For me this is the other way round. When I was a student (physics) I had a very, for a lack of a better word, "practical" visualization in my head - what I needed to understand what I was studying. There was a lot of maths too, visualized.

Today, 30 years later, I have vivid representations of calligraphy or art, especially when I fall asleep. I fall asleep within at worst minutes so I cannot really take full pleasure of watching these ilages and during the day I am too surrounded by sources of sound, images etc. to meaningfully repeat the exercise.

The _absence_ of visual imagery is binary: you cannot see images at all or, to whatever extent, you can. Those who do have any mental imagery at all, however, fall on a scale. There are numerous studies of certain real downsides to aphantasia, notably tied to episodic memory, which don't seem to be present in those simply with diminished visual imagery.