to be shown? I find myself clicking on a part, seeing its color code, then hovering over each pallet square to try to match up the name/code. Could we maybe have the name listed along with the code.

I'd also be interested in seeing the Object tab list where the part is located in the catalog. It's faster for me to find most parts once I've located them in the catalog categories, but some items I can only find by searching by part number since I haven't figured out what category they're listed under. Perhaps along with the Reference #/Name in the Part section of the Object tab, it could also list the part category.

Thank you for all the hard work and continued efforts!

Avatar of Scrubs
Administrator

You have valid points. I will look into that once the storm of the new release will be over 😉

My laptop doesn't handle the new workshop system too well in Studio and HDRI modes, so I have to use the Flat lighting mode. However the edges all have the same colour. Could you bring back the old edge colouring system where the colour of the edges depend on the colour of the parts ?

Avatar of Scrubs
Administrator

@Jeff No it won't happen. That introduces too many issues compared to the benefits. However, I want to work on adding a rendering quality setting.

Avatar of Scrubs
Administrator

@Jeff let me know if it helps
https://i.imgur.com/ThlvXRC.jpg

It seems to help yeah. Thanks for the fast update Scrubs ! 😄

While building based on a reference, I had an idea. This is another feature that is in Blender, so yeah it was the inspiration. What if it was possible to load a reference image into the workshop? Currently you can have a color as the background, but it would be nice to not have to be switching tabs to compare all the time, and you could line it up to check dimensions.

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