Hi, All, I just got a Da Vinci 1 3D printer, and I need it primarily for one  project. 

I've looked around here at Renderosity and I don't find any 3D printing specific forum, so I'm going to ask here. 

I need the printer to create raised transfer patterns.  I want to 3D print a flat plane with raised ridges that correspond to my drawings so I can transfer them (in reverse) to other media.  I have access to several 3D modeling programs (all legal) that I purchased some time ago, but haven't had any real time to become familiar with.  

My main question is "Which of the programs I have would lend itself best to converting my drawings to a 3D mesh of a raised (very low relief) transfer plate?" 

I spent some time with Lightwave (my copy is 7.5) long ago, and I found it really easy to convert various fonts to 3D form, but that was quite some time ago. 

I have legal copies of Silo 2, Shade 8, Hex 2.5, Carrara 8, Pegasus, Curvy 3D, and possibly more.  any resulting files need to be converted to STL files to print.  

I was going to work on the project at my leisure over the next 8 weeks of "vacation" (I'm self employed, and this is my slow season), but I got a call to help a friend with a work crunch  that will cut my free time down to a few hours a week until I need to get busy with my own work again.

Any hints or suggestions would be appreciated. 

Thanks  ~Jerry / leather-guy