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momwise
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| Posted: June 01 2005 at 10:06pm | IP Logged
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I just moved this over here from Rabbit trails........
Has anyone had any experience with the Lego Software Power Tools?
I would really like to order this for my ds for school but I am so afraid our system won't support it. We already tried to download Digital Designer from the Lego site and our graphic card was the wrong one. We tried to load the program to a cd but apparantly you can only put it on your hard drive. My ds is trying to be patient but he is soooooo anxious to use this software. Any comments?
Thank!
Gwen in Denver
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theNetSmith
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| Posted: June 01 2005 at 11:06pm | IP Logged
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Gwen-
after reading your post and the customer reviews on Amazon, i ordered the book! it just sounded too cool. i guess i'm the king of impulse buying today.
in any case, i will come back and post here after it arrives to let you know whether or not i experienced any difficulty installing the apps.
-Tim
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momwise
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| Posted: June 02 2005 at 7:53am | IP Logged
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Thank you!
The problem we had downloading Digital Designer was with the size of our graphics card; which they say can't be changed because of the type of computer we bought (Dell). However my ds will be getting another computer, so we'll be eagerly awaiting your review!
God bless,
Gwen in Denver
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theNetSmith
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| Posted: June 02 2005 at 11:05am | IP Logged
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Gwen-
I just downloaded and installed MLCad and it looks like a great program. You should give it a try in place of the Digital Designer program, as I don't believe it has the same steep graphics card requirements.
Steps to download/install:
- Create a folder called C:\LEGO
- Download ldraw.zip (~1MB), saving it to the C:\LEGO directory
- Download complete.zip (~5MB), saving it to the C:\LEGO directory
- Download mlcad311.zip (~1MB), saving it to the C:\LEGO directory
- Extract the ldraw.zip file to the c:\lego directory
- Extract the complete.zip file to the c:\lego directory
- Start -> Run... -> c:\lego\ldraw027 -y
- Start -> Run... -> c:\lego\complete -y
- Start -> Run... -> c:\lego\ldraw\mklist (when asked, type 'D' for Description)
- Extract the mlcad311.zip file to the c:\lego directory (it should create a subfolder called MLCad_V3.11)
- Run MLCAD.exe from the c:\lego\MLCad_V3.11 directory
- You will be asked where the ldraw files are located -- type in c:\lego\ldraw and click OK
An online MLCad tutorial can be found here: tutorial.zip. Create a folder called c:\lego\tutorial and extract the tutorial.zip file to it, then double-click on the tut_eng.html file in that folder to begin.
I've really tried to consolidate and simplify these instructions as much as possible so that anyone can try it out. NOTE: This version of MLCad is for Windows users. I don't think they have a Mac version. 
Let me know if you have any problems.
-Tim
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momwise
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| Posted: June 02 2005 at 5:01pm | IP Logged
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Wow! Thanks Tim. This will be one of the programs on the CD right? Because I'm not planning to leave it on my computer...I'd never get on here again 
God bless,
Gwen
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theNetSmith
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| Posted: June 03 2005 at 12:03pm | IP Logged
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yes, it will be on the CD that comes with the book. i don't think the programs that are collected on the CD would be that difficult to find on the Internet, but according to several of the reviewers (including some who have experience with the various software applications), the book does a much better job of explaining how to use the programs than any other resource. that is why i bought it for the boys.
-T
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momwise
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| Posted: June 09 2005 at 5:28pm | IP Logged
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Hi Tim....
Did it arrive?
Gwen in Denver
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theNetSmith
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| Posted: June 10 2005 at 12:10am | IP Logged
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As a matter of fact, it arrived today!!! (* looks at clock -- er, yesterday  *) Quite a while to get here, but if you want to take advantage of "Super Saver" shipping (or whatever they call it), you have to pay some price...grr.
I have it sitting in front of me on the desk here, but as you can see by the timestamp on this post, I'm not going to get to it tonight. I haven't forgotten my promise to give you feedback, tho!
-T
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momwise
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| Posted: June 10 2005 at 9:12am | IP Logged
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No hurry......
13 yo ds figured out how to download a free brick CAD program and he even got it to write to a CD, which I was clueless about. Now he's all over the net picking out CAD freeware for room plans, house plans. Looks like a budding architect or designer is getting his start, and at the beginning of the summer too! Who needs school?
God bless,
Gwen in Denver
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theNetSmith
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| Posted: June 13 2005 at 9:05am | IP Logged
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Gwen-
As I suspected would be the case, Nicholas (11) and Zachary (10), wasted no time jumping into (and fighting over) the new book.
According to what I've gathered from Nicholas, the book covers the features of whatever version of MLCad was available when the book was being written, and the latest version (which I made available for download in my previous post above) is different in some respects.
So, to be able to do everything exactly as is described in the book, you would want to install the version of MLCad that comes on the CD with the book.
The boys have already taken some of the instruction manuals from LEGO kits they own and reproduced the models step by step in MLCad. Pretty neat.
I, personally, am hoping to find time to use MLCad to produce a model of the floorplan Janette and I are working on for our new house in order to get a 3D representation -- closest we could get to a virtual walk-through, anyway. I'll keep you posted.
To summarize, I think you could spend enough time with the software to learn most of its features and capabilities without the book, but the kids are really getting a lot out of having it.
-Tim
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4Real Forums : High School Years and Beyond
Topic: Lego Software
