filippocastelli / selectbyvolume

Blender addon for volume-based selection

SelectByVolume

Blender addon for volume-based object selection.

Requirements

SelectByVolume can be installed on Blender > 2.80

Install

Download the latest release as a zip archive, in Blender go to Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > Install and choose SelectByVolume.zip.
Ensure that you have activated the plugin by ticking its box and you're ready to go!

Usage

In the 3D Viewer mode, opening the side tab, under Tools you should be able to find the Select Objects by Volume panel.

Simple Range Selection

In Simple Range Selection mode you can choose a min and a max volume to bound your selection to and click on Select by volume: as simple as that.

Selection can be furter sped up by caching volume calculations with the use cached volumes button.

If you wish only objects that include some kind of identifier in their name to be included in the query, you can specify it in the string_id field: only objects that contain that string will be selected.

Multiple Range Selection

If you need more than just selecting a simple range, you can use the **Multiple Range Selection** mode.

It's possible to add different volume thresholds using the Add Threshold button (or removing them when you don't need them anymore, with Remove Threshold).

You can select each individual threshold by clicking on the different SELECT buttons.

Each volume threshold introduces by default a basic material with a random color which you can edit but is not assigned until you either click on the APPLY MATERIAL button on each selection or just use the Apply Materials to All Selections button.

You can reset all the volume thresholds using Reset Thresholds, this deletes all the selection thresholds you may have created. This operation does not delete the created materials (that you might have edited and might not want to delete) unless the reset materials option is selected.

It's possible to define a number of linearly or geometrically spaced selection thresholds using the Lin/Log Spaced Selections button, you just need to define a min., a max. volume and the number of selections you want to make, the previous thresholds will be deleted and substituted by new equally spaced ones.

Materials and Colors

In the materials section you can find the Apply All Materials button that lets you apply the previously generated materials all at once once your materials are in place you can manage their colors all at once either by randomizing them with the Randomize Colors button or by using one of the predefined colormaps.

Notes

• NOTE: remember to do a volume selection run disabling the cache whenever you make changes to your objects.
• NOTE: by using the cache functionality you're adding a sbv_volume property to your objects, there are virtually no scenarios in which this creates problems but notice it's there.

Planned Features

• Delete cache button
• Automatic cache reset on mesh changes
• Colormap based material color assignment
• Manual election of a "base" material to build all materials on

Contacts

Author:

Filippo Maria Castelli
[email protected]
LENS, European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy
Via Nello Carrara 1
50019 Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy

selectbyvolume's Issues

Can't be enabled because of folder name containing "."

When installing the archive, it creates the folder "SelectByVolume-0.2.3" in the Blender addons directory, but it cannot be enabled because the name contains the "." character. After renaming the folder and refreshing the Add-ons menu in Blender, it can be enabled normally.