Why is Blender so popular for 3D printing? In a recent news by i.materialise I saw that Blender is the most popular 3D modeling software for 3D printing (complete ranking here: http://i.materialise.com/blog/top-25-most-popular-3d-modeling-design-software-for-3d-printing).

Personally I have the feeling that it's quite hard to turn a Blender design into a 3D print. Am i missing out on something? Do you guys know any easy tricks/tools to make a Blender model 3D printable?
(Sorry if this is more of a comment, I can not comment on questions as of yet.) Well there is of course the obvious: Blender has a bundled addon called "3D Printing Toolbox" which lets you easily check for errors (non-manifold edges, faces too small to be accurately printed, overhangs, intersections) and measure statistics (area, volume, dimensions).

Go to file --> user preferences --> addons --> type : 3d print --> check the 3d printing toolbox