Hi Tom,

There are specific books that cover the technical aspects of pave setting but they're not cheap.
It should also be noted that within pave, there's what Setters loosely describe as "American style" or a "Euro style".
Basic techniques are the same but knowing there's a difference within styles could help when looking at various references.

I've attached a PDF which Stuller released to help novice Jewellers venturing into CAD.
Given you're venturing into jewellery design then I figured its info might prove to be helpful?
I'm also including a ZIP file with a collection of different stone shapes in NURBS that I've collected from various sources.
You'll find these to be much more useful than the DXF versions available on the web.

For constructing your model with round stones just use a simple rotated shape to keep the file small.
Then just substitute those for the NURBS version when it comes time to doing your render.

HTH, Colin