I was experimenting with a way to turn a flat 2D line into a round 3D line and minkowski works great for this, here is the basic code:

Path_to_SVG_File ="";
Sphere_size=2;//[.1:.01:20]
width=.001;//[.001:.01:20]
Rotate_x=0;//[0:.01:360]
Rotate_y=0;//[0:.01:360]
Rotate_z=0;//[0:.01:360]

rotate([Rotate_x,Rotate_y,Rotate_z])
minkowski(){
linear_extrude(width,center=false)
import(Path_to_SVG_File,layer="layer1",$fn=100);
//sphere(Sphere_size,$fn=60);
rotate([0,90,0])
cylinder(.1,.1,.1,$fn=8);
}

Un comment the sphere line and comment out the rotate and cylinder lines to try it with a sphere.

I drew a line in Inkscape and rounded the corners like I did in the last post:

Minkowski is VERY slow with curves but there is a work around for it.

After you draw your line go to Path>Stroke to path and convert it to a path:

Then select the node tool and make sure all of your nodes for the line are selected, (they turn blue):

Then add more nodes to the line, this makes the line smooth when you straighten the segments, usually two or three clicks adds enough nodes:

Then straighten the segments and save the file:

Now when you import the svg into OpenSCAD it will be much faster.

Additionally it works best if the stroke size is smaller than the sphere size, unless you want a flat line with rounded edges.

I added a width adjustment to make handles:

Here is an example using a cylinder instead of a sphere, using a cylinder with minkowski is pretty fast compared to using a sphere:

open image in new tab for larger picture

There are a ton of options that can be added which I will probably do in a future post.