Using Blender GIS gives error: no imaging library available please install python GDAL or Pillow module

Question

I am trying to use Blender GIS from this Repo: https://github.com/domlysz/BlenderGIS

I have installed it properly and it is running in my Blender 2.79 on a MAC OS X 10.13.1 High Sierra.

When I attempt to click on Basemap (On the left pane > GIS Tab > Basemap), I expect a dialog, but instead I get this error:

no imaging library available please install python GDAL or Pillow module

So I proceeded to install those modules, eventually realizing that they apparently need to go in the Python packages directory for that specific Blender version, as per this solution found here In my case, the library is located within the application itself, which I accessed through right clicking the Blender icon and then Show package contents... with the complete path being like this.

/Applications/Blender/blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.79/python/lib/python3.5

I then used these instructions to install in the specific directory above.

So now that I have installed Pillow and GDAL in this directory using pip, I start Blender and the same error comes up.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

Download Free Image's system library (FreeImage-3.xx.dll) for your system from here.

Copy it to:

your_addons_folder/BlenderGIS/core/lib/imageio/resources/freeimage

Restart Blender then it should work :)

Incase you are having trouble finding where your addons are installed, the default folder path is here;

C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.91\scripts\addons\BlenderGIS-master\core\lib\imageio\resources

TIP: if you can't see AppData unhide your system files, on windows do:(open any folder then go to file>Options>view thin tick "show hidden files")

If you want to know why this happened it the first place or want more info, check here.

Hope this helps!