BlenderQuickLook

A Quick Look Plugin for generating Blender3D file thumbnails.

Before

After

Installer

To get the latest built files head to latest release.

Confirmed it works in macOS Sierra 10.12.6

About

I made this QuickLook plugin when I noticed the Windows version of Blender3D had thumbnails in the File Explorer but not the Mac version.

It is my first Cocoa/QuickLook application so please point out any errors or bad practices if you can.

In order to read the blender file format, I downloaded the Blender3D version 2.71 source code and read the file mystery_of_the_blend.html documentation.

I also looked at the code for generating thumbnails in the Windows File Explorer at this thread:

• T26044 Windows thumbnails and improved filetype registration
• thumbhandler_libs.zip

I got the information on the TEST block and the flipped pixels from that code.

Installation

1. Build the project in Xcode, then find the compiled BlenderQuickLook.qlgenerator in the Products folder in the sidebar, right click on it and select Show in Finder to see the file.
2. Copy the file to ~/Library/QuickLook/
3. Wait until the QuickLook service gets refreshed and the thumbnails should start appearing OR manually refresh it running in the Terminal:

qlmanage -r

Links

I used the following resources to learn how to make the plugin:

• Creating a Quick Look plugin
• Quick Look Programming Guide: Introduction to Quick Look Programming Guide
• Declaring UTI types for the QuickLook plugin