Blender Plugins for Architecture and BIM

Blender is an open-source modeling software, which becomes increasingly powerful year after year.

So much so that in the world of video games, which evolves in parallel to that of architecture, professionals are already placing a lot of trust in it for specialized applications.

Besides being free to use, it can also be expanded by a multitude of passionate developers worldwide, hence it boasts a very useful ecosystem of blender plugins for architects.

In this article, we're going to review the plugins that architects should know about and their uses in architecture and construction.

Bonsai, Open BIM in Blender

Bonsai BIM is an openbim plugin in Blender that allows reading IFC files as well as editing them and thus assigning Blender geometries to the BIM classification.

Bonsai utilizes the full power of Blender for geometry creation, while combining it with IFC class integration and BIM categorization.

It even allows you to version your model natively using GIT, a version control system well-known to developers.

Speckle, BIM finally interoperable!

Speckle is a synchronization tool between modeling software, but also with spreadsheets like Excel, in order to work in a team and always have the correct version of your building.

Speckle has a blender plugin that allows exchanging:

• for example between Revit and Blender
• Archicad and Blender
• or synchronize an Excel spreadsheet with BIM data from the BIM model in Blender

It is also part of my selection of the best AI and BIM tools for architects, which you can find here.

Sverchok, parametric in Blender

Sverchok, an open-source addon for Blender allows for parametric design similar to Grasshopper or Dynamo, by combining nodes together.

For example, if I want to design a square base building, a first node will produce a square, for instance by inputting its width, let's say 10m.

Then I would connect it to a node, which allows extruding this shape along the vertical axis, thus giving me the shape of a building. The building height can be fixed "hard," or be the result of two variables, number of floors X floor height.

This very simple example shows you the way to approach modeling, which can be a bit disconcerting at first, but allows you to create shapes that are completely unfeasible by hand. It also clearly extracts variables, for instance, "number of floors," thus allowing for a very quick subsequent modification.

Finally, combined with AI applied to architectural modeling, the possibilities are greatly expanded by adopting this approach to modeling, akin to software development.

Another advantage of parametric modeling in Blender is that you can export node assemblies and therefore reload them very quickly, and also share them with the openBIM community.

Ladybug, open environmental calculation

Ladybug is an open-source software dedicated to energy and performance calculation. It allows you to calculate natural lighting on a given model in a specific geographical context.

Thanks to the Ladybug blender plugin, you can generate performance calculations directly from your BIM model.

This blog post has a french version: Les plugins Blender pour l'architecture et le BIM