I would say avoid it. blender is an excellent MESH modeler but that puts it fundamentally at odds with being a good parametric modeler. a parametric modeler's base primitives are based in deformations on solid objects. mesh modelers are just vertices connected by line segments where 3 form a face. servicable if you're just doing simple objects for a 3d printer but disastrous if you need precision.
I don't understand why precision would be an issue? Is it not possible to fix the position of vertices to sub-micron precision?
I know that Blender is used more in the movie industry. But what if I wanted to make, say, an animation of some cartoon character that gets shredded in a gearbox? What program would I use?
A curve in a parametric CAD program will have an internal representation which is perfectly smooth. As rather than being than a set of straight lines (edges) connected by vertices it is instead a mathematical description of a curve which has infinite resolution.
For your animation example Blender would be the appropriate tool to use as you are doing stuff that requires flexibility of form rather than precision.
Yeah somewhat, there’s also the thing where mesh models can potentially have no thickness (eg. a single polygon) as well as gaps in the mesh whereas this is (usually) impossible in the case of a parametric model.
