LEGO bricks are designed to stimulate the creativity of the little ones, but the number of adult fans is simply impressive. That has given rise to advanced tools that help create LEGO models, and one of the most interesting out there is LeoCAD. It has versions compatible with Windows, Linux and macOS, automatically generates assembly instructions, and lets us export all the bricks in a special list to purchase them online.
LEGO bricks are a wonder... and an addiction too. Not a few tried to copy their design, and on more than one occasion they managed to escape the legal wrath of the Danish manufacturer (Mega Bloks, for example), but just saying the word LEGO makes the whole world know what it is, just like Coca Cola or Disney. That detail gives us an idea of the brand's mental presence, and the constant demand for its products, with special editions that often sell out in a matter of days, reaching exorbitant prices on the second-hand market. In fact, LEGO goes far beyond bricks. The community of fans has taken the trouble to create surprising tools, from environments prepared for children to CAD platforms.
One of those platforms is LeoCAD, which offers a complete virtual environment for creating all kinds of models, with no apparent limits in complexity. LeoCAD uses the LDraw parts library and is compatible with its standard, which translates to more than 10,000 blocks available.
The official LeoCAD website has a tutorial that covers the basic concepts of the program, starting with brick placement, movement, rotation, and creating instructions. Once the model is finished, LeoCAD can generate an equivalent to a shopping list in XML format, which is then entered into sites like BrickLink. That will give us an approximate cost of the model.
LeoCAD is compatible with Windows, Linux and macOS, but as an open source project, anyone can compile it from source code or port it to another platform. As with any other CAD program, LeoCAD's learning curve is quite steep once we leave the tutorial behind, but for LEGO fans it is definitely worth the effort.
