[Bf-committers] Blender Command Port (BLASH) Integration

[Peter]

Hi
I am interested in using Blender as a CAD Tool as well as a 
visualization tool ( rather than an animation tool ).
I want to generate scenes based on algorithms and I want to experiment 
with different shape and picture grammars.
I  found the Blender Command Port 
<http://formgames.org/blender/command-port/> by Dietrich Bollman which 
exactly fullfils this need.
I succeeded in compiling Blender with the WITH_COMMAND_PORT=true blash 
option and was able to create a simple scene from a python script that 
communicates with blender operating in server mode.
Dietrich has also made available a blender-python-mode for emacs that 
allows to communicate with blender from within an emacs buffer.

Although the command port works fine, the setup is rather involved. I 
had to pull in a multitude of different libraries (on Ubuntu 8.10 ) and 
the configuration of the various tools ( blender, emacs ) is not easy. 
At least it wasn't for me.

I would like to suggest the integration of the Command Port into the 
Blender main distribution in order to allow more users to benefit from 
this interesting feature of "remote control" of blender.
I am sure that there are a multitude of applications in fields that are 
not directly related to animation like mathematics, statistics, physical 
simulation etc. Blender could also be useful to visualize and animate 
the behavior of algorithms.

What are your thoughts ?

Peter