Work in progress.
This will be a rust port of my old scala based project toxicblend. (now defunct)
It is a client-server based addon for Blender written in Rust (and Python for the client side parts).
Blender addon installation
Follow instructions in install_as_blender_addon.md
Rust requirement
Requires #![feature(hash_drain_filter)] and #![feature(map_first_last)] i.e. rust +nightly
Run local server
The blender addon is based on a client-server model using grpc and tonic.
The blender addon is the client, and it only connects to localhost.
The server binds to localhost as well; so it should not be reachable from any other computer (not thoroughly tested), run it with this command:
cargo +nightly run --bin toxicblend_server --release
Run blender
If the grpc server (for any unimaginable reason) would crash, blender will hang waiting for response.
This can easily be fixed if you run blender from the console. A ctrl - C will fix it.
Addon operations:
These operations all operate in blender edit mode:
operation: 2d outline
Will convert a flat mesh object into a 2D outline. Right now the data must be in a plane crossing origin (one axis need to be zero)
operation: Simplify
Works similarly to the built-in simplify command, but instead of a distance it takes a percentage. This percentage is applied to the largest dimension of the AABB and that value is used as the Ramer–Douglas–Peucker distance. Works on 3D linestrings/polylines (no faces).
This percentage change makes it possible to simplify tiny objects without having to scale them up, simplify and then scale them down again.
operation: Voronoi mesh
Runs the Voronoi sweepline algorithm on loops of 2D lines and builds a 2½D mesh (input geometry must be on a plane crossing origin).
Encircle the input lines in an outer, closed, perimeter for better results.
Do not input single points or faces, only edge loops.
operation: Centerline
Takes the output of the 2d_outline command and calculates the 3D centerline.
This operation only works on non-intersecting loops with islands of loops inside. E.g. fonts.
If you only need the 2D centerline, you can simply scale the added dimension to zero.
Keyboard command: s z 0 for setting Z to zero.
operation: Voronoi
Runs the Voronoi sweepline algorithm on 2D points and lines (geometry must be on a plane crossing origin).
operation: Voxel
Takes an edge-only 3D mesh, like the output of the Voronoi operation, and puts voxelized tubes along the edges. This operation does not require flat input.
This operation uses building-blocks and sdfu for the voxel generation.
operation: Metavolume (object operation)
Takes an edge-only mesh, like the output of the Voronoi operation, and puts metaballs along the edges. This operation does not require flat input.
This operation is located under Object -> Add -> Metaball -> MetaVolume
operation: Knife intersect
Runs on a single flat mesh object made of edges (no faces) and tests for self-intersections. If an intersection is found, the intersecting edges will be split at that point.
operation: Select end vertices
Selects all vertexes that only connects to one other vertex. Useful for identifying dangling vertices.
operation: Select collinear edges
Select edges that are connected to the selected edges, but limit by an angle constraint.
If edge A is selected and edge B is directly connected to it, B will be selected if the angle between A and B
is smaller than the angle limit. B will then be used to select more edges and so on.
operation: Select intersection vertices
Selects all vertexes that connects to three or more other vertices. Useful for selecting intersections.
operation: Debug object
Checks a mesh for anomalies, double edges etc. Will print results to the console/terminal.
Todo
- Improve the addon installation process, put the site-package files in a separate pip package.
- Document the rest of the operations.
- Add command line options to the server, setting bind address and port. Possibly feature gated for security reasons.
- Port the rest of the operations.
- Lift the 'flatness' restriction, it should be enough with flat in any plane.
- completely replace fnv
- make the gRPC protocol much more efficient, support f32 and packed triangles
- voronoi mesh generates some faulty faces