7

EDIT: For those believing that Blender is good for mathematics or want to prove it, this may be helpful: Blender + Mathifold. I hope it does indeed meet the aspects I need Blender for.

I have recently discovered Blender and it seems a most powerful software. However, I am interested in mathematics visualization, pictures and media. To understand better the kind of things I am interested in, please visit the following links:

Film Dimensions

Film Chaos

Mathematical Imagery, Jos Leys

Ellipses (four videos in the middle of the page)

For such issues POV-Ray is usually recommended, but the design with Blender seems definitely easier. That is why I would like to ask you:

  • To what extent is it possible to design such mathematics visualization with Blender? And in this case, is there any place with a gallery of such pictures / videos?

  • Does Blender easily support rendering surfaces by parametric equations or (more difficult) implicit equations?

  • Is there anything else to recommend Blender for mathematics visualization?

Jjm
  • 305
  • 2
  • 8
  • 1
    I think Blender could probably do a good portion of what you are looking for. For instance, the 3D Function Surface addon (included with Blender) will generate a surface using parametric equations. The cycles node editor is extremely versatile, and could be easily used to mathematically adjust colors. – PGmath Jan 16 '15 at 18:22
  • 1
    Many of the shapes in the links you posted seem to consist of implicit or parametrized surfaces. Unfortunatly Blender only operates on mesh data. Even if you use Bezier surfaces or meta-balls they get converted to triangles before rendering (2D NURBS / Bezier curves might be an exception). I think creating those visualizations in Blender would be difficult. – maddin45 Jan 16 '15 at 19:51
  • Thank you for your comments. Now, supposing mathematical figures may be added by the trick shown in http://3dmathmodels.site.wesleyan.edu/ (Mathematica-.stl-Blender), would it be possible to use Blender to render pictures or videos like the previous ones? – Jjm Jan 17 '15 at 08:32
  • @PGmath I saw your comment after I posted an answer, I you want to post it by yourself, please ping me and I will delete my one. – stacker Jan 17 '15 at 10:11
  • @Jjm this approach should work. Since an .stl file is already a mesh Blender can render it. But be aware that this will be a discretization whose quality depends on the number of vertices you use. Rendering an implicit surface on the other hand would be a discretization on per-pixel level and could give smoother results. – maddin45 Jan 17 '15 at 10:21
  • For making mathematical visualizations in Blender it's often necessary to write Python scripts to manipulate Blender data. Of course, once you get to manipulate the data yourself in a programming language, there is in principle little you cannot do (but I'm not saying it's easy). As an example, I once made a video in Blender illustrating the Frenet frame of a curve, but that required some effort to smoothen the curve and calculate its framing in Python. (The video is at http://math.uiuc.edu/~michiel2/docs/frenet.mp4, if you want to see the end result.) – Daan Michiels Apr 29 '16 at 18:58
  • @DaanMichiels Thank you very much!! Would you mind sharing it at https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/117117856625909596615 ? Sometimes a minimal working example is just what needed to start working – Jjm May 02 '16 at 16:15
  • @Jjm - The code is at https://github.com/daanmichiels/blender-frenet, if that helps. It's from a long time ago, and I don't know whether it is legible... – Daan Michiels May 02 '16 at 17:39

1 Answers1

4

The closest thing is the Add_3d_Function_Surface addon.

Related:

Community
  • 1
stacker
  • 38,549
  • 31
  • 141
  • 243