Blue Noise Particles
Important: Since Blender 2.92, the majority of functionality in the plugin is better achieved with the Point Distribute Geometry Node in Poisson Disk mode.
This Blender plugin generates a random arrangement of particles with a blue noise distribution. This is also known as Poisson Disk Sampling.
This distribution of particles guarantees no two particles are very near each other. It's often considered a higher quality particle arrangement than Blender's default uniform sampling. It's particularly useful for organic arrangements, and randomly arranging meshes without collisions.
The particular method of noise generation is called Sample Elimination for Poisson Disk Sample Sets. Thanks to Cem Yuksel for the research and the clear statement of the method.
Installation
Download the zip, then go to Edit > Preferences > Addons.
Select install from file and pick the zip. Then tick the checkbox to enable the addon.
Or you can simply copy the python files from this repository into your Blender Addon dir, then enable the addon.
Usage
Select any mesh, then run the plugin from the Add > Mesh menu, or the toolbox.
The parameters work extremely similarly to the normal particle options.
The plugin creates a new mesh with a particle system attached. You can then customize the particle system as normal, for example changing the render type to Object to draw a mesh at the location of each particle.
Further explanation and examples can be found in the wiki on github: https://github.com/boristhebrave/blue-noise-particles/wiki
Further external reading can be found at:
License
This code is licensed under the GPL License copyright Adam Newgas 2017.
fibonacci_heap_mod has been attached for convenience. It is available under the Apache v2 License.