I was doing some archiving today, and didn’t want to copy over all the .blend1 and .blend2 files that Blender 3D creates as a backup. They are incredibly handy whilst working on a project, but once it goes in my archive they just eat up space.
So I wrote this tiny script. If you have python installed… just put it in any folder, run the script. It will delete all .blend1 and .blend2 files in that folder and any deeper folders.
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
I had a long think about some of the issues with the Caliper. The first was easy to solve.
Now the caliper has an Empty at either end when created. These you can drag around of for instance use a constraint to attach them to a specific part of another mesh.
The second update is a bigger one… You can now use the Caliper with Cycles’ rendered preview. Previously it forced an update that made cycles eh… cycle over and over.
Next I’ll have a look at the efficiency of the script. Currently it eats too much processor speed when you have a scene with lots of objects. I also want to add a function that allows you to “freeze” or “bake” a caliper.
More soon!
It is time! The Caliper addon for Blender could use some testing! It has taken a couple months to get to this point but we are here at last!
If you have any suggestions or questions please use the thread at the BlenderArtists.org forum!
You can download the script at the google code page or here at the top of the post!
This is a very brief description of how you can use the script, including a few tips.
Once you’ve added the Caliper script to your Blender addons folder and enabled it in your preferences, you can add a Caliper through the regular add menu in the 3D view.
The initial Caliper consists of three visible objects. An Empty (this controls the entire caliper), and arrow mesh, and a text object.
If you remove any of these objects, the entire Caliper is automatically removed.
Do not rename any of these objects!
You can find all the settings for the Caliper in the Empty’s object properties panel.
Do not confuse the Caliper settings with the “Custom Properties”.
You can set the base style of the arrow and how precise the measurement is in the top Box.
In the two boxes below you can set the start and end location of the measurement. You can either set them to a set x,y,z location or the location of another object.
Tip: Set the location of the start and end of the Caliper measurement to the location of a new Empty object so you can move them around more easily!
To change the unit of measurement from Blender units to something more “real world”, change the settings in your scene setup! These settings (combined with the precision setting in the caliper properties) let you control the entire measurement output.
You can edit the settings of the text object just like any other, only the contents are dynamically generated. To give it some colour, just select it and assign a material. The same goes for the arrow. You can select it and assign a colour, but currently the material link is lost as soon as you change the style in the Caliper properties.
If you want to edit the arrow yourself, feel free, just keep in mind to use the vertex groups so the Caliper will still work! If you change the style in the properties… your changes will be lost!
Please let me know how the current version of the Caliper suits you! If you run into any bugs let me know through the Blenderartist.org forum!
Remember you can still make a donation to support further development and support!
The Caliper is progressing nicely! Go here to get the current version: http://code.google.com/p/blender-caliper/
There’s a few things to keep in mind when testing the current version!
After adding a caliper, you can now set the start and end location of the measurement. You can also switch between “location” and “object”. The object input works just like the one in a copy location constraint. The downside is that you can see the variables that are modified in the Custom properties…
You can edit the text and line objects manually, and give them colours like any other normal objects. They have a few constraints and modifiers which should be left alone.
I’m about to add a few more styles for the line, and imperial & metric measurements. I’d also like to add a few small features like “set start and endpoint of measurement to cursor”.
I haven’t decided whether I’ll add a function to do post removal cleanup of the file, or… add a “remove caliper” function… but a cleanup on save is probably neater.
Progress is good and fast now. The biggest problems have been addressed, though I’m sure I’ll run into a few more things… more coming soon!!!
I am glad to announce that the hardest bit to code has been done! Mainly… that was a nice way to update the measurement as you edit your scene. This was something the original Caliper didn’t do at all, and wasn’t covered by the crowdfunding on this one (target wasn’t met). But I recon it is what will make this addon awesome!
You can download the current version here: http://code.google.com/p/blender-caliper/
Be aware though that this is not yet a useful tool at all!
You can add a Caliper through the menu.
Then you can select the empties at the ends… and move them… the text will update with the distance between the two empties.
This is all going to become much cleaner later on, and of course you will be able to get imperial measurements as well. I have to say… I’m very happy I got this major issue solved so that I can move on to something more visual!
I started work on the Caliper addon for Blender last week. You can find the current state of the code here: http://code.google.com/p/blender-caliper/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fscripts%2Faddons
Feel free to test the script out, but be aware that it’s very much a work in progress and there are several big hurdles yet to be taken.
What is happening now
Currently the script creates an empty with two child empties. These two child empties are the start and end points of the measurement. There is also a mesh object and a text object for visualisation. At this point the empties have to be moved manually, but I will make it so you can “set them” through the interface and they will become invisible.
The biggest hurdle to take now is the automated updating. I hacked it now so that the interface is redrawn 1x extra when you move an empty. But this is a very bad hack. I have to see if we can update the scene somehow without creating a loop.
Day after tomorrow I’m off for a short bit of summer holiday. Work will continue right after!
Dolf
Ever since Blender 2.5 came out I have been receiving a couple of e-mails every month asking me whether I would create a new version of the Caliper python script/addon for the current Blender version. I think that Blender has stabilised enough for me to do so now!
You can help by donating a small amount at the bottom of the page!
