Features requested for Architecture

From Blender for Architecture
Revision as of 18:06, 25 March 2007 by Eon (Talk | contribs) (Work in Progress)

Jump to: navigation, search

Here you can find a list of features we would like to see in Blender to improve Architectural workflow:

To do

  • Proper units and measurement system.
    • Sufficient significant digits to convert between units with imperceptable error.
    • Input methods to handle various system conventions (English feet and inches, Metric meters and millimeters, English decimal feet, light years, etc.)
    • Direct preference association with each model so that imports of various units are properly scaled.
  • Ability to move objects based on a "relative" distance from a point (that can be defined by "snap" at it).
  • Better import/export of commonly used file formats like .DXF, .DWG, .3DS, etc.
  • Properly lighted procedural textures visible in OpenGL mode.
  • Ability to define arbitrary planes based on 3d angles, or by picking three points/two edges/one face and work on those arbitrary planes as they were the "base plan" (xoy). Also constrains perpendicular to this arbitrary plane.
  • "Dimensions" tool that can add dimensions in plan, elevations, etc.
  • A "PrintingEditor" that can work with the layouts and plot them "at scale". Printing capabilities for lines (continuous, dash, center line, etc. , thickness of a line, colors, etc. - all features that are needed to plot a complete set of construction drawings). If we could combine somehow Blender with a vector based tool - such as Inkscape, OpenOffice or similar - that might produce the result acceptable for "professional printing".
  • "LandscapeBuilder" a tool to build and plant real landscape based on contour lines.
  • Easy use of Gameblender to visit our building like in a FPS game.
  • Possibility to link to a database so to be possible to get "Bills of materials", to know "quantities" of a material is in the model (ie: to know how many cubic meters/feet of brick, concrete, marble,ceramic tiles, etc. or square meters/feet for paints, etc.) Maybe trying to link to OpenOffice database would be a possibility.

Work in Progress

  • "RealSky" plug in - a plug in that can help render in blender/yafray a spherical sky that has a line of horizon (editable), has clouds (editable), has the position of the sun editable based on geographical location and date of the year. Google Summer of Code project.
  • Transcription of blender materials in GLSL without coding : Easy use of GLSL shaders in game engine tutorial
  • Section tool - a tool to "cut" through the buildings: Look a the "Section" script in Scripts#Tools
  • High Fidelity Rendering engine (aka Maxwell, Yafray, Povray, Sunflow..) : Blender custom builds for Povray, Kerkythea... Blender external renderer API.
  • Parametric modeling : http://yorik.orgfree.com/tutorials/parametricobjects-blender.html
  • Snap between objects : in CVS
  • NURBS modeling : Nurbana?

Done

  • Texture baking : added in 2.43
  • Snap inside objects : added in 2.43
  • Outliner where you can choose which object to see, render, modify : added in 2.43
  • Working together : Verse (in source, not in builds) , proxy object (2.43), append.