LEGO Digital Designer

From Research Realm
Revision as of 02:41, 12 March 2025 by Ringtail Raider (talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
LEGO Digital Designer
Developer(s)
Initial release24 July 2003; 21 years ago (2003-07-24)[1]
Final release(s)
Windows4.3.12 / 30 July 2019; 5 years ago (2019-07-30)[2]
macOS4.3.11 / 12 December 2017 (2017-12-12)[3]
Operating systemWindows, Mac OS X
Platform
SuccessorBrickLink Studio
Available inEnglish, German
TypeComputer-aided design
LicenseClosed source (Freeware)
Websiteldd.lego.com

LEGO Digital Designer is a discontinued computer-aided design (CAD) application for LEGO models. It can create and edit LEGO Exchange Format .lxf files. The original version was developed by Qube Software and released in July 2003.[note 1] In 2006 the LEGO Group moved development of LDD to an internal team. Version 2 released in early 2007 and featured a new engine and interface. In 2016 the LEGO Group announced that LDD was being defunded, though it continued receiving occasional updates into 2019. LDD was officially discontinued at the end of January 2022 in favour of BrickLink Studio.

Features

Several of the starter models in version 2.3.15

History

During the development of Creator: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, work began on Project Arena.[5]: 15–16  Previous attempts at LEGO building software in the wake of SPU-Darwin had included the three LEGO Creator titles by Superscape and the 1997 Dacta software LEGO CAD.[6]

LDD was announced in April 2003 and released in July.

LDD was announced by LEGO Direct's Jake McKee on 29 April 2003.[6]

Later

Version 3.0, released in Novemver 2009, dropped support for Power Macs:[note 2] a "special version" that retained PowerPC support, 2.3.20, was released alongside 3.0.[4]

Notes

  1. ↑ The LEGO Group has at several points claimed LEGO Digital Designer was released in 2004, including in their 2022 announcement of its discontinuation and in episodes 5 and 43 of the podcast Bits N' Bricks; episode 47 of Bits N' Bricks accurately reported its release as being in July 2003.
  2. ↑ In 2005 Apple announced that its Mac computers would switch from PowerPC processors, which they had used since 1994, to Intel x86-64 processors. The switch happened between January 2006 and October 2007. See Mac transition to Intel processors at Wikipedia for more information.

References

  1. ↑ "News". Qube Software. 24 July 2003. Archived from the original on 31 July 2003. 24-Jul-2003 – LEGO Digital Designer ships!
  2. ↑ "setupldd-pc-4_3_12.exe". LEGO.com (Executable file). 30 July 2019. File date (obtained via wget). Archived from the original on 10 September 2019.
  3. ↑ "SetupLDD-MAC-4_3_11.zip". LEGO.com (ZIP file). 12 December 2017. File date (obtained via wget). Archived from the original on 24 August 2018.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "LEGO Digital Designer: Download". LEGO.com. Archived from the original on 26 November 2009.
  5. ↑ Crecente, Brian; Vincent, Ethan (8 December 2021). "Episode 43 – The LEGO Game That Unlocked True Digital Creation" (PDF). Bits N' Bricks (Podcast). Participants: Servan Keondjian, Ronny Scherer, and Rob Smith. The LEGO Group. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 October 2023. Audio version via YouTube.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 McKee, Jake (29 April 2003). "Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.cad. Archived from the original on 8 March 2025.

External links

Retrieved from "https://wiki.researchrealm.net/index.php?title=LEGO_Digital_Designer&oldid=7068"