Blender is free and open-source 3D computer graphics software, a community project coordinated by the Blender Foundation and funded mainly by donations. It covers the whole 3D pipeline in one program: modeling, sculpting, UV unwrapping (mapping a flat image onto a 3D surface), rigging and animation, rendering, camera tracking for visual effects, and 2D drawing inside the 3D scene.
Models are built from meshes, sets of points, edges and faces, edited with tools such as edge slide, inset and bridge fill, or shaped with sculpting brushes. Cycles, the built-in path-tracing render engine, computes how light travels through the scene to produce realistic images on the CPU or the GPU. The interface and many tools are controlled through Python, and a public Python API lets developers write their own tools, add-ons and extensions. Blender is downloaded and runs on the user's own computer.
It is free software under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and may be used for any purpose, including commercial work. The Blender Foundation is funded by Development Fund memberships and donations.