Blender (blender-nozzle)

blender-nozzle is a Blender addon for GPU texture sharing via nozzle.

Status

Early development. Functional sender (GL texture publish) and receiver (pixel copy to Blender image).

Requirements

• Blender 3.0+
• macOS 12+ / Windows 10+ / Linux
• CMake 3.20+
• C++17 compiler

Build

The native extension wraps the nozzle C ABI into a Python module.

git clone --recurse-submodules [email protected]:nozzle-io/blender-nozzle.git
cd blender-nozzle

export BLENDER_PYTHON_PATH=/Applications/Blender.app/Contents/Resources/python
python3 build.py

This builds _nozzle_native.so (or .pyd on Windows) and copies it into nozzle_blender/.

Installing in Blender

1. Build the native module (see above)
2. In Blender: Edit → Preferences → Add-ons → Install…
3. Select the nozzle_blender/ directory (the folder containing __init__.py)
4. Enable the “Nozzle Texture Sharing” addon

Usage

Sender (Blender → other apps)

1. In the 3D viewport sidebar (N key), find the Nozzle tab
2. Set a sender name and resolution
3. Click Start Sender
4. Other nozzle receivers can now connect using that name

Receiver (other apps → Blender)

1. Click Refresh to discover available senders
2. Select a sender and click Start Receiver
3. Received frames appear as __nozzle_received__ image in Blender

Architecture

nozzle_blender/         Blender addon (Python)
  ├── __init__.py       Registration, bl_info
  ├── operators.py      Send/Receive operators
  ├── properties.py     Addon properties
  ├── panels.py         UI panels (View3D sidebar)
  └── engine.py         Texture capture & receive logic

src/
  └── _nozzle_module.c  Python C extension wrapping nozzle C ABI

nozzle/                 git submodule (nozzle library)

The addon uses a two-layer approach:

1. Native C extension (_nozzle_native): wraps the nozzle C ABI, manages handles
2. Blender addon (Python): uses gpu.offscreen for capture, bpy.data.images for display