Aaron Klapheck's Website

• LDraw is a collection of Computer Aided Design (CAD) software programs that allows users to create virtual LEGO models.
• MLCad - In this software one does the actual building of the LEGO model. It contains 3,000+ LEGO pieces that one can drag into a 3D editing environment where they can be placed and assembled to form a LEGO model.
• LDView - This optional software provides a nice 3D view of your LEGO design which one can rotate and view rapidly. This software can be used to view your LEGO design quickly before rendering it professionally in POV Ray.
• POV Ray - (Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer) This software produces the photo-realistic computer rendering of any LEGO model. This is where most of the coding takes place; most scenes require 1,000+ lines of code. The code describes lighting, shadow rendering, camera angles, and background to list a few. POV can also be used as motion animation software.
• L3PAO - This conversion software transforms MLCad files into POV Ray files. This software is essential because it handles almost all of the coding for you using an intuitive GUI system.
• LPub - This is the last in the line of software used to create the finished product, that is your LEGO design. This software takes your finished MLCad designs, renders every part and every step in POV Ray, then creates a website and publishes the results to it.

This is my very first time using LEGO design, so if there is anyone out there who wants to improve on my design you can download the MLCad file in zip format, Boe-Bot.zip, and update the design.

Although it may not look like much, this software allows you to spin the model around and view it from many different angles; I found this very useful.

This GUI system is a huge time saver as it generates the 1,000+ lines of code for you. The main editable features in L3POA are camera and light positioning, background color changing, and floor creation.

As you can see, POV Ray creates photo-realistic pictures of your LEGO projects. The photo quality can be enhanced as experience is gained in using POV Ray - I have only been using POV since yesterday so you can imagine the level of photo quality from a person experienced in POV. The detail that goes into rendering shadow, reflection, and perspective can be breathtaking. I have included the coding for the above POV Ray files listed from left to right: Boe-Bot_L_F.txt, Boe-Bot_T.txt, Boe-Bot_F.txt, Boe-Bot_fl.txt, Boe-Bot_wa.txt.

The LEGO Boe-Bot Rotated

This is a rough example of how your LEGO designs can be animated. This is done through rendering a series of still shots in POV Ray and using video software to combine these shots into a motion picture; sort of like a flip book. One can view the POV ray file, Boe-Bot_video_POV.txt, to see if improvements can be made. In addition to the POV file there is also an ini file, Boe-Bot_ini_file.txt, which is used to obtain the number of still frames POV will take. After this I then used video editing software to combine the shots into the finished animation which can be viewed to the left.

See how to build the LEGO Boe-Bot , compare to professional LEGO building instructions.

The LEGO Draw software above is very easy to use. I downloaded the software Friday morning, went through six of the online tutorials in the afternoon, finished building the LEGO Boe-Bot Saturday morning, and officially published the LEGO Boe-Bot Saturday evening. I went from knowing nothing about LEGO design software to building, rendering, and publishing 100+ images and animation in just two days! The best part is that all the software listed above can be downloaded for free in one easy to install application package, I was just surfing the net Friday morning and stumbled across it.

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