Blender for Architecture

[eon2004]

Hi,

I'm a french (new) architect and I love working in Blender. However, it does'nt seem to have been designed for CAD nor for architecture.

But I like Blender mostly because it is GPL too, so the community could improve it.

I launched a website powered by Mediawiki to gather ressources about doing Architecture with Blender. The purpose of it is to become a place where you can find ressources to help yourself doing Architecture in Blender.

To begin, you could find :

- architectural materials
- textures
- models (furniture and so on...)
- tutorials and articles (how to make a panorama, a seamless texture? Which rendrerer to use? What are the tricks to use vegetation in your renderings? How to import models from each architectural software? etc...)
- scripts (snap, cross section...)

Well, an all-in-one place to share our tricks and work to improve our Blender experience.

Every one could upload content once log in. You can upload .blend files ! All the website content (text and files) should be under Free licenses.

http://blender-archi.tuxfamily.org/

[JA-forreal]

Not being an architect myself but a designer of architectural spaces for product presentations, I like this project. I love using Blender for everything 3d related. I have been sampling 3d architectural software which is amazing for what it does. I mean the automation of common structural building details that 3d architectural offers is outstanding. And the ability to translate mesh elements with precision, wow. Moving stuff around the circumference of a curved edge oh yeah. If I were designing actual living/working spaces I could live without it. What am I saying, I can hardly work without this stuff now. But I'm just a 3d designer so Blender/etc. works for me now.

Ah, architectural references. Now that's what we 3d artist need lots of. I normally just google for every image reference I need. Then I “Linkin' Log” all of my ideas into free form 3d architectural design models. I reference what I need as I model. Often as a 3d designer it's all just a creative toss up.

3d artist need a good visual list of common architectural building materials, fasteners, joints, layout types, fixtures, etc. Before studying such architectural references I had no idea how to construct buildings that looked like real buildings. These types references give logic if not accuracy to your ideas and projects.

I must humble myself as a 3d artist to the skills of master architectural works. Architecture is art we can live and work in. 3d art lets you do a little of everything. 3d artist can sample a bit of this and that from the real world into their artwork. A resource like this would be a great gift to the 3d art community.

There are a lot of Blender topics on this forum that deal with architectural 3d. You should be able to find info on scripts and architectural modeling methods in Blender. I hope this project picks up.

[afecelis]

Thanks for the link to your site eon2004; very interesting idea. Hope to be able to contribute with some stuff of my own.
You'll find out soon (if you haven't already), that even not being a CAD tool, Blender is more than capable of getting the job done when needing superb renders and animations of projects. Unless you require specific CAD stuff for your models I think the general tendency in visualization is to keep proportions of stuff so in that sense blender can work "unitlessly".
You'll also find several approaches on using blender with DXF files exported from Autocad, which might be the connection you're looking for?

cheers!
EDITED: just checked your site with more time now.. wow! wow! wow! lotsa potential here!

[nf3]

great!

I'm currently learning the basics with a construction project you can see here: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=79085.

When I have more time I'm planning a tutorial on how the cumbersome kloputils script can be used to lay faster and well 'snapped' walls. Currently I work with three 'premade' shapes: plain wall, window wall and door wall, wich I rescale and replicate in place with the kloputils.py, though there are some tricks and caveats because it has many quirks.

another good resource you can link to is this excellent free source for brick textures. It renders changeable laying styles, dimensions and combinations of brick colors and mortars. Its a slow download, but believe me, impressive app made by an american brick professional supplier:
http://www.brick.com once there, check for the Acme Masonry Designer.

this link I found in the latest 'blenderart', the online magazine dedicated to architecture its last issue.

[N30N]

Hey eon2004, I've not got around to trying it my self but Hugin is a open source win/linux panorama tool (if ya wanna add it to the Make_a_Panorama page).

[JA-forreal]

A comprehensive section on “architectural anatomy” would be nice. I have had many ideas for building designs. Upon doing research for material and reference images I lacked the right definitions for some of the content I needed. Through trial and error I was able to collect the information. It would have been nice to have a common building type description guide for references. This could also give more order to information that is submitted by splitting it into specific detail categories. The skeletal structure breakdown of a building type could be the topic of an article. This article could link to the ongoing collected data parts that are connected to the structure. This would be helpful for student architects and 3d artist alike.



Just a thought.

[eon2004]

Nice ideas.

JA-forreal : You mean a sketch to learn Architecture vocabulary? You see the project from 3D artist eye, I did'nt expect that ;-)

N30N : You're right. I used it on Win$ a long time ago but i can't get it work on my Mandriva with pstitcher.

nf3 : How much "free" are brick.com's Acme Masonry Designer textures?

