A Quick Tour

L3DD is designed to run at a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, or more. At lower resolutions you need to float and reshape the toolbars to see all the buttons. L3DD also requires 16-bit color (‘High Color’), or higher.

When you first run L3DD by double-clicking its ‘little-blue-house’ icon you are presented with a perspective view of a pale-blue house on a dark blue background. This is L3DD’s 3D View in which you spend most time. This view is best regarded as being fixed, and it is the object that is rotated and moved --- like manipulating a model in front of your eyes.

Rotation To rotate everything, including the groundplane and XYZ axes, hold the right mouse button down and drag the mouse left and right, or up and down. The arrow keys do the same.

Panning To pan horizontally or vertically, click the left mouse button in the window and drag everything. The Pg Up/Pg Dn and Home/End keys do the same.

Zooming The mouse scroll wheel moves everything nearer and further away, as do the Plus (+) and Minus (-) keys.

Group Selection Now hold down the Shift key and select the four highest roof faces with the left mouse button. Each face turns yellow as it is selected. You can now raise this group of faces symmetrically with the Up Arrow. Click on Undo to reverse the movement and then on the background to deselect the faces.

Component Selection Eight roof faces make up the ‘Compound Roof’ component. Double-click with the left mouse button on any roof face to select the whole roof - i.e. the whole component. To see a list of all the house’s components, click on the Select Component button in the Select Toolbar.

Vertex Selection and Movement. Now turn on the green Vertex Handles (Vertex Diamonds can also be used) by clicking on the vertex handle button (V]) in the Select Toolbar at the top right of the window. The Vertex Handles can be increased in size with the Handle Size button in the same toolbar. Select the vertex handle at right end of the roof ridge and try moving it with the arrow keys. Note the changing coordinates in the Status Bar. Try selecting a group of several vertices with Shift-left mouse button. Move the group.

Measuring Radius, Distance and Angle Click on the background first, then any vertex. The rightmost panel in the Status Bar shows the radius of the vertex --- i.e., the straight-line distance from the origin to the vertex. Now click on any other vertex. The Status Bar shows the straight-line distance from the previous vertex to this vertex. To measure the solid angle between any two faces, click on any each face in turn. Similarly, inter-edge angles are measured by clicking on two edge handles. In Demonstration Mode, measurements can only be made before the house has been significantly modified or edited.

Creating and Deleting a Vertex Create a vertex by clicking the left mouse button on the dark blue background with the Ctrl key held down. The vertex is created near the mouse pointer and at the same depth as the origin. Fine tune the position of the vertex with the arrow or +/- keys. The status bar shows its XYZ coordinates. To delete a vertex, select it and press Delete. You can also create a vertex at a given XYZ location with the Add Vertex command.

Creating a Cube Clear the screen by clicking on New. Don’t save the house. Turn on three perpendicular mirrors by clicking on the 3-Mirrors button on the 3D Edit Toolbar. Now create a new vertex by clicking on the Add Vertex button (same toolbar) and entering the coordinates X = 50, Y = 50, Z = 50 into the resulting dialog box. Eight new vertices are instantly created, 7 by reflection. They are made visible by the ‘vertex diamonds’. Now create the front face by clicking on the background and then on its vertices in anticlockwise order. The rear face is instantly created as well. Repeat this for 2 more faces and the cube is done. Hide the vertices with the Vertex Diamonds button in the Select Toolbar. A quicker way to create a cube is to select it from the Object Menu .

Reflecting the Cube Leave the 3 mirrors in place. Click on the background and then repeatedly on the Shrink button in the Boxatrix Toolbar to reduce the size of the cube. Select the entire cube by clicking on the Select-All button in the Select Toolbar and move it with the arrow keys so that it is clear of the origin and all the mirrors. Click on the Apply Symmetry button to see eight instant copies. Turn off the mirrors by clicking on the 3-Mirrors button again.

Creating a 3D Star Click on the Open File button in the Standard Toolbar and select the file SoccerBall.lig from the Ligno/objects folder. Don’t save the cubes. Select the whole object then click on the Star Maker button in the Boxatrix Toolbar to see the Star Maker dialog box. Accept the default values to create a 32-point 3D star.

Moving Radially Click on the Pliers Mode button in the Select Toolbar. With Vertex Handles turned on, select any vertex at the end of one of the star points. Now use the multiply and divide keys to move all star points simultaneously away from and towards the origin. You can also use the mouse to do this. Cancel Pliers Mode by re-clicking the button.

Creating a Wooden Ball With the 32-point star still on the screen, click on the Spherify button in the Boxatrix Toolbar to create a 180-face spheroid. Select the whole object and click on the Quadrate button in the Boxatrix Toolbar to divide each face into four triangles, and thus create a 720-face spheroid. Do it again to get 2880 faces. In the Décor Menu, now click on the Select Texture command. Choose the Pinus Radiata Texture. The result is a very real-looking wooden ball.

Dovetailed Dodecahedron Click on New to clear the 3D View, then choose Dodecahedron from the Object Menu. Switch on face numbers with the Face Numbers button in the Select Toolbar. Click on Face 12 to select it, and then on the Rotate to Top button in the Boxatrix Toolbar. to bring Face 12 to the top. Turn off face numbers. Click on Select-All to select the whole dodecahedron and then on the Thick Faces button in the Boxatrix Toolbar. to obtain a dialog box. Select the ‘Dovetails’ radio button in the dialog box and leave all other inputs as they are. Nothing seems to happen when you click ‘Do It’ button, but this is not so. Just double-click on the top face to select the whole component. Raise the beautifully dovetailed panel up the Y-axis with the Up Arrow key. To see all the dovetails in situ, you must change the component colors with the help of the Face Color command in the Décor Menu.

These are just a few examples of what you can do with Ligno, but they give you a good idea of what L3DD does and how you go about doing it. For further examples of L3DD’s handiwork, open some of the ‘.LIG’ files that are included with the program in the ‘objects’ subdirectory. Also, the topic ‘Creating 3D Objects’ has instructions for creating more complex 3D objects like a show tent, chalice, soccer ball and spiral staircase.

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