The nControl™ baseplate library does contain a number LEGO® baseplates, but many of them are still missing. You can, however, add your own baseplates and use them in the same way as the baseplates that come with nControl™.

The base plate library shows all the plates that defined in the <path>/objects/baseplates/<class> folder; where <path> is the installation path of nControl™ and <class> is the folder specifying the baseplate class, e.g. roads, space, etc. Each baseplate is defined by 3 files:

• <name>.svg
• <name>-low.svg
• <name>.xml

If you create these three files for your baseplate, copy them into the baseplate folder and restart nControl™; your new baseplate will be included in the baseplate library and you'll be able to use it in your layout.

The .svg files (scalable vector graphic files) contain the image of the baseplate. You can make them with any software that supports .svg. We make them with Inkscape which is an open source vector graphics software package. You need to keep the following rules in mind while making the .svg files:

• Use millimeter (mm) as drawing units. One LEGO® unit measures 8 x 8 mm.
• Resize the page to the size of your baseplate and align your baseplate with the edges of the page.

nControl™ uses two different versions of the base plate:

• <name>.svg: This contains the standard model of the plate. This model is shown when the zoom factor is 100% or higher.
• <name>-low.svg: This contains a low detail model of the plate. It's usually the plate without the studs. This model is shown when the zoom factor is lower than 100%. With low scale factors, details like studs are no longer visible and they can slow down the drawing process if a large number of plates are visible.

The .xml file contains information about the baseplate. It has the following structure:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<data type="nControl-object" version="1">
   <object type="baseplate">
      <title value="..."/>
      <type value="..."/>
      <size value="Size: ...x...."/>
      <edge r="..." g="..." b="..."/>
   </object>
</data>
The .xml data file provides the following information to nControl™:

• title: specifies the tile shown in the baseplate library.
• type: specifies the type of the plate. This value is shown as plate ID in the baseplate library.
• size: specifies the size of the plate. This value is shown as size in the baseplate library. The size is expressed in studs.
• edge: specifies color of the edge of the baseplate. The color is specified as [0-255] RGB values.

The baseplates that come with nControl™ are provided in this same way. Go to the <path>/objects/baseplates/<class> folder to see the files that implement the baseplates that come with nControl™. You can use them as examples of starting point to create your own baseplates.

If you want to help us expand the nControl baseplate library, don't hesitate to contact us.