Raspberry Pi <3 Blender
The Raspberry Pi is a credit card sized computer that runs Linux and sells for only $35. After its announcement yesterday, 10,000 of them were sold in only a couple of hours. Here are two interesting stories involving the Raspberry Pi and Blender.
Raspberry Pi demo, includes Big Buck Bunny
Blender-designed Raspberry Pi case for 3D printing
Marco Alici writes:
As soon as I came into contact with the Raspberry Pi project I thought that:
- I’d like to have one as soon as possible;
- I’d like to give it an attractive case.
So I designed a case to be 3D-printed (or moulded, if someone would like to invest in it), and I liked to render it in Blender2.59+Yafaray.
Here is the start, and here is the end, with the rendered images.
I’m waiting for a real 3D printed prototype from Shapeways.
I guess I will be running Blender on linux after all. Blender on the go.. Its going to be interesting to see how the blender community uses this..
I don’t know, does Blender compile on arm platforms?
it should compile if the libraries are compiled for the platform as far as I understand it.
Hum, it’s not that simple. Blender rely on different libraries that are most likely not available for ARM. And compiling on ARM is not simple at all.
I’ve compiled and run blender on ARM without any problems (infact it was very simple), which libraries don’t work?
Excuse my lack of understanding, but how exactly would this be useful
for on-the-go modeling? You would still need a power supply, computer
display, mouse, and keyboard to use this. Seems much easier to just use a laptop.
Your own 100-core render farm for $3500? :-)
Pick up a cheap 100 port router and bingo – you’re done :)
Can’t fit a laptop in my pocket & peripherals are everywhere and inexpensive. Imagine a world where your main computer is the size of a flash drive and you just clip in at any location anywhere. Toting my laptop around gets old when you can fit it in your pocket. More convenient and unlike a laptop its always with you. Personally I would take mine to work since I can’t blend on a company computer. (during lunch of course) Also have not seen many 27in laptops. I would prefer the 27in real estate when I blend away from home. When traveling carrying two laptops (business and personal) is nerdy. If someone stole my $35 computer I’d just go get another one. If someone took my Macbook Air I would be mad. Put a nano projector on it and you won’t need a monitor.
It still seems easier to pull out my laptop than to have to plug this
into a TV and carry a keyboard too. And only a wired network connection, which could be a problem in areas without ethernet ports. By the time I get this set up I
could have my laptop already running and with Blender open. Plus i can use my laptop in my car. But that’s just my 2 cents. ;)
Yes using it on the go like that wouldn’t be worth, but usage varies, if I’m in a car I’m either driving or enjoying the ride, wouldn’t want to be on the computer… I might take it down to a park to work though if I had a laptop… this is only $35 though I can’t afford a laptop
Here is another micro computer you’d be interested in. not as cheap as the Raspberry Pi but still impressive none the less. http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/fxi-cotton-candy-pocket-computer-available-to-pre-order-for-199-video-28-02-2012/
Have you ever heard about the sixth sense?
Sorry can’t find the original video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQEHtvNsfKE
Notice the RCA out? you can connect this with virtually EVERY tv out there, no need for a monitor when you’ve got a tv. Also if you do some searching you can find pocket sized projectors, roll out keyboards and virtual keyboards, to name a few. This is like a missing piece of the puzzle.
I wonder if it will run ubuntu? It would be great to keep my workflow streamed. I manage a small video team at my church, and wanting to add another pc I’ve thought about bringing my main desktop here, with this I can make this my home computer, to do simple editing and internet use, and bring my main pc down to the church after all :D
I doesn’t run Ubuntu, yet. I think it will eventually, though.
You can get mobilized version of blender on portableapps.com to be put on a usb stick/drive/ipod etc.
my head is blown!! i want one even for 100 $.
this one is awesome for blender modeling on the go, though how about blender cycles on the go?
this was another question I had, with the GPU????
Could these be used for a render farm?
guess you can since it has an ethernet port
most likely, though the amount of ram these have makes it unlikely to be a great solution (even if you split up the image between nodes. you need memory for geometry and textures).
This is an amazing computer. 700Mhz with an operating system for only $35 plus shipping. Holy cow!!
