Blender add-ons for Cultural Heritage.
A curated catalog of third-party Blender add-ons (and a few standalone companions) useful across the Cultural Heritage 3D pipeline — photogrammetry, point clouds, 3D Gaussian Splatting, HBIM and more. Distinct from the EM Framework tools: these are tools you combine with EM, not part of it.
Where to find add-ons 3
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Blender Extensions Platform
maintainedThe official, current source for Blender add-ons (replaces the offline wiki.blender.org/Extensions:2.6).
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GitHub search: Blender + Python
maintainedKeyword search across 1700+ Blender/Python repositories.
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Blender Add-on List
legacyCollection with animated-GIF descriptions and download links (now largely outdated).
Texture painting 4
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Brush library manager
legacyManager script for a brush library.
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Brushes (xrg81)
legacyBrushes to append from a blend file.
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Texture Paint Plus
legacyTexture-paint helpers by Bart Crouch et al.
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Zero Brush
legacyOld free version of Zero Brush (now part of the invasive Sensei-free pack).
Vertex painting 1
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Slope
legacyWrite face-slope values to a vertex group / color layer (also in BlenderGIS).
Sculpting 1
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Space View Brush
legacyAlt+V exposes all sculpting commands at hand.
Materials 1
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Matalogue
legacyQuickly jump between materials/node trees and scenes.
PBR materials & FOSS ecosystem 6
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AwesomeBump
maintainedOpen-source generator of metallic/roughness PBR maps.
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Luminance HDR
maintainedOpen-source HDR creation from bracketed exposures/panoramas (ex-qtpfsgui).
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Real-time PBR (Clément Foucault branch)
maintainedThe PBR branch by C. Foucault — long since merged into Blender as EEVEE.
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Blender Brit (PBR node pack)
legacyFree PBR node pack (after Cynicat & Blender Guru).
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PBR workflows in Cycles (Sairiala thesis)
legacyBachelor's thesis on PBR workflows in Cycles (Sairiala, 2015).
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xNormal
legacyHigh-to-low-poly map baker for many map types (Windows).
Modelling & procedural 14
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Mesh Align Plus
maintainedPrecise alignment by picking geometry features.
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Modular Tree
maintainedProcedural tree generator (v3).
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Sverchok
maintainedPowerful node system for procedural/parametric modelling.
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Circumferences from three points
legacyBuild a circumference from three points.
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Cutaway material
legacyCutaway shader for sectioning models.
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Drop to Ground
legacyDrops selected objects onto the active object.
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Floorboard generator
legacyGenerates floorboards.
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Geodesic distance between points
legacyMeasure distances along geodesic paths on a surface.
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Intersection
legacyAdd the intersection with another mesh to the active object.
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Laser Slicer 0.7
legacyMake cross-sections and export an SVG for laser cutting.
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np_station
legacyPrecision drawing and placement workflow tools.
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Object Cross Section
legacyCreate cross-sections using the active object as cut plane.
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Planarizer
legacyCoplanarizes selected faces (median normal); fixes non-planar quads.
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Selective Unhide
legacySelectively unhide hidden objects.
Retopology / hard-surface 4
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Blender Carver
maintainedCarving / boolean modelling tools.
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Bool Tool
legacyDirect booleans as well as via modifier.
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Booltron
legacyBoolean add-on (union/difference/intersect on groups).
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Box Cutter
legacyFast cutting/boolean hard-surface workflow.
UV mapping 5
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Magic UV
maintainedUV editing helpers; includes a bounding box in UV space.
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Multi-Object UV Editing
legacyEdit UVs across multiple objects.
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Sure UV
legacyQuick box/cube UV mapping for architecture.
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TexTools for Blender
legacyUV/texture toolset (baking, layout, checker maps).
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UV Squares
legacyReshape UV faces into grids/squares.
3D viewport interface 12
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Add Dimension
maintainedSet an edge length arbitrarily.
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Amaranth Toolset
maintainedProduction quality-of-life tools (the old pablovazquez.org page is dead).
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Apply Shape Keys
maintainedHelper to apply shape keys.
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MeasureIt
maintainedOn-screen dimensions/measurements — now bundled in Blender.
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Miscellaneous tools (lapineige)
maintainedA miscellany of small useful add-ons.
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Rename
maintainedBatch-rename helper.
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Vertex Index Viewer
maintainedShow vertex indices — now built in (enable Developer Extras + index overlays).
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Enhanced 3D Cursor
legacyExtended 3D-cursor controls.
