Following a discussion at our last London AFOL meetup, I've taken a slight diversion to look at creating ldr files from binvox files - Binvox is a small program that voxelises 3D files (like .obj) into a voxel model. Binvox is a good solution for transferring 3D models into games like Minecraft and I used it a while back to help create a simple animation system in Minecraft (a long time ago!)
Binvox to Minecraft translation is relatively straight-forwards as nearly all Minecraft's main components can be considered as a single voxel element.
Binvox to Lego presents an additional challenge as Lego doesn't really work if you translate each voxel to 1x1 brick as the resulting physical model (if you tried to build it) will simply fall apart. There is already a mechanism to go from Binvox to Ldr here using a Perl script. This script is a two stage process requiring you to convert the binvox file to a txt file so that Perl can parse the txt file but this Perl script adds an important element for Lego in that it optimises the voxel matrix for each layer into larger Lego bricks, so that you are not simply building with 1x1 bricks.
This Perl scripts works (and is probably one of the easiest Perl scripts to read that I've ever encountered!) but I wanted to see if I could bypass the requirement to translate the binvox file to txt and also add some strength to the model by rotating layers at right angles to each other. I also wanted to code it in Python, as my Perl is rustier that a rusty nail that has been left in a jar of salt water for 10 years (which is also how long it's been since I've written any Perl!).
My starting point was this Binvox python parser which would take the hard work out of having to deconstruct structure of the binvox file. With this is should be relatively easy to convert Binvox direct into LDR files...
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