README.md
In rcorty/lego: Play with LEGO blocks

lego

The goal of lego is to make it possible for lego-lovers to prototype builds in silico.

lego is not yet on CRAN, so for now you can download it from github with:

install.packages('devtools')
devtools::install_github(repo = 'rcorty/lego')

To run any of the examples below, you'll need to start by loading lego and dplyr.

library(dplyr)
library(lego)

I want to stack a 2x2 brick on top of a 4x2 brick. It's easy!

new_build() %>% 
    lay_brick(width = 4, depth = 2) %>% 
    lay_brick_square(size = 2) ->
    build1

build1

You might say this build isn't much, but it's a valid build, as we can verify with:

check_build(build = build1)

Great -- let's have a look:

render_image(build = build1)

And now let's have a look in 3D 😍

render_3D(build = build1)

They way I made build1 took advantage of a lot of "syntactic sugar", allowing the code to be very short. Now, let's make the same build more explicitly.

new_build(
    space = new_space(
        width = 10,
        height = 10,
        depth = 10
    ),
    blocks = new_blockset(
        name = 'classic_bucket'
    )
) %>% 
    lay_block(
        block = new_block(
            type = 'brick',
            width = 4, 
            depth = 2
        ),
        where = c(x = 0, y = 0)
    ) %>% 
    lay_block(
        block = new_block(
            type = 'brick',
            width = 2, 
            depth = 2
        ),
        where = c(x = 0, y = 0)
    ) ->
    build2

build2

That was a much longer way to build (what appears to be) the same thing. Let's confirm that they are actually the same.:

identical(build1, build2)

If we render an image and/or a 3D image of build2, it will be the same as build1. So let's move on to a more complex example.

Let's lay some more blocks of different types in different places.

Some examples that work.

[do it here]

Now some that generate warning messages.

[do it here]

See, we can change the options to not hassle us about builds that have various faults. Let's say I don't want to hear about using blocks that aren't in my blockset or placing blocks unsupported.

[do it here]

Now we can rerun that code that gave those warnings.

[do it here]

Great...no warnings. But, we didn't actually fix anything.

When we check_build, of course we get those warnings back.

[do it here]

So how can we really address them? Well, for a warning about using a block that's not in the blockset, we can just add to the blockset.

[do it here]

Remember, we're all digital at this point, so blocks are free. You may want to go on Pick-A-Brick or bricklink to figure out how to get the blocks you need for a price you can afford. lego will output a list of blocks you ended up using, which should be helpful.

To address the warning about unsupported blocks, we can simply unlay the unsupported blocks and view the build again to see if we're happy without them.

[do it here]

If we're not happy without those blocks laid, we'll have to re-design.

[do it here]

Now I want to build a house. I can make a simple house with:

new_build() %>% 
    lay_tube(
        cross_section = lego_rectangle(
            width = 4,
            depth = 4
        ),
        extent = 4,
        where = c(x = 3, y = 3, z = 0)
    ) %>% 
    lay_panel(
        corner1 = c(x = 3, y = 3, z = 5),
        corner2 = c(x = 7, y = 5, z = 7)
    ) %>% 
    lay_panel(
        corner1 = c(x = 3, y = 5, z = 7),
        corner2 = c(x = 7, y = 7, z = 5)
    ) ->
    build3

build3

Now we can have a look at our simple house: