Blender (software)
3D computer graphics software (free and open-source)
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software suite. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD, Haiku, and IRIX and is used for general 3D modeling, animation, digital sculpting, visual effects, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, drawing, 2D animation and video editing. It is widely used to create animated films, visual effects, art, 3D-printed models, motion graphics, interactive 3D applications, virtual reality, and 3D models for video games.
History
Blender was initially developed as an in-house application by the Dutch animation studio NeoGeo (no relation to the video game brand), and was officially launched on 2 January 1994. Version 1.00 was released in January 1995, with the primary author being the company co-owner and software developer Ton Roosendaal. The name Blender was inspired by a song by the Swiss electronic band Yello, from the album Baby, which NeoGeo used in its showreel. Some design choices and experiences for Blender were carried over from an earlier 3D ray-tracing software application, called Traces, that Roosendaal developed for NeoGeo on the Commodore Amiga platform during the 1987–1991 period.
On 1 January 1998, Blender was released publicly online as SGI freeware. NeoGeo was later dissolved, and its client contracts were taken over by another company. After NeoGeo's dissolution, Ton Roosendaal founded Not a Number Technologies (NaN, a reference to the computing term of the same name) in June 1998 to further develop Blender, initially distributing it as shareware until NaN went bankrupt in 2002.
“Blender (software)” enters the record as 3D computer graphics software (free and open-source). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Blender, software and computer can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q173136. VIAF identifies the subject as 179004264. The Library of Congress control number is n00063653. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 1995, 1987 and 1991.
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This entry incorporates text from “Blender (software)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.