Blender Archipack

[stephen-l]

Hi,
Currently working on Blender side at Archipack's project, (parametric arch primitives)
and wondering about inter-operability via OpenShell. So openshell's dev Thomas Krijen pointed me here.

https://github.com/s-leger/blenderPolygons

I know the FreeCad project from long time now, But feel much confortable in blender as my primary focus is visualisation.

Unlike FreeCad, archipack it is not intended to provide full fledged solution,
but allow averrage user to build (not so) simple 3d projects quickly for visualisation purposes.
To do so, archipack provide beside others a 2d to 3d "click to build" module and "draw a wall" operator.

So interop may realy be a must have to allow from quick visualisation to video integrations teasers.

Also look like you (secretly) planning to make a python3 gateway to take freeCad right into blender.
What about this ?

As blender and freeCad scripting bases are python, i'm looking if any cooperation between those projects is wanted / technically possible ?


Best regards !

[yorik]

Hi Stephen,

Saw your post on the ifcopenshell, good idea to post here too.

Also look like you (secretly) planning to make a python3 gateway to take freeCad right into blender.
What about this ?

that would simply make FreeCAD available as a python module inside Blender. That means you can use it, for example, to produce FreeCAD files or build FreeCAD geometry from inside Blender. Of course, to be visible in Blender, that geometry would need to be converted to Blender meshes, but that's not very difficult.

As blender and freeCad scripting bases are python, i'm looking if any cooperation between those projects is wanted / technically possible ?

If your script produces mesh data (vertices and faces), it would be very easy to adapt it to work in FreeCAD. The big question I think, is that Blender geometry is made of meshes (points, edges, and faces) and FreeCAD's geometry can be much more complex (nurbs, curved edges, etc). Of course you can also work with meshes in FreeCAD. But that has less interest (also, it's easy to import Blender stuff via .OBJ). So that would mean producing different kinds of geometry for different apps, which is a bit more painful...

But there is the same lack of proper Arch components in FreeCAD than in Blender, so something in that direction would be very welcome I think.

[F_Rosa]

This subject is very interesting. It reminds me of the first time I read about the concept of meta-applications in a D. F. Scott work in the nineties. I imagined that open systems would do this, since in the closed (commercial) ones this became very difficult, due to the competitive nature of the companies, focusing on the sale of their products based on the dependence of their closed file formats.

With the emergence and growth of open systems and applications, the meta-application concept looks like a logical future, saving efforts and redundancies, significantly increasing productivity, and applying all of the cooperative and collective potential.

From what I understood from the meta-application concept, the operating system or platform would provide to each application a standardized object of their own data, in this way, each application would looking at the same and unique data.

In this way, and excuse me if I say something quite obvious and only in the conceptual scope, it seems that the concept of meta-applications is very viable and natural, when one has the open and public codes. The standardized object view for the various CAD, rendering, images, texts and spreadsheets programs, and the creation of a platform that integrates the already existing potential of the applications, as explained by Scott, seems a very interesting way.

In the case of the integration between Blender and FreeCAD, through a possible common platform (meta-application) and meta-file, it would allow to work freely between them, taking advantage of the great potential of each one, without the need to import and export files with the unwanted loss of information.

Am I saying something out of reality or meaningless?

[collinalexbell]

Am I saying something out of reality or meaningless?

I am not sure of the viability of this option, but I would be highly motivated to pursue developing it if is seems viable. I recently switched from Fusion360 to FreeCAD and Fusion360 had a sculpting mode to create meshes. This allowed me to switch between designing meshes to designing parametric features, back to altering the meshes based on the results of the parametric features.

[bejant]

Cross-topic link, I think this one has more detail:
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=22701

[Opus]

Archipack 2.0 preview FR :

phpBB [video]

[Opus]

Archipack 2.0 tutorial: walls from blueprint

phpBB [video]

[Opus]

Stephen regularly adds new features, they are visible on his youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/stephen_leger/videos

His site to download the addon: https://blender-archipack.org

Version 2.0 including all updates (for Blender 2.8) is not free but always open source like every Blender python addons.

New features covered in his videos (for the moment):

• Wall auto-snap
• Floors and moldings from walls
• Walls from blueprint
• Draw windows and doors
• Curtains