Automaticly Drawing Shapes by coordinates?
Is there already a feature within blender that would allow me to draw a shape(s) by specifying coordinates? All it needs is 2 modes, draw, and void,
Like starting at 0,0,0 , create point A1, make straight line to Point B1(5,0,0), Connect to Point C1(7,7,0) with an arc at X degrees, ect, ect. Automatically drawing the lines and creating a 2D shape until the lines are back to point A,
Copy Shape 1, move to 0,0,5. Connect all points to same letter ones and bam a simple 3-D shape is done.
the units could be whatever measurements desired, inches, CM, "units" ect. Could be instantly reshaped to different units as well potentially.
I feel like a system that does that would be far easier to use to make more simple shapes and object, you could just connect the dots basically. Drawing with Vectors I guess.
Void space would be used to erase parts of a shape. For example you could have it draw a cube, then specify Shape 2 as a void cylinder to be removed from the center to punch a hole in it, then add a shape 3 to put a pyramid on top.
Maybe I'm just crazy but it seems like it would be useful if it's not already there. Would also be nice to see blender be made more user friendly in general, have to go watch some long tutorial on how to make text currently.
9 Comments
What you're describing sounds like a very CAD way of drawing. While Blender could certainly do more to support some CAD workflows, I'm not sure i'd personally want to see it go down this road as a primary interaction model.
@Jason van Gumster: It has no reason to be the only/primary interaction model, it should just be an option if it's already a thing in CAD, would surely make my life far easier.
This sounds more like OpenSCAD than Blender. I would recommend looking at that first.
You can do something like the drawing and copying parts with Blender's Python API if you know how to program. I'm not sure about "void space", there might be something like that in the Archipack add-on's code.
@nburn_: Would OpenSCAD be able to do animation and texture work like blender?
@thelordstreetguru: I'm not sure about texture support, but I don't think there's any animation support. OpenSCAD uses a CSG / parametric based programming language primarily intended for creating CAD models.
@nburn_: If only I were a better programmer, can't be that hard to implement something like my imaginary feature if it's already done in CAD applications.
@thelordstreetguru: I think most of what you listed is probably doable without too much programming knowledge. You can add and remove vertices, add and modify objects, and apply textures with a fairly basic Python script. For a quick example, this snippet is all it takes to create an "empty" mesh object (just an object origin) at world coordinate 0, 0, 1
Performing boolean operations (what I'm guessing you meant with your void space idea?) is a bit more tricky. Not because you need a lot of programming knowledge, but because Blender's boolean solver gets less reliable (and more crash prone) the more complex your geometry becomes.
Advanced programming knowledge isn't really a necessity unless you're trying to make changes to how Blender works, like adding new features.
@nburn_: Ya I'd want/need GUI elements for such things.
Like being able to work with the objects as layers on a panel, just typing in what I want connected and the lengths I wanted or dragging them together, live previews basically of what's happening as well, merging them to a finished object, applying a texture to them and all that fun stuff
You can use animation nodes, how do you want to insert the data?