alentraca / blender_notebook

A simple command line tool to wrap blender 2.8+ as a jupyter kernel.

Blender Notebook

A simple command line tool to wrap blender 2.8+ as a jupyter kernel.

Blender's python API requires its embedded python interpreter. As of Blender 2.82, python 3.7 is packaged. In order to make ipykernel and other pip packages accessible to Blender, the site-packages directory of the python interpreter executing blender_notebook will be added to Blender's python path. Therefore, it's highly recommended to use exactly the same python version as your blender.

Installation

The easiest way to install blender_notebook is via pip:

$ python -m pip install blender_notebook

It can also be installed from source:

$ python -m pip install -e .

Usage

If blender in installed by a package manager, the easiest way to find the executable path is:

$ which blender
/snap/bin/blender

In my case, blender is installed from snap.

On MacOS, the blender executable path is usually:

/Applications/Blender.app/Contents/MacOS/Blender

On Windows, the blender executable path is usually:

C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.82\blender.exe

Then, run the blender_notebook CLI (replace "snap/bin/blender" with your blender executable path):

$ blender_notebook install --blender-exec="/snap/bin/blender"
Saving files to ~/.local/share/jupyter/kernels/blender

If you launch jupyter notebook as usual, a new kernel named blender should be available.

$ jupyter kernelspec list
Available kernels:
blender              ~/.local/share/jupyter/kernels/blender

$ jupyter notebook

You can also delete the kernel:

$ blender_notebook remove
Are you sure to delete ~/.local/share/jupyter/kernels/blender ? [y/N]: y
blender jupyter kernel is removed!