<color>
        ....
      </color> ( repeated for each colour per brick )

    </stone>  ( end tag of 'stone ID="1x1"' )
    <stone ID="1x2">
      <color number="31601">
        <name>Beige 31601</name>
        <width>1</width>
        <height>2</height>
        <cost>32</cost>
        <amount>0</amount>
        <file>No file</file>
      </color>
    </stone>
    <stone>
      ....
    </stone> ( repeated for every brick, having several colours )
  </bricks>
</dataset>

The best way to create a new dataset is to start from an existing brick, Ministeck or Beads library, edit and then save under a new name. All the relevant tags are copied, and potential errors are avoided. It's not recommended to edit an existing .xml file manually (but it can be done: very carefully). The risk of tag error is very high and the dataset may become unusable, and Brickaizer will generate a read error. When you really want to edit an existing .xml file use a special xml reader, like 'Programmer's Notepad 2'.

TIP: always keep a copy of the original Ministeck and brick dataset available, in case things go for the worse.

Standard Colour data sets

The Standard Colour sets have a different structure than the brick, Ministeck® and Beads (and bricklink) datasets. The reason for this difference is that these sets don't have brick data attached, like cost, availability and files. The structure of a Standard Colour and Beads set is quite simple:

COPYRIGHT RAL gGmbH.
TABLE BELOW MAY CONTAIN APPROXIMATE VALUES.
1,RAL 1000,198,183,137,Green beige
2,RAL 1001,205,175,134,Beige
3,RAL 1002,209,167,104,Sand yellow
4,RAL 1003,246,171,0,Signal yellow
5,RAL 1004,224,155,0,Golden yellow
6,RAL 1005,197,145,2,Honey yellow
7,RAL 1006,213,150,0,Maize yellow
8,RAL 1007,227,147,0,Daffodil yellow

The first two lines are not read by the application. Good practice is to indicate the source of the data, in this case a copyright notice, and an indication of approximate values (in this case RAL does not allow distribution of the real data, so these numbers are deliberately set-off by a couple of points).

The data must be structured as follows:

ID,Colour code,Red,Green,Blue,Colour specifation, where Red,Green and Blue are the byte values of the colour (value range 0-255). Also ID must be a number, while Colour code and the Colour specification can be text or numbers. The length of the file is not restricted, and no spaces may be used before or after each comma. The database must be a ANSI text file and must have the file extension .'dat'. The location of this file must be in the same folder as the Bricklink data sets: C:\Users\Public\Documents\APP\Brickaizer\Settings.

This file can also be created using the brick database colours added. This way also existing brick colours can be added to the database, basically avoiding to spraypaint a brick that already has a good colour. The combinations are basically endless.

TIP: this file structure is fundamentally the same as an excel '.csv' file. To make such a file you can also open a new spreasheet, add the values in columns and then save as a 'Comma separated value' (or '.csv') file. Then finally change the file extension to '.dat'. That works quite good as well.

Comma Separated Values files

The .csv files can be used to manually and quickly edit the colour and brick data. It's useful for advanced users, and requires great care to assure the data structure is not compromised (and therefore corrupting the table). The data structure is fixed and, except for a few possibilities, can not be changed.

In raw text format the table looks like this:

Multiplier,1000,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Colours,39,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Bricks,4,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,BrickID,,3001,3003,3004,3005,,3001,3003,3004,3005
,,,,,,2,2,1,1,,2,2,1,1
,,,,,,4,2,2,1,,4,2,2,1
ID,Name,R,G,B,,Cost,,,,,Amount,,,
1,White,255,255,255,,15,6,5,5,,0,0,0,0
86,Light Bluish Gray,175,181,199,,14,9,8,6,,0,0,0,0

In excel the same table is read in cells, and after some visual formatting, it should look like this:

• Cell B1: the currency multiplier
• Cell B2: the amount of colours
• Cell B4: the amount of unique bricks
• Row 4: brick identifiers, columns G-J must be identical to columns L-O.
• Rows 5 and 6: the amount of studs for each unique brick, smallest in row 5
• Columns F and K (in this example): empty separators, does not contain data
• Row 7: only used for labels, does not contain data
• Row 8 and beyond: colour data
  • Column A: colour identifier (a number)
  • Column B: colour name (text, cannot contain commas)
  • Columns C-E: RGB colour coordinates in byte values (0-255)
  • Columns G-J (in this example): cost data, matching with the currency multiplier
  • Columns L-O (in this example): amount data

Shaped Pegboards

Although not actively supported, the user can add new shaped pegboards. The pre-installed boards are stored in C:\Users\Public\Documents\APP\Brickaizer\Pegboards. The user is highly encouraged to first study the lay-out of these pegboards before attempting to create and add new ones. These are the guidelines:

• The pegboard must be a PNG file format, and only contain black and white pixels.
• The final size of the pegboards will depend on the number of pegs.
• The average distance between each peg (black dot) must be between 10 and 12 pixels.
• Each peg is represented by just one black pixel.
• The minimum space between the bitmap edge and the closest black pixel for left and top edges is 5 pixels
• The minimum space between the bitmap edge and the closest black pixel for right and bottom edges is 15 pixels

To make a good shaped pegboard is a tedious and time consuming job, where a good bitmap editing application (e.g. Photoshop) is required. Some tips:

• Start with a large enough canvas (e.g. 500 x 500 pixels).
• Avoid in any case a resize of the canvas after you have defined the pegs/pixels. Resampling will create areas of 2 or more pixels in shades of gray, and you can basically start again by deleting each second or so pixels to only remain 1 black pixels per peg.
• Make sure you are absolutely working in black and white (255 and 0 pixel values).
• When you use an existing picture of a pegboard, the work gets easier, but expect quite a few corrections for exact placement of the overall grid of pegs. A good starting picture is evenly lit with the pegs clearly standing out when e.g. a filter, or a change in contrast and/or lightness is applied.
• Test, test and test again.

You will be rewarded when all of this is done properly!