To give a specific example of how powerful Blender is, in geology there are very very very very expensive 3d modelling programs and then there is like… Sketchup which I guess Google hasn’t abandoned? idk… even the basic GIS software for geologic mapping from ESRI is expensive AF, especially if you want to do any fancy 3d rendering or map making.
Enter this guy
You already know this guy is cool as fuck just from that photo, but let me tell you how exactly how lowkey cool Marcus Schwander is.
(btw I have zero connection to this guy, I know next to nothing about him, I literally just found his videos from searching “Blender Geology” on youtube randomly)
His video series shows quite clearly and exhaustively how to do extremely complicated geologic mapping of complex fold belts with lots of faults using Blender. What I can’t stress enough is that the workflow he is detailing in the proprietary software world would be EXTREMELY niche, require exhaustive licensing and setting up payment and getting software keys… blah blah blah and ultimately it would be a very expensive workflow, possibly requiring software licenses that cost thousands of dollars or more (I am not kidding). On top of the prohibitive cost, any kind of documentation, additional plugin development, or content creators who make tutorials about how to use the tools is an order of magnitude rarer for those tools because access to the tools in the first place is so prohibitive (and is usually only along narrow circumstances, not the kind of situation someone would organically decide to make a youtube tutorial channel about a software that costs $30,000 a license necessarily). In contrast, try searching for “Blender tutorial” in youtube and just take a cursory glance and the absurdly exhaustive amount of resources out there about learning Blender.
I have been teaching myself Blender because I want to make similar tutorial videos because it is ridiculous to me idea that in 2025 geologists don’t have an open format to visualize geologic structures and map them in a natural 3d environment that can be then shared with other geologists, in a established non-proprietary format that a geologist can ensure that any other geologist can open and view the model/data themselves, because again if you have a computer you can get Blender…
I am firmly of the belief that Blender should be taught as a basic part of a Geology curriculum along with a GIS class, not a primary focus or anything, but the tool is so general and so broadly useful that I think we owe it to future scientists to teach everybody we can how to use Blender.
As a last point, I want to emphasize that I am not suggesting using Blender to make coolfancy cinematic visualizations of Geology because it looks cool, or suggesting trying to do lots of complex modelling and computation in Blender instead of a GIS software, those are both awesome uses of Blender but what I am suggesting is that by simply teaching the next generation of Geologists how to use a 3d modelling software just for the simple purposes of giving them a tool to sketch out ideas or explore a geologic map from a 3d perspective (which can be useful ESPECIALLY when talking to other people about specific geologic structures that are difficult to explain without a 3d perspective to point to) Blender is going to forever change how Geologists use computers to do Geology.
It is a cool moment because on the flip side… there is a LOT of money in Geology and I think the Blender community could and will absolutely find serious, sustainable long term funding from Geology companies and academia associated entities that could massively bolster development capability and funding security.
To give a specific example of how powerful Blender is, in geology there are very very very very expensive 3d modelling programs and then there is like… Sketchup which I guess Google hasn’t abandoned? idk… even the basic GIS software for geologic mapping from ESRI is expensive AF, especially if you want to do any fancy 3d rendering or map making.
Enter this guy
You already know this guy is cool as fuck just from that photo, but let me tell you how exactly how lowkey cool Marcus Schwander is.
(btw I have zero connection to this guy, I know next to nothing about him, I literally just found his videos from searching “Blender Geology” on youtube randomly)
His video series shows quite clearly and exhaustively how to do extremely complicated geologic mapping of complex fold belts with lots of faults using Blender. What I can’t stress enough is that the workflow he is detailing in the proprietary software world would be EXTREMELY niche, require exhaustive licensing and setting up payment and getting software keys… blah blah blah and ultimately it would be a very expensive workflow, possibly requiring software licenses that cost thousands of dollars or more (I am not kidding). On top of the prohibitive cost, any kind of documentation, additional plugin development, or content creators who make tutorials about how to use the tools is an order of magnitude rarer for those tools because access to the tools in the first place is so prohibitive (and is usually only along narrow circumstances, not the kind of situation someone would organically decide to make a youtube tutorial channel about a software that costs $30,000 a license necessarily). In contrast, try searching for “Blender tutorial” in youtube and just take a cursory glance and the absurdly exhaustive amount of resources out there about learning Blender.
I have been teaching myself Blender because I want to make similar tutorial videos because it is ridiculous to me idea that in 2025 geologists don’t have an open format to visualize geologic structures and map them in a natural 3d environment that can be then shared with other geologists, in a established non-proprietary format that a geologist can ensure that any other geologist can open and view the model/data themselves, because again if you have a computer you can get Blender…
I am firmly of the belief that Blender should be taught as a basic part of a Geology curriculum along with a GIS class, not a primary focus or anything, but the tool is so general and so broadly useful that I think we owe it to future scientists to teach everybody we can how to use Blender.
As a last point, I want to emphasize that I am not suggesting using Blender to make cool fancy cinematic visualizations of Geology because it looks cool, or suggesting trying to do lots of complex modelling and computation in Blender instead of a GIS software, those are both awesome uses of Blender but what I am suggesting is that by simply teaching the next generation of Geologists how to use a 3d modelling software just for the simple purposes of giving them a tool to sketch out ideas or explore a geologic map from a 3d perspective (which can be useful ESPECIALLY when talking to other people about specific geologic structures that are difficult to explain without a 3d perspective to point to) Blender is going to forever change how Geologists use computers to do Geology.
It is a cool moment because on the flip side… there is a LOT of money in Geology and I think the Blender community could and will absolutely find serious, sustainable long term funding from Geology companies and academia associated entities that could massively bolster development capability and funding security.