A working approach is the following:
1/ Choose an external 3D editor with capability to create own editable 3D objects (MAX in my case).
2/ Analyze the behaviour of the primitives in SL and remodel them as objects in the external editor. As example: I represent the SL BOX prim in Max as a cube of which i substract a cylinder, triangle or box depending on hole size and shape. Then i substract another polygon for cut begin-end and apply a pre defined modifier stack to this to represent the other box properties. All this with a tool panel that is comparable to the object tab in SL. I can then use the same parameters i use in SL to modify the custom object.
3/ In the external editor define how the SL style objects will be saved and create an export function for a whole scene. Like for the box in MAX, save the object parameters as floats in a text file.
4/ Copy the file to a notecard
5/ Read the notecard and reproduce the external editors scene by using llSetPrimitiveParams(...) using the attributes stored i nthe notecard for each successive prim.
6/ view the result
This also works with UV coordinates yet some artefacts of Sl are not reproducable in MAX for instance. This is a result of the inaccurate placement of vertices when transforming basic prims in SL.
The workload here is not on the LSL side of life, but on the editors side of scripting. The LSL of this is fairly simple.
As caveat i found, that due to the restrictions of this method, especially in texturing precision, it is faster to build directly in SL. I can yet see good use of this when designing hard to edit structures like jewlery. Here yet a full set of external editor objects with almost all editable prim attributes would be needed to work efficiently.
Another caveat is that you are not able to import existing models, you have to build for SL "from scratch". Importing existing models would be the target of the obj facet importer, yet create prim heavy stuff.
The pro of this method is that you work on the primitive level directly, have a powerful editor at hand and import full primitives, not primitives as substitute for facets.
As remark: There are of course several ways to export prims from SL to such an external editor.
Have fun
PS: Resolving crash issues atm. and building Picasso. If you further questions about this please drop by there when i am online (and don't crash)
