Is there an easier way of threading Technic pins into other elements?

Question

I've been using Lego Digital Designer to recreate a few models I've built in real life. One model in particular uses many Technic axles which need to be inserted fully into other Technic bricks (like the [part:32014] shown in the image below).

(Click image for animation)

If Technic axles aren't inserted all the way, it causes more problems later on in the build, when the same group of parts are duplicated and used elsewhere.

In some cases, moving the camera angle around can help, but the axle continues to flicker around the screen as the axle is inserted.

Answer 1

As someone who also argues with LDD occasionally, have you tried using a placeholder technic beam to get two connectors at the right distance and then adding the axle into both connectors before deleting the placeholders?

If the placeholders are in a different colour from the rest of the model, you could use as many as you need and then delete them with the Colour Select tool, leaving just the parts behind.

Answer 2

One possible solution, but I can't tell if it would be easy, might be to edit the .lxf file yourself to check/correct the position of the axle.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure there is much documentation on the subject; at the very least I think the .lxf extension is just a zip container, so changing .lxf to .zip is the first step. (of course, backup the whole file first...)

Considering there are ways to convert files between LDD and LDraw, I would tend to think it's possible somehow. You could also convert the file to LDraw and check/correct the axle position within an LDraw editor (they usually give you the coordinates somehow, and at the very least you can check the .ldr source easily as it's text-based). You could also use LDraw altogether, if you find out it helps you place parts (maybe it would).