Art of Illusion is a free software, and open source software package for making 3D graphics. It provides tools for 3D modeling, texture mapping, and 3D rendering still images and animations. Art of Illusion can also export models for 3D printing in the STL file format. Overview Art of Illusion is 3D graphics software, such as Blender and Wings 3D (which are both free software), and Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya (which are both proprietary software). Although some sources seem to confuse 3D modeling with computer-aided design (CAD), Art of Illusion does not provide any CAD-like features, such as parametric modeling. Some user reviews describe Art of Illusion as 'intuitive' 'straight forward to learn' and 'good candidate for the first 3D modelling tool', while some characterize it as 'software for experienced CAD users' or taking plenty of time to figure out. For its capabilities it has been described 'powerful, comprehensive and extensible'. Art of Illusion has been entirely written in Java. History The development of the software was started in 1999 by Peter Eastman. Peter was the lead developer until the year 2016, when at Peter's request, Lucas Stanek started to host the development, while Peter assumed a more supervisory role. Lucas took the development from SourceForge to GitHub and the SourceForge-site serves as the software's discussion forum and delivery channel. Since 1999 there have been over 40 releases of the software. The latest stable version, 3.2.0, was released on January 13, 2021. Features General buildup and the core software Art of Illusion consists of the core software and various feature extensions, which come as plugins and scripts. The core software package contains basic modelling, texturing, animation and rendering tools. Scripts are used either to create and edit objects or to modify behavior of the software. Plugins can add features, like tools and object types to the software or alter the user interface. Some of the core features like the renderers are implemented as plugins as well to facilitate maintenance. Object types and modeling Art of Illusion provides several types of objects with their specific editing tools for modeling: Primitives (cube, sphere, cylinder), Curve, Tube, Spline mesh, Triangle mesh, Polygon mesh (plugin), Implicit object (plugin), Hologram (plugin). Animation All 3D-objects can be animated by changing their position and orientation. In addition to that, properties of each object can be animated and procedural textures and materials can have animated features.