Blender Connection

Installation

See the Add-On installation guide for details.

Blender Connection Palette

You can open Blender Connection Palette through one of the following entry points:

• Go to Bimdots menu and select Blender Connection from the list.
• Go to Window / Palettes menu and select Blender Connection from the list.

Set up connection

On first use, the Archicad Add-On will prompt you for the location of your Blender executable file and guide you through installing the Blender Add-On. You only need to complete this setup once.

Send Archicad data to Blender

Before sending data, ensure Blender is running and the Add-On is enabled under Edit > Preferences > Add-ons.

• Send geometry to Blender: Incrementally sends all elements visible in the current 3D view. Only modified elements are sent.
• Force send geometry to Blender: Force-sends all visible elements, even if no changes were made in Archicad. Use this to reset any geometry adjustments made in Blender.
• Send sun data to Blender: Sends the sun position, color, and intensity to Blender while preserving all other Blender light settings.

Material handling

Materials are created automatically during the initial transfer. Subsequent geometry updates in Blender preserve your customized material settings, allowing you to fine-tune materials without losing progress.

You can also define material mappings using the sidebar menu (N key). This allows you to specify which Archicad materials should be mapped to which Blender materials. The mapping will be applied when the geometry is updated. Use gorce send to update materials even if the geometry has not changed.

Settings

Click the Settings button on the palette to configure the following options:

• Blender Executable Path: The file path pointing to your Blender executable.
• Blender Connection Port: The communication port used to connect with Blender. Adjust this if running multiple Blender instances. You can view the active port in Blender by opening the sidebar menu (N key).
• Mesh Grouping: The method used to group meshes in Blender. This also determines what is updated during an incremental send.
• Texture Handling: Determines whether textures are sent to Blender.