A screenshot of CSV Importer running on Blender. [Zoom]

CSV Importer Script

First of all, what is CSV Importer?

CSV Importer is a Python script for Blender and was created to import a .csv file into Blender and create IPO curves or line-shaped meshes.

The name of the latest version

CSV Importer v0.5 beta3

The released date of the latest version

2010/06/07

Download

CSV_Importer_v0_5beta3_ps.zip

Main features

A graph of a physics simulation and an IPO curve in Blender. [Zoom]

This script, CSV Importer can import data of a text file formatted with csv into Blender and create IPO curves or line-shaped meshes. The situation where CSV Importer is useful is that, for example, when you have done a physics simulation based on motion equations, what will you do to view the result in which many objects move in a 3D complicated way?

A way for it is to use Blender and animate the motions and make a video. So CSV Importer will help you to import the result of the simulation to animate them. And all that you have to do is to save the result as a .csv file in advance and create IPO curves from the file with CSV Importer. Then you can make a video in any way that you like in Blender.

Video tutorial to start quickly

If you want to know how to use quickly, it would be the fastest way to see this video tutorial. It has no sound and some Japanese charactors, but you will easily understand the whole workflow to use the script.

The simple workflow to use the script

This workflow is the same as what you can see in the video tutorial.

+1.	Download the file “CSV_Importer_v0_5beta3_ps.zip” at here. Then unzip it and make sure the file “CSV_Importer_v0_5beta3.py” was created.
+2.	Close Blender if running.
+3.	Put the file “CSV_Importer_v0_5beta3.py” to “%BlenderInstalledAddress%/Blender/.blender/scripts”. (%BlenderInstalledAddress% means the address where Blender is installed.)
+4.	Have a .csv file to import. For example, put some values of time data in the first row and some of x-coordinate data in the second row. (You can use a sample .csv file which is included in the .zip file and named as “1_Data_MostEasily.csv”.)
+5.	Start Blender.
+6.	Select an Object. You're going to animate this Object right now by importing the .csv file.
+7.	Change Window Type from 3D View to Scripts Window.
+8.	Select “Scripts >> Animation >> CSV Importer v0.5 beta3 (.csv)” from the menu. CSV Importer will start.
+9.	You will see a dialog window to select a file. Select the .csv file which you prepared at the step +4 and click the button “Import (.csv)”.
+10.	You will see a window to setup the importing. There are some select boxes under the label “To what key do you want to import the columns:”. These boxes correspond to the rows in the .csv file. The labels, “1:”, “2:” of the boxes are the first, second rows in the file. Select [Frame] from the first box labeled “1:” because you put the time data in the first row of the file at the step +4. In the same way, select [LocX] from the second box labeled “2:” because you put the x-coordinate data in the second row. In this way, you can set up what row you will import to what kind of IPO curves.
+11.	Click the button Import.
+12.	These steps will get CSV Importer to import the file and you will get an IPO curve. (You can see a .blend file which includes the IPO curve created by these steps and the file is included in the .zip file and named as “1_Result_MostEasily.blend”.)

More video tutorials for advanced use

If you want to learn more about the features that the script provides, please check up the following videos.

+How to import a line-shaped mesh
+How to import an IPO curve automatically in AutoMode
+How to import a line-shaped mesh automatically in AutoMode

Requirements

CSV Importer works on Blender. I confirmed it worked well on Blender v2.42-2.49b. In addition, if you use Blender v2.44, then you need to install Python 2.5 as well.

BlenderArtists thread

You can discuss the script on this thread in BlenderArtists.

Information on CSV Importer

Here is the page where you can find the reason why I made the script, the list of change logs, the future works and more.