Rebrickable

New User Settings and Notifications

Posted by Nathan on April 14, 2012 No comments

I have made some changes with the per-user settings. I removed the three checkboxes for email notifications as I no longer plan on sending those kinds of emails. Plus I added two new options described below:

1. Default color matching scheme

2. A % threshold for emailing new MOCs

Default Color Matching

There are several places where the Build % for a set or MOC is automatically calculated for you other than the main build set search results. Previously these calculations assumed a color matching level of “Close”. Now you can also change it to “Exact” or “Ignore” as your default, which is used as:

- Default option when finding new sets to build

- Displaying your Build % on sets or MOCs

- Method used by API get_set_match function

New MOC Threshold

Now when new MOCs are added to the database it will automatically calculate what % of parts you have in your collection, based on the default color matching scheme mentioned above. If that % is greater than the threshold you use for this option, you will receive an automatic email with details of the new MOC.

For example, if you enter 0% you will receive an email for every MOC. If you enter 100% you will only receive emails for new MOCs that you are able to build completely with the parts you have. Leaving this field blank will prevent any emails from being sent, and is the default until you enter something.

LEGO Collectible Minifigures Series

Posted by Nathan on April 1, 2012 No comments

Minifigure Series 5

I have progressed with adding all the missing LEGO sets. It’s not quite done yet, but the code can now handle some cases that it couldn’t before. And yes, that even includes the frequently asked for Collectible Minifigure sets :)

There are three main types of sets that are now being added:

  • Kits/Value Packs – Sets which contain other Sets such as 4-in-1 packs.
  • Collectible Minifigure Series – All 6 series are done. One set per minifig.
  • Other Misc Sets which were no good at reusing parts to make other sets.

 

I am only showing one Minifig Set from each collection rather than trying to code logic for random or alternate sets. Maybe that will come later, but this is diverging from the main purpose of the site.

The set numbers use the Bricklink naming convention, however there is now code to recognise differences with other sites such as Brickset. For example, Brickset uses 8683-0 as the Random Bag and 8683-1, 8683-2 etc for the individual minifig sets. When importing your set list from Brickset it will automatically recognise and convert these sets to the IDs used by Rebrickable.

While this doesn’t change how set/moc builds are calculated, it will help to keep your entire set collection consistent with other sources such as Brickset – i.e. no more import errors :) I expect it will slow down most searches/builds a fraction but I am always working to improve performance and it should not be noticeable to most people.

Finding Parts to Build

Posted by Nathan on February 12, 2012 2 comments

Build Set

 

The Build page has had a few changes. Other than some slight cosmetic changes, there is also a new button “Find Parts to Build” which is described in more detail below.

 

 

 

Missing Parts now behave slightly differently. Instead of hiding them when clicked they will now display the Part Details popup to be more consistent with other pages on the site. You can still hide the parts via the small “Hide” link that appears when you hover over the part.

 

 

Also, I have removed the “Load Leftover Parts” functionality. My statistics show that it wasn’t used very much, and was pretty useless for people with lots of sets as it would load too many parts. If anyone desperately needs it, let me know and I’ll come up with a different way of doing it.

Find Parts to Build

The aim of this page is to allow you to more easily find which of your sets contain the parts you need to build the chosen set or moc. Some people have a LOT of sets and it would be nice to minimise the number of sets that need to be dismantled.

 

Since this is hard to explain, I will use the example of trying to build the 8110 Unimog with the sets shown in this image. There are 2039 parts required to build the Unimog, of which I have 21 in my loose parts list, 1108 from my 8258 Crane Truck, 857 from my 8070 Supercar, etc. I am still missing 454 parts which I will have to buy or get from sets not in this list.

 

 

The sets are ordered to show the ones that have the most parts first. So, using the 8258 Crane Truck would yield 1108 of the 2039 parts required to build the 8110 Unimog. If you are happy to dismantle it, click the Use link under that set. This will update the table to reflect the new part counts within each set, and how many you still have left before you can start building. Continue using sets (and your loose parts collection if it is provided as an option) until you have all the parts you need or are happy to get the rest from other sources.

You can also hide sets or parts to make it easier to find what you need. Clicking the “Unhide all parts” link at the top of the table will restore hidden table rows. Clicking the “Start Again” button will set the whole table back to the start.

Clicking the “Export remaining parts to Bricklink” link will generate the wanted list XML you need to buy all parts that are left in the table from Bricklink. This will exclude any parts you may have hidden.

