Running Blender python script outside of blender
There are two options,
- The first which you have come across is which is to run Blender in background mode,
- The second, which is very experimental, using Blender as a python module - BlenderAsPyModule
In both cases this should be a simple operation to import the Mathematica scene - bpy.ops.import_scene.* Then render the scene bpy.ops.render.render
As far as I remember you can run Blender from the command line without opening the interface/windowing system, which I hope works for your setup. Not only you can tell Blender to render a document, but you can also run a script that generates that document/populates the scene with geometry, lights, etc.
Alternatively you could generate content straight for a renderer (and skip a 3D Editor/Blender completely). There are quite a few free renderers out there like:
- Yafaray
- Sunflow
- Mitsuba
- LuxRender
- Pixie
yafaray
sunflow
luxRender
pixie
