Hello, some random thoughts here.
Disclaimer: I do understand most of this is just getting used to a user interface.
I usually swap between programs at work to make different types of graphics. What I’ve noticed is that I really like the way I can create shapes in blender. So much so that if I use a vector program I really miss blenders controls and the way vertices are moved around.
What it boils down to is that I think 3d graphics is alot like vector graphics but just with one more axis. It’s all just moving vertices around.
Having blender style grabing, rotating and scaling in inkscape with hotkeys would be quite awesome. Not to mention selecting, snapping and sliding. Even extruding could be cool in a vector program. I always mess up using Inkscape because I use blender hotkeys when working. They just come from muscle memory and knowing that I’m moving verticies around.
That lead me thinking, is there a way to use blender as a vector program? I could get started in blender and finish off in inkscape as I’m more comfortable using blender.
Apart from some stuff you may need to script yourself, there’s nothing that blocks the use of Blender as a Vector software…
I did once a series of svg animations (SMIL) entirely in Blender, because Inkscape didn’t supported it, and other softwares that did, were a bit limited and didn’t use all the SMIL features.
Of course, that required a custom exporter, and some cleanup functions to be scripted… but it worked pretty well.
I use Blender for work in conjunction with Adobe Illustrator. There is an old Blender plugin that allows me to export a vector (.svg) from the view which I can then use in Illustrator. You could also use Blender’s built-in tools to export vector graphics.
I know this isn’t exactly what you’re wanting, but there’s no reason why Blender can’t be your main “vector” program with proper lighting and rendering, depending on what you want as an output.
Sorry for the bump, but I am absolutely fascinated by SVG, especially as an open alternative to the (now dead) Adobe Flash platform, especially in terms of animation. I looked into tools for SVG animation but found them pretty unsatisfactory. Using Blender would be absolutely amazing. Did you ever publish your tools for exporting SMIL animations, and if not would you be willing to consider it? Thank you!
Unfortunately those tools were created for a series of specific projects, and the code belongs to the company I was working for (I don’t have the rights of it).
But the principle was simple, simple transformations were converted to SMIL animate tags (translate, rotate, scale), and any modification of the shapes were stored as sequences of shape keys (for tweening).
A big chunk, was just reusing functions from the SVG export plugin. So writing the animation part is not a very difficult task (at least if you understand SMIL).
Did you also look at “Cavalry”. It allows to create vector graphics animation
and even with the free Version your are able to render the output as .SVG