Many thanks to Theo van Vroenhoven and Gaëtan Delahousse for helping me with ideas and testing :)

2011 LEGO Set Popularity

Posted by Nathan on February 5, 2012 No comments

Inspired by Technicbricks poll on popular 2011 technic sets I have done a quick query to see how his results matched the data at Rebrickable. Based on:

* Over 2000 users have stored their set collections

* There are 13000 sets released in 2011 in the collections

The top 10 most popular sets based on the number of unique users who own them are:

 

 

The top 3 are the same as those on Technicbricks which is no real surprise as they are fantastic sets :) It’s also nice to see the Creator/Star Wars sets take out some high ranking positions.

 

 

 

 

When considering all released sets (i.e. not just 2011), there is a clear winner:

 

 

 

The 8043 Motorized Excavator seems to be the most popular set of all time. At least until the 8110 Unimog comes down in price! It was certainly one of the most enjoyable ones to put together for me. I remember loving my first 8851 Excavator set, we’ve come a long way :)

 

 

 

There are also some great mods out there of this set, one of which is Jurgen Krooshoop’s Ultimate 8043:

Improvements: Sets and Parts Management

Posted by Nathan on January 29, 2012 3 comments

I have just finished with a number of site improvements:

Using My Parts To See All Set Parts

I have updated the My Parts page to be a bit more flexible. In addition to changing the grouping/ordering behaviour you can now also choose to display your loose parts and/or your set parts all together. By default it will still display as it always has – only displaying your loose parts, grouped by part type, ordered by part description (which is useful for eg keeping beams in order of size).

If you choose to display both Loose Parts and Set Parts you can view your entire parts collection on one page.

 

Importing Bricklink Orders

 

In your My Parts page, click the “Import Bricklink Orders (XML)” link. For now only the XML format works but I hope to add the other formats later. A section will display where you can browse to your XML file for processing.

 

 

When done, it will display how many parts were imported as well as how many Orders were in the file (if there were more than one). If there were any errors they will be displayed.

 

Sets/Parts Import Error Handling

When importing sets or parts from external sites, there are often incompatibilities. For example, there are still sets that don’t exist in Rebrickable that do exist on Brickset (e.g. most advent calendar minifigs!). There are also some parts that I have not created in Rebrickable such as Sticker Sheets etc, that might make their way into your Peeron parts export file. Now, when you import your files you will get a list of all sets/parts that could not be processed. It will still import all the other sets/parts in the file. I am also notified of every missing set/part that shows up in these errors so I can now more easily identify what I need to get into the database :)

Part Usage Statistics

Posted by Nathan on December 29, 2011 2 comments

I have been calculating various statistics, trying to come up with some interesting charts to display on the site. I just completed the one below which I thought was a nice visual display of how TLG have changed over the years. Plus it’s a bit too complicated for me to code live on the site right now so figured a blog post would be best ;)

(click the image to see the full sized chart).

This chart shows the % breakdown of types of parts in all sets released each year. The different colors represent the different part types I use on Rebrickable. So for example, across all the sets released in 1956, 60% were Bricks and 40% were of type Other. If you are not familiar with what the part types are, check out the summary at the bottom of this page: http://rebrickable.com/profile/someidiot/stats

In the beginning all parts fall in the Other category. Then the original Bricks were introduced in 1954 and quickly took dominance over all other parts. In 1961 the first Plates were produced (and became very popular in the 60s). From 1965, Tiles were introduced and while they came and went a bit through the 70s, they have slowly risen in usage since 1980.

Around the mid 1970s to 1982 the Technic theme was introduced and we begin to see the introduction of the various Axles, Pins, Gears and Connectors. But it wasn’t until about 1998 that their use became more common in other themes too. The studless Beams started appearing in 1987. As a Technic fan, these parts distinguish those sets I had as a kid vs adult. All my childhood sets were studded and all my adult sets are studless :)

These days, the proportion of different types of parts is becoming more evenly spread. The humble 2×4 brick which formed the original patent is only a small % of the total offering.

So any other stats you want to see?

New User Profiles

Posted by Nathan on December 18, 2011 3 comments
Enter Profile Details

I am introducing User Profile pages to help users provide some information about themselves, show off their set/part lists and statistics, and (hopefully) help promote Rebrickable by encouraging users to add links to their profiles in their forum of choice :)

To make this work, users will need to choose usernames, because displaying everyone’s email address would not be appropriate. Before you can make any further settings changes you must setup a username. You will notice in the top right drop down, I have replaced the “Preferences” option with a “My Profile” option that has all the old stuff and a LOT more.

