Video Made with Sketchup: James Bond Lego

Fun and expertly-produced video made using SketchUp and SketchyPhysics.

LDraw .dat Importer for SketchUp

My simple .dat importer for Sketchup is now avalable on bitbucket.

It is very "prototype", but is still useful if you want to get difficult LDraw (Lego) parts into SketchUp.

This plugin could do a lot more, but I don't find a lot of time to work on it; which is why I create the bitbucket repo.

Lego Architecture

I'm sure many of you have seen the new architecture series coming from Lego.

I was curious about the size of buildings. Assuming the bricks in this image are standard bricks, then this is about the actual size of this model.








I posted a .ldr file here.

The House That Jeff Built

Jeff Lummis recently finished a great little Lego house (set #4956) with his daughter - he sent pictures.

He thought some readers might like to build it, and I thought that was a cool idea too. So, trying out my plugin, I was able to load SketchUp with all the parts needed to build this set (except this one part.) The plugin fetches the Peeron page for the set, parses out the part #, quantity and color, and then populates the model with Components.

The plugin needs a SketchUp library of components whose names match the part number in the inventory. I have about 100 parts of the library finished, and will be making it available with the plugin.

This is a publicly-editable model, so download it, work on it, and upload your changes. (I reserved the right to approve changes.)

When it's finished, I would like to test another part of the Lego plugin - creating build instructions from the model. At first I thought printed instructions were what I wanted, but why not just use SketchUp - the SketchUp model IS the instructions.

By using Scenes, you can step through each step of the build. In a model like this (bottom-up), the steps can be mostly automated because each vertical layer of bricks can be assumed to be a step. And that is exactly how this image was created.

Small Lego Gallery

I created these images while writing the ldraw importer - sort of as a "screen test" for Lego parts in SketchUp. Nothing terribly interesting, but there they are.

I was going to post the model also, but I seem to have lost it. Oh well, here's Obi Wan and Luke's Landspeeder:

Importing Lego Sets in SketchUp

I'm testing a new feature for the LDraw/SketchUp system. Just enter a set # and the plugin downloads the parts list and imports all the parts from the Peeron inventory. Here's set 208-1, for example.

Little House, Dormer Build Sheet

This is a contact sheet built from images exported from A SketchUp model. The model is not mine and was importer using my SketchUp LDraw importer plugin. The plugin uses the STEP command in the LDraw file to create a new SketchUp::Layer for each Step.

With all the Layers in place, Scenes can be automatically added, and animations created using SketchUp's built-in animation features.

Model: Little House, Dormer

 

Lego (LDraw) Build Instructions in SketchUp

I've been playing around with Legos in SketchUp (again). I've added some cool features to the importer - like creating build steps on import, and color coding each step. Each step also gets its own Layer, so you can toggle them on/off as you like. I hope soon it will be possible to create high-quality build instructions right from SketchUp.



The exporter works alright the way it is, but I'm working on incorporating the same build-step system into that. The user would need to create a Layer for each Step in the build.

Once that is done, you should be able to use SketchUp for the entire lego design and build process. The exporter is LDraw compatable, so you can load the output into any other LDraw software you use.

I have some ideas about lego-specific tools for placing and rotating parts, but we'll see how that goes...

The updates are not ready yet, but hopefully soon (a week?)

Lego Color Library

Here's another fun SketchUp material library built from a Lego color description file. Click the image to download these classic colors as a SketchUp Material library.

Plugin: ldraw.rb

The ldraw.rb can import ldraw.org .dat files.

The ldraw format does not lend itself well to SketchUp. In a nutshell, ldraw was developed at a time when parts were created in a text editor by hand. So to make that easier, dozens (if not hundreds) of primitives were created upon which parts were built. So when you load an ldraw part into SketchUp, the parts are pretty heavy with nested components and duplicate edges. I might add an option to "explode primitives." That would create a single component per part, and take care of duplicate edges.

Another major problem is face orientation. Faces are drawn arbitrarily facing in or out.

Yet, if you need a complex part that already exists in ldraw, this plugin can be a time saver.

Download ldraw.rb


House With Porch by Jeff Stebel