Rendering Blender 3D scenes in the cloud

Blender render example, outrun style

I created a simple app that renders a Blender 3D scene in the cloud: users can customize the displayed message by changing an URL parameter, and the app will return the 3D rendered image.  Give it a try here.

The code is a very simple Python function that invokes the Blender open source software. It uses the Blender API in order to dynamically change the value of a Text object. The function is then simply wrapped in a basic Flask application in order to respond to HTTP requests. Because Blender needs to be installed, I am using a Dockerfile that runs “apt-get install blender”.

Find the code on GitHub.

This app was created to showcase the upcoming “serverless containers” product of the Google Cloud Platform. It allows to run any container “in a serverless way”: developers are able to deploy and run any language or library they want, and only pay for actual resources used when it receives requests. I demoed the feature during the Cloud Next 2018 keynote and othersessions. sign up for early access at g.co/serverlesscontainers