To clarify:
I will make this addon whether the funding goals are reached or not! If the goals are reached however, it means I can dedicate more time to it. If they aren’t… it may take significantly longer for me to find enough spare time to finish the project in.
I have been writing python scripts for Blender 3D now for the last 8 years. Recently I also worked on Sintel, a short movie by the Blender institute, and helped rewrite the Graphicall.org website. Basically I’ve been around the Blender Community for over a decade helping out where I can. One of the most downloaded python scripts I’ve written is the Caliper, which was released back in 2006. It was initially done as a small commercial job for Render Reality LLC.
The Blender Caliper script is a tool that lets you measure distances inside Blender 3D in real world values. Not only that but it also creates clean renderable objects to show the measurements. This way architects & designers for instance can show renders of their products and designs to customers including measurements that are meaningful, and that everyone can understand.
I will start by creating a completely fresh script for the Caliper as a proper Blender 3D addon (or module). This addon will incorporate the basic Caliper functionality of creating an object which displays the distance between 2 points in Blender’s 3d space and can be rendered. Then this functionality can be expanded with more detailed measurements and live updating. Finally I propose to maintain the system for future Blender versions.
The imperial and the metric system will both be supported.
All the code will be released under a GPL license, and published on-line during the project.
Funding takes place via Paypal. Please see the section below for additional information. People who have donated to the project will be mentioned below here.
(This bar is updated manually, and may not reflect the current situation)
| Stage | Description | Cost | Status |
| 1 | Creation of basic Caliper objects to display distances between objects | € 1000,- | |
| 2 | Additional measurement from points inside meshes and curve objects | € 500,- | |
| 3 | Live update of measurements | € 1000,- | |
| 4 | Support for future Blender versions | € 1000,- per year (3 years max) |
All feedback and suggestions are welcome. A thread at the Blenderartists.org forum has been started for this purpose. Please do not send e-mail messages to me personally with your suggestions. It is much easier to keep track of things using the forum.
If you like this project, please donate to it. Enough donations will ensure that the project will be finished within half a year. Without these donation the project can take longer.
You can donate a small amount, but please keep it above €10 due to the overhead of paypal.
| Level | Amount | Reward |
| Iron | € 10,- and up | Will be mentioned on this page Let me know if you don’t want to be named |
| Bronze | € 50,- and up | Will be mentioned along with a website-url |
| Silver | € 100,- and up | Will be allowed to also add a logo |
| Gold | € 250,- and up | All of the above, and have a Caliper style named after yourself in the actual addon (like a filter in instagram) |
It is also possible to donate anonymously. If you don’t want to be mentioned on this page please send me an <enable javascript to view e-mail addresses> after you make your donation.
First development will start when the amount of €1000,- is met. All development can be watched from a public svn repository and status reports that will be updated regularly. Please contact me if you have additional questions.
The first stage of crowdfunding will end on the first of June 2012. We hope to get enough funds, to start development.
Please press the next button, to donate.
The self shadow script creates vertex colours based on the angles of your mesh.
It has been quite a while since Campbell Barton wrote the original Self Shadow script (it was included in Blender 2.45). Around the same time I wrote the “Ma Baker” script that did something similar. We then cooperated in writing the “Ma Self” script which was an optimised version of a third method.
Because I’m currently working on growing Entoforms with colours, I also wanted some shading and this method is perfect for it. I decided to rewrite the scripts as a Blender 2.5 addon.
After placing the script in your addons folder and enabling it through the user preferences (mesh/self shadow). You can find the function in the vertex paint mode under the paint menu.
I will probably do a rewrite with more refined options soon, but I thought I’d share this version already since it works rather well.
An added functionality is that it generates shadows in HSV colour mode. This means that even if you already painted your mesh… the original vertex colour data is retained… only the “lightness” is altered by the script.
I just now needed this to replace a bunch of objects with empties so I can use “Dupligroups” in stead. I thought I’d publish it… but no more info for now… perhaps later. It’s meant to work in Blender 2.5
Now Blender 2.5 still isn’t stable so don’t expect it to work as is forever… I found it usefull though.
This script moves your current selection to the cursor relative to the current view.
This script is written for blender 2.45
There are no settings for this script. It acts on your currently active object, or if you are in edit mode on the verts in your mesh.
Of course you can just open the script in your text window, but I find it’s nicer from the menus. If you added the script to your scripts folder it shows up in the Object menu of your 3d view as well so you can just select it there.
But since you may also want it to be in the mesh menu I made a second version. This second version is exactly the same as the original, but with a different header.
You can download that version by clicking here: VertsToViewCursor.1.py (put that in your scripts folder as well)
If you did you’ll find it in the Mesh menu as well
Lets give a small practical example. Say I have two suzannes in my scene like this.
They have completely different positions, but now lets say that I want them right next to each other. So I put the cursor at the position of the left monkey by doing the normal “cursor to selection” (ctrl+s).
Now if I would select the other suzanne and did a “selection to cursor” their positions would be completely identical… and that’s not what I want… so I go into side view and run the script.
And this is the result as seen from the side.
But if we go to the front view you can see they are still next to each other (the x position of the second suzanne is not influensed, since that was the view vector). And we can do this from any angle, it doesn’t have to be just the front or side.
And we can do this with verts in a mesh as well! Think of it as a tool to align things!
That’s it for now.. I hope it’s as usefull to you as it is to me.
Dolf