Call for content

D by dimitar on 5 Oct 2023, edited 9 Nov 2023 # +7 votes

Hi All,

I will be presenting at this year's Blender conference, and want to feature some design work done with Blender. I am looking for "wow I had no idea Blender can do that type of thing". This would mean it would probably have to be larger than a single family house (although showing a fully designed and documented house would still be quite interesting. As an architect, I am interested in showcasing architectural design, but BIM and interdisciplinary design would also be interesting to see.

@theoryshaw you have quite a few projects out in the wild, so quite keen to feature some of your work.

M by Moult on 5 Oct 2023 # +2 votes

@Ace has some fantastic drawings but I don't know how public it can be.

@SigmaDimensions 's 4D / 5D stuff is super cool, but isn't exactly architectural design. I've also got stuff from work to do with asset management and design auditing but ... not exactly architectural design?

T by theoryshaw on 6 Oct 2023, edited 6 Oct 2023 # +6 votes

Very cool! Happy to share anything, as all our work is open source, as well.

Current locations to look for BB content:

Ordered from cool, to less cool. :)

Look in the Models_and_CAD folder for the BB files, and in the Transfer folder for deliverables/drawings/etc.

Here's an animation we did for the restaurant_livingston project.

I'm currently working on an animation for the highland_haven project.

And mastodon account has some coolish screencaptures: https://mastodon.social/@theoryshaw

Have fun! Say hi to @yorik! I'm thinking he'll probably be there too.

D by dimitar on 6 Oct 2023, edited 6 Oct 2023 #

@Moult said:

@Ace has some fantastic drawings but I don't know how public it can be.

@SigmaDimensions 's 4D / 5D stuff is super cool, but isn't exactly architectural design. I've also got stuff from work to do with asset management and design auditing but ... not exactly architectural design?

Thanks Moult! Will take a look! Some kind of 4d animation could definitely be super useful because it neatly shows the intersection between Blender's native capabilities and BlenderBIM and how AEC can be served well in that intersection

@theoryshaw said:

Very cool! Happy to share anything, as all our work is open source, as well.

Current locations to look for BB content:

https://gitlab.com/openingdesign/highland_haven

https://gitlab.com/openingdesign/restaurant_livingston

https://gitlab.com/openingdesign/milwaukee_st_4429

https://gitlab.com/openingdesign/salon_studios

https://gitlab.com/openingdesign/mineral_point_residence

https://gitlab.com/openingdesign/clothing_boutique

Ordered from cool, to less cool. :)

Look in the Models_and_CAD folder for the BB files, and in the Transfer folder for deliverables/drawings/etc.

Here's an animation we did for the restaurant_livingston project.

I'm currently working on an animation for the highland_haven project.

And mastodon account has some coolish screencaptures: https://mastodon.social/@theoryshaw

Have fun! Say hi to @yorik! I'm thinking he'll probably be there too.

Thanks for the links! Will take a look! I messaged @yorik here, but not sure how often he takes a look at those messages, since I am actually landing in Belgium, so will be going via Brussels to Amsterdam.

Anyone else, feel free to post some links or images also

B by bitacovir on 9 Oct 2023 # +1 votes

@dimitar said:

As an architect, I am interested in showcasing architectural design, but BIM and interdisciplinary design would also be interesting to see.

You could show examples of Topologic being used in Blender....

M by Moult on 9 Oct 2023, edited 9 Oct 2023 # +3 votes

Ah yes Homemaker would be awesome! Ping @brunopostle

Oh oh and IFC Git integration!

T by theoryshaw on 9 Oct 2023 # +1 votes

+1 IFC/Git integration!

Y by yorik on 10 Oct 2023 #

Thanks for the links! Will take a look! I messaged @yorik here, but not sure how often he takes a look at those messages, since I am actually landing in Belgium, so will be going via Brussels to Amsterdam.

I won't go to the Blender conference this year unfortunately... If you have some lag in Brussels, though, we can grab a coffee!

