The biggest hurdle is understanding that variables are actually constants, you can create them in code, but, you can’t change them when the code is running.
It takes a little while to get your head around that as it can be frustrating, but, it hasn’t stopped me publishing almost 600 models here using OpenSCAD. Many of which use SVGs created in Affinity designer and extruded in OpenSCAD.
Here’s the thing with Blender: Its UI is inscrutable. I assume this is a case of “We wrote our entire cross-platform UI library ourselves, so if you expect Blender to work in a platform-standard way, you’re gonna have a bad time.” Example: In any other MacOS graphics program, if you select something on the canvas/viewport and hit the delete key, it deletes the object. In Blender, I have to hit ‘X-Return’.
Writing featureful multi-platform software is hard. I know; I’ve worked on a team that arguably succeeded at doing so. But it took multiple hundreds of engineers, multiple hundreds of QA people, and multiple years to do it. I fully appreciate why Blender is the way it is, but that doesn’t mean I like its UX.
The thing that really puts me off of Blender is that it seems really focused on tasks that I’m not trying to do, like character animation, and not as much focused on applications I’m interested in, including industrial design and 3D printing. I do understand that both of those things can be done in/by Blender, but those don’t seem to be the applications it was designed for. I strongly suspect that I should really be using AutoCAD or SolidWorks, but there’s an obvious cost issue there.
I absolutely recognize that Blender is quite full-featured, and has a broad support community in place. If I can find the time, maybe I will dig into the nitty-gritty of it, but the ‘doesn’t look or function like a Mac app when running on a Mac’ problem is one that’s very difficult for me to get over (I worked at Apple for the better part of a decade and have been using Macs almost exclusively since ~1992 – most of my life.)
I think I’m over the hump on this particular project, so there’s not an urgent issue, but it’s just really frustrating. I guess ya get what ya pay for, as they say. Thanks for replying!
Some huge pluses for Blender that are relatively approachable though are modifying/repairing meshes that can’t be done automatically or would be a struggle in Meshmixer and sculpting. One of the best and worst things about Blender is that it can do anything and usually REALLY well, but achieving the knowledge level required to be able to do it can be challenging.
Recently I tried out using Blender for video editing for example and it’s actually not bad. Easier IMO than using Premiere, harder than using DaVinci Resolve, but the thing that killed it for me is it didn’t support hardware encoding.
I mostly use it for repairing and fooling around with meshes, but it will always have a place on my computer because it’s free, it does have a huge community supporting it, and it is in continuous development. There are virtually no other programs in existence that will check the boxes Blender does and when I have the leisure time, I do want to take classes in it.
Also, I work at an art/design college and Blender is indeed being used for transportation design, product design, and packaging design majors, if not explicitly as part of the curriculum at least being adopted by students. They officially added Blender as a course last term and I think it’s only going to grow from here.
Yes I do get your point - you’ve expanded nicely on the word ‘idiosyncrasies’
I would still suggest Blender as a free & robust solution that you can learn just enough of, to be able to use for converting and editing an svg into an stl.
If I was looking to buy software, I would probably go with Rhino. If you’re into industrial design and 3d printing it’s an excellent fit. And cheaper than SW etc.
I just wanted to drop a quick note and mention that OpenSCAD does not handle compound paths from AI. This is a PITA, but is at least “work-around-able” (although tedious) for the design I’m working on.
