#ldraw

I decided to give it a go with modeling the Lego chaumière with software! This is giant leap from trying to put bricks together. I have never really used CAD or 3D software in any meaningful way before, much less for a specialized need like Legos.

I started out by looking at what’s already out there. LEGO underwhelmed right away as their own software has not been maintained in years. There are a bunch of apps for phones and tablets but this scale of a project simply won’t go anywhere with such an inefficient UI (lots of dragging and opening and closing option panels). Luckily, I soon found that there is an open standard for Lego modeling for CAD software called LDraw.

That’s way more interesting than whichever software I’m using because it means thousands of people have already contributed parts to this centralized open library using this format, so whatever I decide to adopt I can count on this being fairly reliable in how it translates every brick into a drawing on the screen. Thank you nerds!

It also means it will respect a schema and naming convention for colors that corresponds to what real Legos look like and some of the software may even assist in putting together a build manual once I’m done creating a model I’m happy with (ha, look how adorable I am imagining life ~36 months from now)

The documentation seems ok with extensive info on the format as well as the part list that is regularly updated as people add to it. It shares the same taxonomy as other popular Lego collections like Rebrickable where I have all my parts listed.

That takes care of the Lego-specific part of this project, the rest is going to be me learning how to use 3D modeling software. There are many seemingly good options; I’m starting with Bricksmith.

Trying out Stud.io I made this virtual and alternative version of my contest entry model. I tried alternative colours and alternative parts that I either don’t have or would be too old to use this contest (and that I don’t have anyway :P).