D by dimitar on 9 Nov 2023 # +6 votes

Hi everyone. I've realised that a 20 minute slot is a really short presentation! In the end, I chose to talk about something more basic and what I know best at the conference - how Blender is helpful because it allows us to iterate faster. So, sadly, I didn't touch on the more technical aspects. But, I am already planning to go next year! It would be great to see some of you there. I will ask to also organise an architecture and design special user group meeting, and either teach some kind of class for doing architectural design and/or do a presentation, showing more on the architecture production side of things like BlenderBIM, Homemaker, and OpeningDesign projects.

Here is my presentation:

In other news, I saw that there was a meeting with @Moult and @yorik and Dalai Felentino, an architect-turned Blender developer on BlenderBIM and architecture side of things: https://devtalk.blender.org/t/2023-11-06-blender-bim/31952. That's great! One of my biggest pet peeves is the large filled triangle on the active orthographic camera.

B by Bedson on 9 Nov 2023 #

It would also be great if Blender had a way of having drawings natively in a blend file - without the need to use Inkscape. These drawings would harness the LineArt modifier. They could also contain views of different scales and shading/rendering. Maybe this could be done with the Story Board addon?

B by bitacovir on 9 Nov 2023 # +1 votes

@Bedson said:

It would also be great if Blender had a way of having drawings natively in a blend file - without the need to use Inkscape. These drawings would harness the LineArt modifier. They could also contain views of different scales and shading/rendering. Maybe this could be done with the Story Board addon?

Sometimes, trying to put everything in one program is not realistic, when the development team is too small. Interoperability between open source tools is the best strategy for a feasible workflow in these conditions.

D by dimitar on 9 Nov 2023, edited 9 Nov 2023 # +1 votes

@Bedson said:

It would also be great if Blender had a way of having drawings natively in a blend file - without the need to use Inkscape. These drawings would harness the LineArt modifier. They could also contain views of different scales and shading/rendering. Maybe this could be done with the Story Board addon?

Grease Pencil 3.0, which is a complete rewrite of the Grease Pencil code may be what we are looking for. As grease Pencil as already vector-based, it works with the line-modifier, has vector fill, and hopefully with the new version, it can perform well with thousands of strokes/curves. I believe it can also be exported as SVG natively.

Here the link: https://code.blender.org/2023/05/the-next-big-step-grease-pencil-3-0/

It didn't land in Blender 4.0, but it is scheduled to come hopefully in 4.1 You can already test it out in 4.1 alpha version at https://builder.blender.org, by going into Preferences, Interface, enabling developer extras, and then in the Experimental tab, enabling Grease Pencil 3.0

I am in general of embracing as many of the existing Blender features into AEC workflows as possible. This may be a good one!

@bitacovir said:

Sometimes, trying to put everything in one program is not realistic, when the development team is too small. Interoperability between open source tools is the best strategy for a feasible workflow in these conditions.

Yes, at the same time, I imagine we would still need to post process drawings in one way or another. If you think about it, it works like that everywhere. We have the design phase, and the documentation phase.

B by Bedson on 9 Nov 2023, edited 9 Nov 2023 # +2 votes

@bitacovir said:

@Bedson said:

It would also be great if Blender had a way of having drawings natively in a blend file - without the need to use Inkscape. These drawings would harness the LineArt modifier. They could also contain views of different scales and shading/rendering. Maybe this could be done with the Story Board addon?

Sometimes, trying to put everything in one program is not realistic, when the development team is too small. Interoperability between open source tools is the best strategy for a feasible workflow in these conditions.

Hopefully, GP3.0 can do this. Blender feels so close to being a workable CAD program with existing tools like MeasureIT_ARCH and CAD Sketcher (and BlenderBIM for Exporting/Importing IFC files).

I heard a rumour through the 'Keep Making' YouTube channel that the CAD-Transform tool is going to have a significant update including drawing planes etc.