LDraw to LDD conversion

The LDraw and LDD libraries differ in color numbers, sometimes in part numbers, the fact that LDD parts are measured in millimeters while LDraw uses LDUs – LDraw Units, but most notably in the part's origin point. While LDraw parts have their origin in the middle of the part the LDD origin is in the bottom right-hand corner.

The conversion between LDraw and LDD is governed by the ldraw.xml file which contains all the information about these differences. The file can be found in the "LEGO Digital Designer/Assets" directory (where "LEGO Digital Designer" is the directory in which LDD 2 is installed). Though the current LDD ships with a version containing a good bunch of translations compiled by the LEGO Universe Team and LDraw-Users you might replaced with an updated version that can be found here (to download the file right-click the link and select "Save Target As...").

To install the file just go to the "LEGO Digital Designer/Assets" directory, back up the existing ldraw.xml and overwrite it with the latest version. Once this is done start or restart LDD and it will now use the updated list.

Importing a LDraw-File into the LEGO Digital Designer

1.) Select the File menu and then the Import (Ctrl+I) tab (File > Import (Ctrl+I).

2.) In the popping up dialog you first have to select Ldraw-Files (*.ldr) from the Files of type: drop-down box. Otherwise the dialog will show only its default LXF-Files (*.lxf).
3.) You can now read LDraw files (but not MPD files). After hitting the Open button it should load your LDraw-Model although there are likely to be numerous mistakes due to oversensitivity of the LDD collision detection or not supported colors.

4.) For the event you get this type of warning you should check the following:

• Did you use parts not supported by LDD? The pallette of the supported LDD parts can be found at the LEGO Digital Designer homepage: http://ldd.lego.com/
• Contains your model parts in not supported colors? LDD's color pallette is in some ways limited by the bricks you can purchased through LEGO Factory. Therefore you can for example use a Brick 1 x 2 in all the colors below, but the LEGO Digital Designer will refuse to load an orange 1 x 2:

• The part will not load because its translations hasn't been added to the ldraw.xml file yet or the internal LDD part number has changed. Please contact the LDraw Team if the part in question comes in the right color and is supported by both system but gives out an error. We will do our best to add the part for the next release.