ildaGen - ILDA file creation tool

[Grix]

Looks like there is a weird way of saving the ild files, looks like it saves it in both ilda 0 and 5 format at the same time. Will there be a way to specify what format of ild you can save the files in?

Looks promising!

It is supposed to save in format 5 to avoid the hassle with palettes. Can you explain the problem further? Exporting seems to work fine on my end. The only thing I can see is that the null header at the end of the file is defined as format 0, but that is intentional and shouldn't matter. Laserboy also does that.

[colouredmirrorball]

Be aware that format 5 is 2D! You should save as format 4 if you produce 3D data.

It might be a good idea to add support for format 0 as most cheap SD card readers use this with the default ilda 64 palette. If you don't want to do that, I know of a little free tool that can easily convert between formats

I'm not sure if it's a good idea to suddenly change formats for the end-of-file header. Cheaply written parsers might crash on that.

[Bradfo69]

Very nicely done web site. Downloaded & paid for.

[james]

It is supposed to save in format 5 to avoid the hassle with palettes. Can you explain the problem further? Exporting seems to work fine on my end. The only thing I can see is that the null header at the end of the file is defined as format 0, but that is intentional and shouldn't matter. Laserboy also does that.

Huh! That's funny. I never really thought about that.

I guess if the section has zero elements it doesn't have any characteristics to make it any one of the formats in particular ..... except it can't be format 3!

James.

[Grix]

Be aware that format 5 is 2D! You should save as format 4 if you produce 3D data.

It might be a good idea to add support for format 0 as most cheap SD card readers use this with the default ilda 64 palette. If you don't want to do that, I know of a little free tool that can easily convert between formats

I'm not sure if it's a good idea to suddenly change formats for the end-of-file header. Cheaply written parsers might crash on that.

Currently the program is only able to make 2D frames. If there is enough interest for 3D drawing, I will add that sometime and then I'll support format 4 too of course. Same with format 0/1/2, I can add it if there is interest but it's not the top priority right now.

But I can get the null header format thing changed in the next version at least, to be on the safe side.

Very nicely done web site. Downloaded & paid for.

Thanks! Feel free to contribute to development by suggesting features you'd like!

[-bart-]

Nice initiative. Order placed!

I would like to see a point counter, and ways to adjust the number or points per object and the point per dot, but that might exceed the scope of this program.
Full screen functionality ?
A radial grid (24?) would be a novelty!

Should the [dots at start and end of a line] button be disabled for [dotted blanking] and [solid dotted line blanking]?

[Grix]

Nice initiative. Order placed!

I would like to see a point counter, and ways to adjust the number or points per object and the point per dot, but that might exceed the scope of this program.
Full screen functionality ?
A radial grid (24?) would be a novelty!

Should the [dots at start and end of a line] button be disabled for [dotted blanking] and [solid dotted line blanking]?

Thanks for purchasing and for all the suggestions!

You can see the number of points in the whole file when exporting. It will be easy to make it show the amount of points per frame during editing too, I will add that in the next version for sure.

You can already adjust the number of points to some degree, using the resolution button (text "RES" with an image of what is supposed to be part of a low-res circle but looks like an octagon). This will let you change the number of points per distance, in other words the level of detail. Once the object is placed is cannot be changed though. I can probably make it retroactive, but that will take some work. Should I make it a priority?

By "point per dot" do you mean choose the number of overlapping points in a dot to make the scanner stay there longer? If so, I can implement that, possibly in the next version.

I can add full screen functionality, but it can be more or less work depending on how. I can easily just stretch the window to fullscreen, but I assume you don't just want it stretched, but rather get a wider and thus more detailed drawing area? That can get a bit tricky because all screen monitors are not the same resolution, etc.

If you hold the "S" key, a radial grid will appear. However it will also snap the mouse to the grid. I can add an option to show the grid without snapping.

When dotted blanking or solid dotted blanking is selected, the "dots at start and end of a line" does nothing, so it doesn't matter. ..Well actually, now that I think of it, maybe it is actually making dots at the end of the line that is overlapping with the other dots, I can't remember. If that is the case, you should be able to spot it if you play with the color, set it to for example red with 30% alpha. Two overlapping red dots should then appear brighter than a single dot because the alpha values are added when previewed on the screen. I don't think I have actually tested every single tool combination, so you might discover something unexpected by experimenting.

[-bart-]

I love the simplicity of this tool! It lets you create point based shapes in seconds, that I *never* figured out to make in the BEYOND draw editor.

S key works fine, don't change it. A is nice too, maybe you should explain the linecolors better in the manual.
It reminds me of the smart-snap points as found

With radial grid I mean something like this.
I already discovered the square grid.

Res is not so intuitive to me, I think Dens(ity) is better, point density is a more common terminology.

If you would make the window resizeable with a fixed aspect ratio, that would be perfectly fine with me.

When I minimize ildagen to taskbar and restore it, I get an error message. (WinXp-32bit)

[Grix]

Thanks! That is great to hear

I will add the line color explanations to the manual. For now, the two green lines mark the center of the screen, gray lines mark the start and end point of objects, red lines are symmetrical to the gray lines, allows one easily place two objects symmetrically.

Oh, I see, I misunderstood the grid thing. I will see what I can do about a radial grid, shouldn't take too long to add.

I will also see what I can do to make the resolution/density button more intuitive, and making the window resizeable.

Hm, can you take a screenshot of or copy+paste the error message?

[-bart-]

Are you familiar with the smart-snap-points as used by most modern cad programs, also sketshup ?
If you move the mouse close to a point that is a;
Midpoint, endpoint, center of an object, intersection of two objects, special points on a circle, at multiple lengths of a line, etc;
it is automatically recognized as a snappoint.
If you were to implement this it would be an laser industry-premier afaik.

Here at home win7-32bit, no problems, except the drawing area is not redrawn/updated when I restore it from the taskbar.

The winXp error might be due to some corporate voodoo invoked on the my documents folder @ work.