I've been using arrays and curves to create vines and strands of hair on models
It gives me a lot of control, but when I convert them to a mesh to edit them for 3D printing, but the meshes are crazy complicated and the make blender unstable.
Is there a way to reduce the amount of geometry in a controlled way so that I still have smooth surfaces. The below image is one of the simpler ones. Some of them get insane. Particularly when I use a subdivision surface modifier.
I'm looking for a better way to do things, but until I find one I'm sticking with this.