What it does

Blueprint Technical Drawings turns your mesh into a dimensioned 2D technical drawing in three clicks: select, Make Drawing, Export. Select your part, click Make Drawing and you get a sheet with front, top, right and isometric views, an optional section A-A with hatching, dashed hidden lines, overall dimensions, automatically detected hole diameters (Ø8, 4× Ø5) and a filled-in title block. Export it as SVG, DXF and PDF at true scale: at 1:1 a 100 mm edge is exactly 100 mm in each file (SVG size in mm, DXF in mm or inch, PDF page at the exact sheet size: our tests read every file back and measure it); at 1:2 it is 50 mm, as the title block says.

Blender has no technical-drawing mode: Freestyle and the Grease Pencil Line Art modifier give you lines, not a scaled sheet with views, dimensions and a title block. This add-on makes a clean, dimensioned drawing for a quote, a print job or a client, straight from the model you already have, with your modifiers included. It dimensions overall sizes and hole diameters, and you add point-to-point dimensions between two vertices (hole positions, thicknesses). The motor-bracket sheets in the ‘mesh to drawing’, ‘steps’ and ‘sheets’ images, and the flange drawings, include such manual dimensions; each says which ones. Hole positions are not dimensioned automatically; tolerances and revision notes go in your CAD program.

Who it's for

• Makers and 3D-print designers who document parts, quote jobs or send files to a laser / CNC shop
• Product designers sending a dimensioned drawing to a client or a manufacturer
• Hobby engineers and students who model in Blender but need proper orthographic drawings

Key features

• Standard views: Front, Top, Right and Isometric, each on or off, in first angle (ISO) or third angle (ANSI) projection, aligned like a real drawing
• Section A-A: cut across X, Y or Z at an adjustable position through the part, hatching in a different direction per part (45°, 135°, 60°, …), cutting-plane line with arrows and letters on the parent view.
• Closed (watertight) parts are hatched, overlapping shells of one object are filled as one solid
• Real hidden lines: ray-cast visibility, dashed, split where an edge disappears behind the part (sampled every sheet millimeter, then refined)
• Clean lines on curved parts: only silhouettes and sharp edges (feature angle setting), so smooth cylinders and fillets show their outline, not every facet (very coarse ones, 11 segments or fewer, still show their facets).
• Collinear pieces merged and duplicates removed so files stay small
• Dimensions: overall width / height / depth (ISO arrows, mm or inch, your decimals), hole and cylinder diameters found automatically with center marks, plus your own point-to-point dimensions between 2 vertices picked in Edit Mode
• Sheets and scales: A4, A3, A2, A1, US Letter, Tabloid or custom, landscape or portrait; ISO scales 50:1 to 1:1000 or Auto (the largest that fits)
• Title block: title, part number, material, drawn by, date, company, scale, format (sheet size), units and the projection symbol
• Export: SVG (mm, layers per line type, ISO 128 line widths in SVG and PDF), DXF R12 (layers VISIBLE, HIDDEN, SECTION, HATCH, CENTER, CUTLINE, DIM, TEXT, BORDER; outlines as closed POLYLINEs), vector PDF at the exact page size with layers.
• Paper (black on white) or Blue (white on blue) style
• Viewport preview next to your model; Regenerate after edits keeps every setting
• Heavy meshes: on our 2-vCPU test server, a 1.57-million-face noisy test mesh draws in about 12–17 s with 4 views, Section A-A and hidden lines (viewport preview included).
• The 2-million-face smooth mesh in the gallery (a subdivided Suzanne) takes about 8 s, also with hidden lines and a section. The longest single pause of the window is up to about 2.5 s.
• Drawing and export run in steps with a progress bar; Esc in the window that started it (from another window: the Cancel button in the Blueprint panel) cancels.
• Bigger meshes pause longer and use more memory (Blender peaked at about 1.6 GB here); above 3 million faces the add-on shows an estimate and asks before it starts

How to use

1. Select your mesh object(s) and open the Blueprint tab in the 3D Viewport sidebar (N).
2. Click Make Drawing. The preview sheet appears in the viewport, to the right of your model; View frames it.
3. Pick sheet, scale, views, section and title block details; click Regenerate.
4. Optional: Tab into Edit Mode, select 2 vertices and click + next to the Manual dimensions list (Dimensions panel).
5. Click Export: SVG, DXF and PDF land in the export folder (default: a "drawings" folder next to your .blend; unsaved file: home/Blueprint drawings/drawings).

Compatibility

Blender 4.2 LTS or newer, tested on 4.2 LTS, 5.1 and 5.2 LTS. Automated tests run on Linux; Windows, macOS and Blender 4.3–5.0 are not tested yet; the add-on is pure Python with no platform-specific code beyond file handling. Extension zip and classic add-on zip included. No external programs or downloads.

Good to know

• Windows and macOS have not been tested yet (see Compatibility). If anything looks wrong there, send us a message and we will fix it.
• It draws meshes. Convert curves and text to a mesh first (Object › Convert › Mesh). Geometry Nodes instances need a Realize Instances node.
• It makes 2D drawings of an existing model. It is not a parametric CAD program, and dimensions do not drive the model.
• Holes are found when their rim is a sharp, circular edge loop with at least 12 segments. Holes with a rounded rim (a fillet or a multi-segment bevel) are drawn but not labeled.
• At most 8 hole diameters per view get a Ø leader (the largest); the report names the others.
• DXF is written as R12 (we have not tested it in CAM programs). Holes seen whole are true CIRCLEs; other curves stay short straight segments, as fine as the mesh.
• While a drawing is being made you can orbit, pan and zoom. Other shortcuts (Ctrl+S too) wait until it is done. Esc in the window that started it cancels; from another window, click Cancel in the Blueprint panel.
• PDF title-block text supports Western European characters only (the PDF uses the standard Helvetica font); Japanese, Cyrillic, Greek and other scripts show as "?" there. Use the SVG for other scripts: it keeps every character.

More limits (split vertices from glTF / FBX, the viewport preview, unsaved files, very noisy scans) are listed in the Documentation tab under Limits.

Support

Questions or a bug? Use the Superhive product page messages and we reply within a day.