“Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems ” says its impressive website. The light program (8 MB) is freely downloadable.

A big pro for Blender is that it supports NURBS, (non-uniform rational b-splines) which means that curves are really curves and not segmented, which makes your model more accurate and faster. Most proprietary CAD programs don’t support NURBS, with the exception of Rhino.

The downside of Blender is its complicated interface. The dashboard sits at the bottom of your desktop, which is pleasant because it leaves you a wide working space. But the icons used in the interface are few and most buttons are texted. This means that you have to understand all the 3D technical lingo before you can start, not to mention that most designers are image oriented rather than text oriented. However it is claimed that the interface is a unique approach with which quick results should be possible once the interface is understood.

Blender, however Open Source, is a professional program. The features are numerous which makes the program very complete. But this is both its strength and is weakness. The trend is that architects offices more and more tend to use simple programs like Sketchup. It is easy to learn and understand, intuitive, and can be customized with plugins when desirable. Simplicity means not having to train people, which is an important aspect in the every day reality of personell flow through. In this perspective, Blender could be too complicated to learn.

However Blender’s results are superb. Check it out at http://www.blender.org/

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