Thats funny, I was thinking about a case last night, just one thought though: that thing has no fans, would it not interfere with cooling?
I want to network 50 of them together as a blender render farm???? :)
50 cpu’s rendering 50 frames at one time :) :)
on a 700 mhz ARM? that’s funny.
if you can us the GPU then power per frame should be ok
This also has a graphics GPU capable of using openCL and openGL. The cycles and processing could be pushed to the GPU. You could create a parallel cluster server. The only problem would be 256mb of limited ram on the board. Hope they can figure a way to use the pinouts, if possible to get more ram for the Rasberry Pi.
Looks intriguing…
I think when it says raspberry-pi <3 Blender, they just mean this case was designed in Blender… not that you should try running Blender on it. That would be a PITA at best.
Guys, for what it’s worth, I had looked at it months ago: my idea was that if it could run the game engine, it’d a fun cheap way to push the Blender Game engine onto the masses (hook it to your TV), with the endless possiblity of downloading more games, update the engine etc. However, I read the specs, but unlike spfxguy, I walked away thinking IT WOULD NOT run openCL. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. Because there is USB port, you can envisage a cheap USB port memory extension etc…, joysticks, keyboards plugged on a USB port hub replicator. I wish them luck, I hope this comes to fruition for the benefit of the Blender community (the raspberry maker).Arnaud
Arnaud0
I saw this on the web after you post.
http://www.streamcomputing.eu/blog/2011-07-28/qa-with-ziilabs/
http://semiaccurate.com/2011/04/26/arm-jumps-in-to-opencl-with-both-cpu-and-gpus/
There still may be some hope.
Thank you for mentioning my blog. The next article on ARM+OpenCL is not finished yet, but more companies besides ZiiLabs are working on it. The latest ARM MALI seems to be doing well and usable products will pop up in 6-8 months.
If you look around on the internet for more sources, be warned: you see a lot of “Supports OpenCL” on ARM-products, but most of the times you need to read this as “Supports OpenCL, but we do not offer drivers for it”.
Just follow me @OpenCLonARM:twitter if you want the first to know what happens on ARM+OpenCL. 2012 is going to be very interesting in this field.
…That’s just flippin’ cool, man! I want one!
You can have it, now. ;)
http://wp.me/p1l0Lq-e2
Thank you Shapeways! ;)
I myself do not know how to do it but I can imagine a series of RPi for a render farm. As for working with Blender on a RPi. I don’t think so. I mean ideally it is recommended to have 8Gig of ram specially if there’s sculpting involved and I assume that fluid/particle/smoke/etc simulation are quite heavy on ram. (realistic one at least) So what is the fuss over this other than having a cheap render farm. (that said, I’d love to have my own render farm ) :)
TheElwolf
Another one is Cubox (more powerful, but more expensive)
http://www.solid-run.com/news
But the only one with built in WiFi is the Cotton Candy.
Hello, this is very interesting!
I work for a 3d printing company: “Offload Studios” and this is one of the things we
specialise in. We just recently designed / printed / and made moulds for a similar
project, (I am not at liberty to say more then that).
If you want to get a print through us or would like me to access your model’s
real world feasibility, email me at: [email protected]
Cheers
How do I connect it to a WiFi connection?
via a usb wifi dongle (connected to an active usb hub connected to one of the usb ports)
just what i needed cant wait to get one for my tv :D
scratch that make it 4 :D
We’re now face to face with the NEXT computer!! Splendid!
Lets get this case on
http://www.thingiverse.com/ .
did you print a 3D case yet??
The $35 dollar Model B version has 512MB of RAM. Not a lot but probably serviceable for a render farm.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/RaspiModelB.png
Since I can’t afford a $300USD CPU at the moment I thought I could use one of those tiny computers for modeling on Blender, I can afford an ASUS Thinker Board, it haa a Rockchip Quad-Core RK3288 processor, 2GB of DDR3 and an ARM Mali-T760 MP4 GPU clocked at 600 MHz supporting OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenCL 1.1, Renderscript and Direct3D 11.1 wich seem powerful enough to run Blender.
Has anyone tried this little board?
Blender will probably run on it but I wouldn’t hold my breath for great performance..