I don't feel easy with Kloputil. I coded myself with a great help of JMS a script to translate vertex (group or solo) from point to point. See "accurate translation" on http://blender-archi.ovh.org/index.php?title=Scripts
But if you know how to use Kloputil or have a good tuto somewhere, it would be nice to have a article on the wiki.

Afecelis: The question is not if Blender is the perfect tool for drawing architecture. Yes, many users seems to know what Blender lacks but nothing has changed for 4 years ! The truth is there is no coders to code function for CAD like snap, etc... If the website is successful, I will think about launching a subscription to pay a coder team to code functions we want with the Blender fondation approval. Open Source sometimes means "do it yourself"

Nowadays (2.42), the greatest way to import DXF files is to use OpenOffice trick : http://blender-archi.ovh.org/index.p...awing_software

[studioa]

" If the website is successful, I will think about launching a subscription to pay a coder team to code functions we want with the Blender fondation approval. Open Source sometimes means "do it yourself" "

he, he ,he I was thinking myself to do that (pay a coder to develop the tools that we need for architecture) but i'm still in the start-up phase with my architectural studio ... anyway, i belive that we can obtain some funds for r&d in european union if we present a clear project with benfits for open community, etc. ... i guess we can team up and write together a project and ask for funds ... we are not talking about zillions ... how about this idea?
btw i placed few ideas on your web site under "features requested for architecture" ... all the best _a_

[reaper]

I have already payed a coder to create Arch tools for blender. I funded the Blender Caliper script and may be willing to do so again in the future if I see a potential personal benefit... or perhaps even if not. Nice page. Keep up the good work.

One question:Is anyone translating ProCAD.py into English? If not, is it worth paying someone to do so? Never used it myself.

[Merc]

My thoughts exactly, Reaper. I would love to use that script, but I have only an inkling of what it does and how it does it. Love to see it in English.

[yorik]

for importing dxf, there is now a very good script written by kitsu:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/show...&highlight=dxf
It's not 100% perfect but already far better than the built-in dxf importer. And more, it's a python script so people can work on it too...
Right now it only imports lines, lightweight polylines (=without arcs in it), arcs, circles and blocks. I use it everyday now...

[nf3]

Originally Posted by eon2004 nf3 : How much "free" are brick.com's Acme Masonry Designer textures?

Good q. I dont know. I will e-mail them someday

I don't feel easy with Kloputil. I coded myself with a great help of JMS a script to translate vertex (group or solo) from point to point. See "accurate translation" on http://blender-archi.ovh.org/index.php?title=Scripts But if you know how to use Kloputil or have a good tuto somewhere, it would be nice to have a article on the wiki.

I will, as soon as I write it and find out how to use a wiki. I have quite an experience with kloputils and its maddening 'features', but once you overcome them it saves a lot of work.

[studioa]

a new tool for cad drawing - freeware for windows (they considering going open source, so we might see it runing on linux as well):

http://www.free2design.org/

best, _a_

[konrad_ha]

I am just starting to get into the whole "architectural" site of 3D, and your site seems very promising. Keep it up!

[eon2004]

studioa: On the download page, it's writed " Be warned that this program cannot be used by residents of France, Germany and Italy, at this time." Are you sure it is free of patents?

I uploaded 3 newer tutorials :

• Using plane textures for trees, people, etc.. in still rendering
• Put a logo on your render with composite nodes
• Easy use of GLSL shaders in game engine

[studioa]

sorry for that, i'm in us now - i'm a european, but i do projects on both sides of atlantic. i asked them about open source and they said that making it "freeware" was the first step and will make it open source in the next releases. i guess you can send them an e-mail asking about usability by fr,de and it residents. "free of patents" is behind me, i'm just a user of their software not involved in any way in making it. i'll try to upload some architectural materials on your web site as well. keep up the good work you've done so far! best, _adrian_

Originally Posted by eon2004 studioa: On the download page, it's writed " Be warned that this program cannot be used by residents of France, Germany and Italy, at this time." Are you sure it is free of patents? I uploaded 3 newer tutorials : Using plane textures for trees, people, etc.. in still rendering Put a logo on your render with composite nodes Easy use of GLSL shaders in game engine

[eon2004]

Website moved to http://blender-archi.tuxfamily.org/

[afecelis]

Thanks for the update. (I'm posting a bit late? )
Drop Blendernation a note letting them now of the update as well.

many thanks for your site,
Regards,
Alvaro

ps. I'm also dropping BN a note, just in case you don't have the time

EDIT: Done! let's hope they announce it soon!

[rusted]

hi,
thanks for ur effort-step in the right direction!

[migius]

see my improvements for ImportDXF script at
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=84319