Beta: Blender3D renderer for ILD SÔS

[TL]

This is the first public beta release for the Blender3D renderer. It's based on pantograph (a blender script which does most of the vector rendering stuff). I made a lot of modifications for the dxf output and made it more laser friendly.
It outputs dxf files for use with ILD SÔS.

A note about output quality:
It highly depends on the poly count used in blender. A scene with thousands of polygons will most likely result in a high point count within the ilda file...

Features:
- create single dxf files
- create animations
- material of an object is editable (color, render hidden lines, creases, mesh, etc.)

Bugs:
- slow
- when a single object consists of different materials, sometimes the edge color changes in animations
- some weird bug when animating the camera resulting in an empty viewport

ToDo:
- fixing bugs and make it faster
- writing documentation

Installation procedure for windows:

- download Blender 2.49a from Blender 2.49a
- install Blender, when the installer asks about Python: download & install it
- download & install the GTK+ package from GTK+
- download & install the python package PyCairo from PyCairo
- download & install the python package polygon from PyPolygon
- download & install the dxf renderer pantograph_DXF

Here is quick step-by-step tutorial:

Start the vector renderer:





Just click ok (use the default settings):





The gui of the renderer, on the right are the various options for a specific material, use the "Export" button to save the image/animation:





The script asks about the output format, we will use dxf:





Select the filename and the path where the file(s) will be saved:




After pressing the "Save as *.dxf" button, you've to choose if the renderer will save a single file or the animation.






Have a lot of fun playing with this toy...

[drlava]

Very nice! because of your work on this we now have a free or close to free method for creating 3D animations in laser graphics where the result is produced in an open and universal format for import into any show software. These are exciting times! Yet the true possibilities will probably not be realized by the general 'laser using public' until an artist is able to demontrate the results in an impactful way.

I'll try it out and send out an update for ILD SOS with some improvements I have been working on soon.

[drlava]

I can't believe no one else here has tried this or posted yet. What apathy! It's close to a free, platform agnostic, 3D hidden line renderer laser animation solution, people! And if you want completely free, try processing the DXF with Laserboy.
Here's a file just to show it works:

[weartronics]

I know that the future of laser artwork generation lies with simple tools like this, which leave 3D modeling to 3D modeling packages (e.g. free and open source Blender), 2D drawing to 2D drawing packages (e.g. free and open source Inkscape), and generate the ILDA frames dynamically from vector artwork (ILDA SOS).

All the commercial laser software I'm aware of is really behind the times in this regard. Many of them try to re-invent the wheel of 2D drawing (or even 3D modeling), or if they use an external program, they design their interface around some expensive and proprietary software when perfectly acceptable (and even arguably better) free alternatives exist.

Thank you for putting in all the effort to develop this and release it to the community, I know it's no small task. I'm also looking forwards to see the results from people who can use it.

[-bart-]

I can't believe no one else here has tried this or posted yet.

On the other hand, is it really that surprising?
Look at a 'real' society, what is the average ratio of content creators vs content consumers. How many people do actively create original content?
What is the upload vs download ratio on the pl-ftp server?

And if you choose to share something you get 40 downloads, and hardly four people take the effort to post a "thank you".

[/rant]

[Dr Laser]

On the other hand, is it really that surprising?
Look at a 'real' society, what is the average ratio of content creators vs content consumers. How many people do actively create original content?
What is the upload vs download ratio on the pl-ftp server?

And if you choose to share something you get 40 downloads, and hardly four people take the effort to post a "thank you".

[/rant]

I can't agree more. I'm fine giving my work away for free but so many downloads and no comments.....hmmm. But in another hand why you need original work when you can use preloaded libraries.

[drlava]

I can't agree more. I'm fine giving my work away for free but so many downloads and no comments.....hmmm. But in another hand why you need original work when you can use preloaded libraries.

Yes, it's a shame there is so far little work given away, this is one of the reasons I work on software that makes it possible to create this work with less investment up front.

Typically, using those pre-loaded libraries often locks you into distribution limitations that are out of your control. As an example, see how many of the free shows available on the FTP for certain software packages are also distributed in ILDA format... not many. But I do know some artists here do make an effort to create all-original shows. Thank youall for that!

[cfavreau]

I would like to make a few comments.

First and foremost Thanks for the Software! I know that lots of hard work went into this.

The second would be is that I don't know how to use Blender. I have put it on my list of ToDo's now that there is a concrete start here end here for generating laser content now.

I third the thought on not making up original content.

And now for a slightly off topic... how about Pencil for 2D stuff?... not that Blender isn't a nice choice...

[Dr Laser]

And now for a slightly off topic... how about Pencil for 2D stuff?... not that Blender isn't a nice choice...

Samogon Editor from Sergey.

[cfavreau]

Yeah it is really nice. I use it now. That is another piece of free software that really works well.