Advanced Boolean Tool (ABT) Addon

The Advanced Boolean Tool (ABT) addon comes with a handy pie menu with boolean operation, cleaning mesh, wire-shading, edit normals, some modifiers and bevel operations. A good thing is that it doesn’t occupy the N-Panel so we don’t have to search for the addon.

After trying out loads of addons, my N-Panel got over crowded and so addon that use a shortcut (pie menu for example) they seems to survive a bit better for me. Imagine you have 20 addons in your N-Panel and you don’t see even the first letter anymore. Worst thing is that sometimes the order changes. So remember the position is not an option, meaning you have to scroll through the N-Panel of filter addons in the workspace tab.

The pie menu of the ABT addon

Back to the addon. For some reason, it could be that this addon wil be one of my favorites. Maybe because of it’s simplicity. And.. it is free or “name a price”. Below a screenshot of the UI.

• Quick Modifiers. Array-, Mirror- and Solidify modifier. Also an option to apply all modifiers or delete all modifiers. I’d like to apply a mirror modifier on the boolean (the cutter let’s say) and then use the picker in the modifier stack to pick the target object. (As shown in Video).
• Shading. Solid shade, Wire shade and Shaded wire. This comes in handy when you want to see the wire for a while. Normally this could be quite a hassle: Properties Panel > Object TAB > Viewport display > Wire. Or in the menu in the viewport: Overlays > Wireframe. To have this in the Pie menu is a bit eassier.
• Bevel Preview. Maybe the title is a bit confusing, but what it does is, it adds a bevel modifier to the modefier stack. This is a bevel modifier with a limit method on Angle. (You can also hide the modifier). That the limit method is on Angle is important to know, because there are more features in the PIE menu that doesn’t work with a bevel with limit method on Angle but on Weight. So you will want to work with two kinds of bevel modifiers.
• Normal Tools. Flat face normal (Select first face in Edit mode). Auto Weight Normal seems to turn on Auto smooth (Properties panel > Object Data > Normals > Autosmooth), but also applies a Weighted normal modifier. And Clear Custom normal clears the custom split normal data (bpy.ops.mesh.customdata_custom_splitnormals_clear()).
• Mesh Tools. Clean up seems to go in Edit mode, use dissolve limited in certain angle, remove doubles (merge by distance?), delete loose. If you just want to remove doubles (merge by distance I suppose) you can do that with Remove doubles. Then there is also Select Ngons, Tris and Auto UV.
• Bevel. Harden Edge is a bit confusing to me. So it seems it works on the Bevel Modifier that is using Weight as limit method. It does the following: bpy.ops.mesh.mark_sharp(), bpy.ops.mesh.mark_seam(clear=False), bpy.ops.transform.edge_bevelweight(value=1). Let me know if you understand it. There is also Soften Edge, Auto Harden and Bevel Weight (Handy: Scroll with the wheel).
• Boolean. Difference, Slice, Union, Box Boolean, and Bake boolean. Box Boolean is a unique feature. With that you can add a plane on the 3D cursor and extrude it with the right mouse button. And that is then a difference boolean. There is a help in the 3D for more info.

How I would use the Advanced Boolean Tool (ABT) Addon

Where to download the Advanced Boolean Tool (ABT) Addon

You can download the ABT addon on Gumroad. And check the thread Advanced Boolean Tool on Blenderartists.org for up-to-date information.