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Blender CAD utils (for Blender 2.80+)

A tiny subset of unmissable CAD functions for Blender 3d.
Addon page on blender.org/wiki (Which has most of the same info]

Installation

The add-on is currently included in standard installations on Blender 2.78 onwards. Enable it by doing a search in User Preferences > Add-ons > and type 'tiny' into the search field. Enable 'Mesh: tinyCAD Mesh tools'.

In Blender 2.80 distributions you might encounter an older version of this add-on, if it fails to load/run/enable, please install it again from this github repository.

OK, what's this all about?

Dedicated CAD software speeds up drafting significantly with functions like: Extend, Trim, Intersect, Fillet /w radius and Offset /w distance. At the moment of this writing many of these functions aren't included by default in regular distributions on Blender.org, so i've coded scripts to perform a few of the main features that I missed most.

My scripts have shortnames: VTX, V2X, XALL, BIX, CCEN and are described separately in sections below. Fillet and Offset are written by zmj100 and can be found here.

Since I started this repository: Vertex Fillet / Bevel was added to master. So no more need for a separate addon. (Ctrl+Shift+b)

VTX

The VTX script has lived in contrib distributions of Blender since 2010, with relatively minor changes. The feedback from BlenderArtists has been overwhelmingly positive. I'm not going to claim it's bug free, but finding any showstopping issues has proven difficult. It now performs V, T or X selection automatically.

Expect full freedom of orientation, but stuff must really intersect within error margins (1.5E-6 = tolerance). These kinds of functions are handy for drawing construction lines and fixing up geometry.

  • V : extending two edges towards their calculated intersection point.
    V

  • T : extending the path of one edge towards another edge.
    T

  • X : two edges intersect, their intersection gets a weld vertex. You now have 4 edges and 5 vertices.
    X

  • Select two edges

  • hit Spacebar and type vtx ..select autoVTX

  • Bam. the rest is taken care of.

X ALL

Intersect all, it programatically goes through all selected edges and slices them all using any found intersections, then welds them.

  • XALL is fast!
    Imgur
  • Select as many edges as you want to intersect.
  • hit spacebar and type xa ..select XALL intersect all edges

V2X (Vertex to Intersection)

This might be a niche accessory, but sometimes all you want is a vertex positioned on the intersection of two edges. Nothing fancy.

BIX (generate Bisector)

Creates a single edge which is the bisect of two edges.
Imgur

CCEN (Circle Centers)

Given either

  • two adjacent edges on the circumference of an incomplete circle
  • or three vertices (not required to be adjacent)

this operator will places the 3d cursor at original center of that circle.

imgur

updated version may become a modal operator to generate a full set of circle vertices, with variable vertex count.

imgur demo

E2F (Extend Edge to Selected Face, Edge 2 Face)

Select a single Edge and a single Polygon (ngon, tri, quad) within the same Object. Execute W > TinyCAD > E2F

image

Why on github?

The issue tracker, use it.

  • Let me know if these things are broken in new releases. Why? I don't update Blender as often as some so am oblivious to the slow evolution.
  • If you can make a valid argument for extra functionality and it seems like something I might use or be able to implement for fun, it's going to happen.
  • I'm always open to pull requests (just don't expect instant approval of something massive, we can talk..you can use your gift of persuasion and sharp objectivism)