Blender on the iPAQ

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.blender3d.com/CompanyAndPress/press_2002.php">http://www.blender3d.com/CompanyAndPress/press_2002.php</a><br /><br />Ahhh.. finally, you can mix your favorite drinks right on your iPAQ. Oh, wait - different blender. This is Blender 3D software, and now it runs right on your iPAQ Pocket PC. :-) <br /><br />"Not a Number™ (NaN) has released the proof of concept for their powerful 3D creation suite, Blender Creator, running on a Compaq iPAQ PDA, available for download. <br /><br />"This prototype serves as a demonstration of Blender’s portability and does to show that 3D on wireless applications can be today’s reality. The introduction of next generation wireless networks is causing an explosion in demand for new, high value, personal rich media, as operators and content providers seek desperately to fill these new pipelines with attractive, entertaining and useful content tailored to the new devices."<br /><br />If you don't know who NaN is or what they do, they "set the standard for real-time 3D: 3D content creation, 3D playback, and 3D delivery. Our products work across all networks and hardwares. As a 3D graphics tool, Blender is used for print, video, and film. It's also a tool for creating 3D interactive media and games."<br /><a href="http://www.blender3d.com"><img src="http://www.blender3d.com/gfx/iPaqHp.jpg" /></a><br />Very cool - and now they have brought that to the iPAQ. I haven't dug into the software any deeper yet, so I don't know why it is iPAQ only right now. I presume the 206MHz processor is a requirement, but all Pocket PC 2002 devices have that now.

[JasonA]

NaN's cool. They demonstrated this at a conference about a year ago (if I recall...), and since then, everybody in the Blender community with an iPAQ has been waiting for them to actually release it. Almost didn't expect it to happen, as they said it was just for demo purposes, but now here it is. :)

For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the real power of Blender is on the desktop. The point of running it on a PDA is not that you would necessarily do much modelling or rendering while mobile, but more that everybody just wanted to see if it could be done. Cool for showing off to your friends...

"Here, I'll just render a quick scene in 3D.
Your Palm can do that too, right?

...oh wait. NO." 8)

[Dave Conger]

I really had no idea how to use this program when I downloaded it, and I still don't (never using Blender before and all), but is looks damn cool. Nice to even better 3D graphics for handhelds.

[Honolulu]

:( when for other ppc 2002 ? I have a HP 568 and I'm a 3d fan.

[Dave Conger]

I installed it on my upgraded iPAQ and it seemed to work.

[zylark]

Now if only Newtek could adapt Lightwave 3d to the PocketPC, I'd be very happy indeed :) Lightwave 4 ran happily (if a tad slow) on a 12,7 mhz Amiga 1200. I ran it under the blistering fast (hehe) 25mhz Amiga 4000 before upgrading to PC some four years ago...

[Robert]

Tried this on the HP568 and it doesn't work so maybe it is just for Ipaq owners. Shame. Looks as if I could have easily wasted alot of time playing with that!

[philfp]

For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the real power of Blender is on the desktop. The point of running it on a PDA is not that you would necessarily do much modelling or rendering while mobile, but more that everybody just wanted to see if it could be done. Cool for showing off to your friends...


Well quite. I'd looked at the possibility of porting raytracing s/w to the iPaq before I got my first PPC, but when I realised just how battery hungry the box is, I scrubbed that idea fairly fast. The reason why rendering is so good on a desktop is that there is some concept of idle time for the rendering to be performed in. On my iPaq, the rendering would last about 120 seconds before it turned itself off to save battery!

Phil