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Is Key Free
legacyFind an unused key for a shortcut.
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Mesh Snap Utilities Line
legacyDraw lines with snapping (now partly built into Blender).
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Modifier Manager
legacyManage modifiers across objects.
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Screencast Keys
legacyShow pressed keys on screen.
Baking 1
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Meltdown
legacyImproved baking UI.
Photogrammetry import 3
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Photogrammetry Importer
★ recommended EM pipeline maintainedThe reference tool for importing photogrammetric reconstructions (cameras + point clouds) from every major SfM/MVS package.
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3D Survey Collection (3DSC)
EM pipeline maintainedSurvey/georeferencing toolset for Blender, interoperable with EMTools (shift, EPSG).
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Panorama Tracker
legacyTool to stabilize 360° videos.
Point-cloud import 2
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Point Cloud I/O
★ recommended EM pipeline maintainedImports/exports E57, PLY, LAS/LAZ, PCD, XYZ and PTS into Blender's native PointCloud object.
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Blender Import Point Cloud Addon
EM pipeline maintainedImports PLY files as point clouds into Blender.
3D Gaussian Splatting 3
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3DGS Render by KIRI Engine
★ recommended EM pipeline maintainedFree, full Gaussian-Splat editing and rendering suite with EEVEE integration.
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Gauss Cannon
maintainedAutomates the capture side of 3DGS: camera paths and ray-traced point clouds for reconstruction.
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Gaussian Splatting Blender Addon (ReshotAI)
maintainedImports a 3DGS dataset and creates visualizations; handy for cleaning floaters.
Compositor 3
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Blender Quick Compositor
legacyRapid compositing presets.
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Color Ramp Dropper
legacySample a set of color-ramp values from an image.
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EasyFX
legacyPost-process renders quickly via compositor nodes.
Multi-user 1
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Verse 2
legacyServer + client for collaborative modelling in one 3D space.
Landscape & GIS 5
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BlenderGIS
EM pipeline maintainedImport DEM/shapefiles/basemaps and georeference scenes — relevant to CH georeferencing.
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Sun Position
maintainedSun/sky positioning by date/time/location — bundled in Blender.
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LOD generation for terrains
legacyGenerate levels of detail for terrains.
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OSG Export
legacyExport to OpenSceneGraph.
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Vegetation (grass)
legacyGrass/vegetation setup (companion Google Doc no longer available).
Camera & rendering 4
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Real Camera
maintainedPhysically-based camera settings for realistic rendering.
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Advanced Boomsmash
legacyOpenGL-viewport video capture — original link dead (June 2026).
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CameraImagePlane
legacyCreate a projection plane in the camera.
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Orbit camera
legacyCreate a camera that orbits an object.
Animation 4
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Blender Power Sequencer
maintainedEfficiency tools for the Video Sequence Editor.
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Animation Nodes
legacyNode-based procedural animation system.
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Flip Animation
legacyMirror / flip an animation.
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Keyframes Quick Tools
legacyQuick keyframe operations.
Coding 1
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Code Autocomplete
legacyAutocomplete for add-on development in Blender's text editor.
Paid / commercial 8
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Gaffer
maintainedLight management and tuning.
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RetopoFlow
maintainedIn-Blender retopology toolkit (with tutorials).
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Asset Sketcher
legacyPaint assets (e.g. trees) onto other geometry.
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Baketools
legacyAdvanced, fast and precise baking tools.
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Capsule
legacyRule-based FBX export of object groups.
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Color Master
legacyColor correction with a rich thumbnail preview section.
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Lodscape
legacyAutomatic landscape LODs (needs clean topology, e.g. from DEM/Instant Meshes).
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ProLightSkies
legacyPhotorealistic outdoor sky/lighting.
Simulation 2
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Projectors
maintainedSimulate projector light onto surfaces in 3D space.
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Modeling-Cloth
legacyModel and simulate cloth interactively.
Exporter / Importer 2
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glTF Blender Exporter
maintainedglTF import/export — now built into Blender.
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FBX Bundle
legacyBatch FBX export — original link offline; moved to Superhive / Blender Market.
2D plans & derived data 1
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MeasureIt_ARCH
EM pipeline maintainedDesign documentation & technical drawings; export to images, vector graphics or DXF.
BIM / HBIM 1
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Bonsai (formerly BlenderBIM)
★ recommended EM pipeline maintainedReference FOSS OpenBIM / native-IFC authoring platform — the key tool for HBIM.
No add-ons match these filters.