{"ID":2824725,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.23103","arxiv_id":"2512.23103","title":"APOLLO Blender: A Robotics Library for Visualization and Animation in Blender","abstract":"High-quality visualizations are an essential part of robotics research, enabling clear communication of results through figures, animations, and demonstration videos. While Blender is a powerful and freely available 3D graphics platform, its steep learning curve and lack of robotics-focused integrations make it difficult and time-consuming for researchers to use effectively. In this work, we introduce a lightweight software library that bridges this gap by providing simple scripting interfaces for common robotics visualization tasks. The library offers three primary capabilities: (1) importing robots and environments directly from standardized descriptions such as URDF; (2) Python-based scripting tools for keyframing robot states and visual attributes; and (3) convenient generation of primitive 3D shapes for schematic figures and animations. Together, these features allow robotics researchers to rapidly create publication-ready images, animations, and explanatory schematics without needing extensive Blender expertise. We demonstrate the library through a series of proof-of-concept examples and conclude with a discussion of current limitations and opportunities for future extensions.","short_abstract":"High-quality visualizations are an essential part of robotics research, enabling clear communication of results through figures, animations, and demonstration videos. While Blender is a powerful and freely available 3D graphics platform, its steep learning curve and lack of robotics-focused integrations make it difficu...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.23103","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.23103v2","authors":"[\"Peter Messina\",\"Daniel Rakita\"]","published":"2025-12-28T22:55:12Z","proceeding":"cs.RO","tasks":"[\"cs.RO\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}