camera-to-blender

Free

The whole repository: the relay server, the phone camera web app, and the Blender WebSocket import add-on. MIT licensed. Nothing in the code is gated and there is no paid version of this project.

Self-Hosted

You run all of it, and it has a few moving parts: Python 3.10+, Blender 3.0+, the add-on installed and connected, the server running on the same machine as Blender, and an ngrok tunnel because phone browsers will not open a camera over plain HTTP. Testing from a laptop webcam skips ngrok entirely. Free ngrok URLs change on every restart, so the add-on needs reconnecting each session.

Paid (the part that actually costs)

Tripo3D does the 3D generation and it is required, not optional. Credits are $1.00 per 100. Each capture creates two tasks: an untextured image-to-model preview at 20 credits and a textured PBR model at 30 credits, so roughly $0.50 per object. New API accounts get 300 free credits that expire after two weeks, about six objects. Gemini handles optional background removal and can be left out with no loss of core function.

The Math

Scanning 100 objects runs about $50 in Tripo credits. For occasional props and set dressing that is trivial. For a team scanning inventory or building an asset library it adds up quickly, and at that volume you should price the Tripo API directly against a dedicated 3D capture service rather than treating this as free software.

Verdict

The software is free. The pipeline is metered at roughly 50 cents an object, and that is the number to plan around.