Setup New Profile

 

 

1. Setup your new profile. Choose My Profile from the drop down and click the Edit Your Profile link.

Enter Profile Details

 

 

2. Edit your details. The only mandatory field is the Username. I have supplied URL fields for many different sites used by LEGO fans. If anyone wants something else added, let me know.

 

 

 

 

3. Once saved, click the View Your Profile link and you should now see the full list of available pages in your profile. There are pages for:

 

 

Details – Main page with personal information.

 

 

 

 

Stats – Various stats for the user’s sets and parts. Did I miss any? :)

 

 

 

Sets – A list of the user’s sets (I know I have a lot more than this, I tend to test features out on my own account so keep destroying my setup :D ).

 

 

 

 

 

Parts – A list of the user’s parts.

 

 

 

Settings – The old Preferences page where you can change your notification settings, password etc.

MOCs – A list of the user’s MOCs if they have created any.

On any of these pages (except settings), you can copy the specified link URL to use in your forum signatures (hint hint), to help show off your sets/stats/etc. Of course if you prefer, you can keep all your information private by choosing the Private setting when editing your details.

 

And finally, here is the link to my profile :D

Enhanced Part Details

Posted by Nathan on November 27, 2011 2 comments

I have now created pages dedicated to each part so that more details can be shown, that cannot fit on the smaller part details popup. For example part ID 3023:

Part Details

 

Each page shows a larger and higher quality image of the part in its most common color; some basic statistics; and a timeline graph showing the history of the part’s releases. In the bottom panel, it shows all the colors that part has been released in and how many sets it appears in.

 

 

 

Part Details

 

When you click on a specific color, it will expand and display a list of all sets and MOCs that use that colored part. MOCs are highlighted yellow while sets that you own are highlighted green. Clicking on the set id will take you to the appropriate set catalog page.

 

 

Part Details Popup

 

You can access these new pages via a new link on the part popup, or clicking the small part image.

 

 

 

 

I have tried to come up with a design that allows for quick and easy access to the information you might be seeking, while also providing a quick response by only pulling back the minimum amount of data required. I’m still not 100% happy with the design so if anyone has any ideas I’m all ears :)

MOC Digital File Uploading

Posted by Nathan on November 13, 2011 3 comments

I have released an enhancement to the MOC Designer page where you can submit your own MOC’s to be indexed on Rebrickable. You can now upload your 3D CAD files and Rebrickable will automatically extract the required parts from the file, so you don’t have to manually find them all. From there you can make any adjustments necessary before submission. This process supports MPD/LDR,/L3B as well as LDD/LXF files.

Choose File To Upload

 

1. On the MOC Designer page, in the Parts Inventory panel, choose your file and click the Add link to upload and process it. This file will not be made publicly available to users. It is deleted when processing has finished.
Process File

 

2. The site will process your file and display its progress along with any warnings or errors that need further attention. In this example there were a lot of parts that used the color “Very Light Bluish Gray” in the LDD file, but they probably should have been “Light Bluish Gray”. Rebrickable warned about these because it could not find any other sets with those parts in that color. It will also highlight things such as unknown parts and sub-parts which could not be automatically combined into their full assemblies.

 

Change Part Details

 

 

3. You can correct the problems by clicking on a part, for example the 6536 connector. This part has never been released in Very Light Bluish Gray so it does not even show in the colors drop down selection. You can choose the appropriate color (most popular ones are at the top) and click “Save Changes”.

 

Part Picker4. If you need to add extra parts that did not get loaded automatically, you can still use the Part Picker. Find the part you require, choose a color and a quantity and click “Add to My MOC”. Since you can only have one MOC in progress at a time, it will automatically add it to the right one.

 

 

 

5. That’s it! Just submit the MOC for approval as per normal and I will release it as soon as possible :)

Since this file processing capability may be useful for other purposes, I’m interested in hearing any suggestions from people. Would there be any use for a more generic tool that isn’t tied in with submitting MOCs?

Server migration

Posted by Nathan on November 4, 2011 No comments

A quick post to say that I have just migrated the site to a newer and more powerful server. Most searches should be 2-3 times faster on average now. Plus I can now scale up the hardware resources quickly when required.

I have not encountered any issues with the move yet, but if anyone notices anything has broken please let me know :)