PDF Vector Importer for Blender

BUILT. NOT BOUGHT. -- BlueCollar Systems

Import PDF vector drawings as native Blender geometry (Curves, Collections, Materials). Powered by the pdfcadcore shared extraction library and PyMuPDF.

Features

• 7 Import Presets -- Fast Preview, General Vector, Technical Drawing, Shop Drawing, Raster+Vectors, Raster Only, Max Fidelity
• Arc & Circle Detection -- Reconstruct true arcs and circles from polyline approximations
• OCG Layer Support -- Map PDF Optional Content Groups to Blender sub-collections
• Color Grouping -- Organize geometry into sub-collections by stroke color
• Material Assignment -- Automatic diffuse materials from PDF stroke colors
• Text Import -- Import text as Blender font objects with position, size, and rotation
• Face Generation -- Convert closed loops and rectangles to mesh faces
• Line Width Mapping -- PDF stroke widths mapped to curve bevel depth
• Dash Pattern Preservation -- Retain PDF dash styling information

Installation

Blender Add-on (Recommended)

1. Build a release zip:

   python build_release.py

2. In Blender: Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > Install...
3. Choose dist/pdf_vector_importer_v1.0.0.zip
4. Enable PDF Vector Importer
5. If prompted, click Install PyMuPDF in the addon preferences panel

Manual Install

Copy the pdf_vector_importer/ directory into your Blender addons path:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Blender Foundation\Blender\<version>\scripts\addons\
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Blender/<version>/scripts/addons/
• Linux: ~/.config/blender/<version>/scripts/addons/

Usage

After enabling the addon:

1. File > Import > PDF Vector (.pdf)
2. Select a PDF file
3. Choose a preset and adjust options in the import panel
4. Click Import PDF Vector

Geometry is grouped into collections by page and (optionally) by source layer or color.

Compatibility

Blender Version	Bundled Python	PyMuPDF	Status
3.6 LTS	3.10	>=1.24,<2.0	⚠️ Expected
4.0–4.2	3.11	>=1.24,<2.0	⚠️ Expected
4.5 LTS	3.11	>=1.24,<2.0	⚠️ Expected
2.83–2.93	3.9	legacy pin	⚠️ Expected only after legacy branch testing
2.79 and earlier			❌ Not supported

Evidence levels:

• ✅ Verified: host-run validation evidence captured.
• ⚠️ Expected: syntax/runtime compatible but no host-run evidence yet.
• ❌ Not supported: outside maintained/tested compatibility scope.

Requirements

• Blender 3.0 or newer
• Python 3.10+
• PyMuPDF >=1.24,<2.0 (auto-installed via addon preferences)

Development

# Lint
python -m ruff check .

# Tests
python -m pytest tests/ -v

Batch Import

Run batch import summaries across a folder of PDFs:

python -m blender_pdf_vector_importer.batch_cli "C:\path\to\pdfs" --recursive --preset technical --pages all --json batch_report.json

Project Structure

Directory	Purpose
pdf_vector_importer/	Blender addon (install via Edit > Preferences > Add-ons)
blender_pdf_vector_importer/	Standalone CLI and library for headless/batch processing

Known Limitations

Limitation	Details
Encrypted PDFs	Password-protected PDFs must be unlocked before import
Compression filters	Decoding is delegated to PyMuPDF. Malformed or non-standard compressed object streams may fail to parse
Raster-only scans	Pure raster PDFs produce no vector geometry
Clipped/XObject-heavy PDFs	Complex clip stacks and deeply nested form XObjects can produce partial geometry
Very large PDFs	Documents with >10,000 primitives may cause slow import due to per-object dependency graph updates
Embedded subset fonts	Text using embedded subset fonts may not render correctly
PyMuPDF required	PyMuPDF must be installable in Blender's bundled Python (see dependency manager)
Legacy hosts	Blender/Python combinations outside the listed compatibility matrix are expected-only until verified

License

MIT -- Copyright (c) 2024-2026 BlueCollar Systems

See LICENSE for full text.

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AI-assisted development by Claude (Anthropic).