AssetKit-Blender

Blender add-on for importing and exporting 3D assets through AssetKit

👉 Blender 5 removed the built-in COLLADA/DAE importer and exporter. AssetKit-Blender brings DAE support back to current Blender releases, while also adding a fast, native path for other formats like glTF/GLB, OBJ, STL, PLY, and 3MF import/export.

Formats

• glTF / GLB (2.0+)
• COLLADA DAE (1.4+, 1.5.0+)
• 3MF
• OBJ
• STL
• PLY

Install to Blender

After a release a tag e.g. v0.1.0, GitHub Actions builds package for multiple platforms then attaches the generated platform zip files to the GitHub Release for that tag automatically.

1. Download the zip for your platform from: https://github.com/recp/assetkit-blender/releases/latest

2. In Blender, install it with: Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > Install from Disk

3. Enable the add-on.

4. Follow repo to get/report bugfixes and get new features asap

Benchmarks

Here are local benchmark results from an M1 Max MacBook Pro, measured with tools/benchmark_review_imports.sh.

DAE Blender builtin results are measured with Blender 4.5.10 LTS because Blender 5.x no longer includes the COLLADA importer. Other Blender builtin results are measured with Blender 5.1.2.

File	AssetKit	AssetKit Blender Addon (+AssetKit)	Blender	Blender / AssetKit Blender
BrainStem.dae	33.0 ms	60.7 ms	6309.8 ms	104.01x
Duck.dae	0.8 ms	1.7 ms	5.5 ms	3.25x
GearboxAssy.dae	30.0 ms	53.9 ms	216.0 ms	4.01x
NodePerformanceTest.glb	103.6 ms	8912.2 ms	185195.6 ms	20.78x
BoomBox.glb	0.3 ms	1.8 ms	12.5 ms	6.94x
DamagedHelmet.glb	0.3 ms	2.5 ms	29.6 ms	11.79x
WaterBottle.glb	0.3 ms	1.7 ms	10.1 ms	6.09x
ABeautifulGame.glb	11.4 ms	63.8 ms	773.9 ms	12.12x
AntiqueCamera.glb	0.4 ms	2.6 ms	42.0 ms	16.26x
MosquitoInAmber.glb	0.4 ms	2.9 ms	40.6 ms	13.92x
xyzrgb_dragon.obj	17.3 ms	22.6 ms	55.6 ms	2.46x
dragon_vrip.ply	26.1 ms	46.9 ms	166.9 ms	3.56x
3DBenchy.stl	3.5 ms	7.4 ms	28.7 ms	3.86x
...

The script uses AssetKit shading mode AS_IS and texture loading IMMEDIATE.

Reproducing the Benchmarks

Run the review benchmark script:

tools/benchmark_review_imports.sh

The script downloads the benchmark assets into the ignored benchmark-assets/ cache and writes JSONL results plus a Markdown table to benchmark-results/.

By default it uses:

• Blender 5.1.2 for glTF, OBJ, PLY, and STL comparisons
• Blender 4.5.10 LTS for DAE builtin COLLADA comparisons
• AssetKit shading mode AS_IS
• AssetKit texture loading IMMEDIATE

---

Build

Build AssetKit, then build the native Blender bridge with Blender's Python:

cmake -S deps/assetkit -B deps/assetkit/build -DAK_SHARED=ON
cmake --build deps/assetkit/build
cmake -S . -B build -DASSETKIT_ROOT=deps/assetkit -DPython3_EXECUTABLE=/path/to/blender/python
cmake --build build

The bridge is written to assetkit_blender/ as _assetkit_blender.*. If it is not present, the add-on can still use the configured AssetKit shared library through ctypes.

Production package

Build and validate a Blender Extensions package zip with one command:

python3 tools/release_extension.py --blender /path/to/blender

To include Blender 4.5/5.0 support in the same platform package, add Python 3.11:

python3 tools/release_extension.py --blender /path/to/blender --extra-python python3.11

The zip is written to dist/.

For repeat packaging after the native bridge is already built:

python3 tools/package_extension.py --blender /path/to/blender --platform auto

The release script stages the extension so blender_manifest.toml and __init__.py are at the zip root. Native bridge binaries and optional AssetKit decoder libraries are packaged as platform wheels under wheels/.

Release assets

Pushing a tag such as v0.1.0 runs the package matrix on GitHub Actions and attaches the platform zip files to the GitHub Release for that tag automatically.