Feedback on the Speckle Blender Connector Alpha

General discussion
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Hi Speckle Team,

I hope you’re doing well! I recently had the chance to test the latest alpha version of your next-gen connector for Blender (v3.1.0-alpha.1), and I wanted to share some thoughts and suggestions. While I appreciate the effort that’s gone into this release, there are a few areas where I think improvements could make a huge difference for users like me.

1. Geometry Updates Instead of Duplicates

One of the key features missing is the ability to update geometry instead of duplicating it. For workflows like mine—where models are iteratively updated in Rhino and synced with Blender—this is essential. Right now, every re-import duplicates objects, which makes it difficult to maintain materials, UVs, modifiers, and object positions. Adding an update feature would streamline this process and save a lot of time!

2. UI/UX Improvements

The user interface feels a bit confusing and could use some refinement to make it more intuitive. A clearer layout and better guidance would go a long way in improving the user experience. I know UI/UX design can be tricky, but even small changes could make the tool much more approachable.

3. Stability Issues

I’ve noticed that importing certain types of geometry, like lines or curves, causes crashes. This makes it hard to rely on the connector for more complex projects. Stability improvements here would be greatly appreciated.

4. Triangulation and Mesh Resolution

By default, Speckle triangulates all geometry when publishing from Rhino, which creates extra work in Blender to clean up unnecessary triangles on flat surfaces. It would be fantastic if users could control this behavior or disable triangulation entirely for certain cases. Additionally, having the option to set the resolution for curved surfaces before exporting would eliminate the need to pre-mesh everything non-linear in Rhino.

My Workflow

Here’s an example of how I typically use Speckle with Blender:

  1. Model something in Rhino and upload it to Speckle.
  2. Download into Blender, then apply materials, UVs, modifiers, and adjust positions.
  3. Make changes in Rhino and re-upload.
  4. Download updated geometry into Blender while keeping all materials and settings intact.
  5. Apply new materials/modifiers to any new objects.
  6. Repeat as needed.

Right now, steps 3 and 4 are where things fall apart because the connector duplicates geometry rather than updating it.

Suggestions

  • Work closely with archviz professionals or 3D artists to better understand their workflows.
  • Focus on features like geometry updates and customizable mesh settings.
  • Continue refining the UI/UX for clarity and ease of use.
  • Address stability issues with importing specific geometry types.

I’m sharing this feedback because I believe in Speckle’s potential and want to see it succeed as a tool for archviz workflows. With some adjustments, this connector could become an invaluable resource for 3D artists working across platforms like Rhino and Blender.

Thanks for taking the time to read through my thoughts! Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help test future updates or provide additional feedback.

Best regards,
Mike Crack

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First off, thank you to the Speckle team for moving forward with this much-anticipated next-gen connector!

To add to the feedback above, I did not see any metadata properties come through on the object or object data level. They were showing in the Speckle system, however.

Performance was also very slow - publishing a model to the speckle system via Revit was a challenge. Mid-sized projects froze at the 90+% mark and a relatively small scene ran slow as well during the serialization phase (approx. 10-15 min to show on the speckle server). We also experienced issues with publishing a model to Speckle when it included a linked Revit file.

One final note - I’m unaware of how to unlink a model after it has been imported to Blender. I couldn’t find a delete/remove icon next to the imported Revit file via Speckle’s UI.

I appreciate the work that has been put into this pipeline and I’m looking forward to the next update!

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The Revit-to-Max workflow also includes an option to merge assets by material. It can be very convenient, but the models we receive are messy and often contain thousands of objects with a generic material applied. Merging by material for us would be impossible, so having a toggle in Revit-to-Blender’s workflow would be the most flexible design.

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Wanted to follow-up with feedback after importing a large residential project going from Revit 3.1.2 to Blender 3.1.0-alpha.2. Initially struggled with publishing a larger set of data to Speckle, but eventually succeeded with publishing the linked models separately.

Pulling content from Speckle within Blender was relatively painless, but I quickly began to see a huge drop viewport performance/FPS with each set of data imported. I’m guessing the lack of instance support is the biggest culprit here and made it nearly impossible to continue with the project past this point, even with a high-end workstation.

Finally, I noticed after closing the project and reopening, the Speckle UI had a message saying the active project “does not contain any Speckle models” or something to that effect. Revit, however, does store that model publishing info in the UI.

So to sum up Alpha.2:

  1. Loading a new model from the UI worked. I don’t know if 4 buttons are needed to do so rather than maybe a popup dialog to navigate to the version needed (matching the built-in file import process within Blender)?
  2. Deleting a card worked but it did not remove the model. Not sure if that’s the intended design?
  3. No metadata came through
  4. No instancing of objects - viewport performance/FPS really struggled
  5. Model reimport not supported. I couldn’t select an updated version in the model card UI. Trying to reimport the same model with the “load objects from selected” button in the model card resulted in a python error: “Project ID and Model ID are required to generate a model card ID.”
  6. Materials on objects worked well and I was able to receive multi-materials/objects with multiple material slots.

Looking forward to testing the next iteration and thank you for continuing to develop this pipeline!

Regards,
Mike

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