I recently started learning about how powerful Blender’s python API is. I have a YouTube channel that people support through donations, and every month I send o

I recently started learning about how powerful Blender’s python API is. I have a YouTube channel that people support through donations, and every month I send out little 3D printed objects as a thank you gift. I wanted to include a 3D printed little thank you card with each person’s name on it, but obviously I can’t take the time to model a unique card for each person. After just a few hours of playing around I was able to set up a python script that reads people’s names out of a CSV file, launches Blender as a background process, generates a model of a little plate with text on it thanking a person by name, exports that model as an STL, calls up Slic3r (which can also be run headlessly) to generate the gcode for the printer, and then finally uploads that file to my 3D printer. Previously I was writing people little notes by hand. Not only is this much cooler, it takes considerably less work from me. I just run a single command to execute the script and then walk over to my printer and hit “print”. A couple hours later I have a pile of little thank you cards. I really think Blender is the crown jewel of open source software.