Introduction to Scientific Visualisation with Blender

The goal of this course is to provide you with hands-on knowledge to produce great images from 3D scientific data. We will be using the open-source package Blender, which provides good basic functionality while also supporting advanced usage and general editing of 3D data. It is also a lot of fun to work with (once you get used to its graphical interface).

Examples of relevant scientific data include 3D cell-based simulations, 3D models from photogrammetry, (isosurfaces of) 3D medical scans, molecular models, and Earth sciences data. Note that we do not focus on information visualisation of abstract data, such as graphs (although you could convert those into a 3D model first and then use them in Blender).

We encourage participants to bring along the data they normally work with, or a sample thereof, and we would like to apply the course knowledge to these datasets.

For whom?

Anyone interested in learning how to design attractive visualisations. We assume an academic setting, but we do not make many assumptions about specific use cases for Blender. We are happy to help explore how Blender can be used to create attractive visuals from your data.

Prerequisites

Some familiarity with basic 3D graphics concepts (such as transformations and rendering) is helpful, but it is not mandatory.

You will need to bring a laptop, preferably with a capable GPU, on which you can install Blender during the course.

If you have any questions, please contact us at training-research@surf.nl.