I don't think it's wise to spend your time learning a software which is essentially dead at the moment. Yes, amapi could be purchased cheap, but time spent there will be wasted when you need something more. My personal experience with amapi was not good. It crashed constantly (obviously a lack of sufficient conditions in the tool scripts, similar to Hexagon). Even though i was sufficient in Hexagon, i found the Amapi workflow to be much worse. So then i also tried Solid Thinking (the more powerful competitor of Amapi. Much better parametric history than Amapi, but also was a workflow killer and easy to crash. Also tried Concepts Unlimited, but again i hated the workflow. And it seemed rather weak for surface editing... I use Rhino for all of my modeling, and i find it can do most everything i need (i don't create characters obviously). The scriptability is very deep. The only drawback to Rhino is a lack of parametric history on solids (it is similar to MoI in this respect). But for surface modeling and editing, Rhino is a monster... I guess it depends on your personal taste. BTW, what type of objects do you typically need to model?

jonah

Depending of what you want make
Hobby or work
Illustration sculpture animation manufacture...
Rhino is fine for all mechanical design production! (and Michael is one father of it ;)
Amapi mixes nurbs and polys but no so easy to use (exotic UI )
the more easy free one is Google Sketchup (if you want not modeling "monsters" with millions polys for ultimate details)
and for all that you will need renderers for presentation of images: a free one Kerkythea because it accepts the Ngons of Moi! ;)
If you have money don't hesitate Rhino will be very strong and you can add a polymodeler like Silo Hexagon...Amapi ;)

>BTW, what type of objects do you typically need to model?

MY brother has a small CNC. Alot of "parts and things"!

I have a few other tools (Like Hexagon, Carra, Amapi....for poly fun.)

Thanks for the responses. Even Frenchy I have seen regarding Amapi doesnt say "Amapi's great" so that is kindof my answer. I wont spend a bunch of time on it. Probably just save up and buy rhino after i learn more with MoI. I've seen the Rhino demo, not intuitive for me but they are established and have resources for class if I need.

Thanks again,
Burr

Hi Burr, I would definitely think that Rhino would be a more suitable companion, for a variety of reasons.

It's generally easier to share data back and forth between MoI and Rhino, for example you can copy and paste back and forth between them. Also they use the same native file format, there is probably just a higher degree of compatability at the file level.

There is more kind of common ground between MoI and Rhino with general operation since Rhino is basically like an older generation of MoI's UI. Even though Rhino is a lot more difficult to use than MoI, it will just generally have more in common with MoI than Amapi - Amapi evolved along a much different evolutionary line so to speak.

On top of that Rhino has a much more varied and deeper toolset than Amapi, so that also tends to make it a better companion as well.

Then on top of that like others have mentioned, Amapi development has actually been discontinued.

You'll certainly find that Rhino is a lot more complex and difficult to learn than MoI, but many of the modeling concepts that you learn in MoI will be applicable to be used in Rhino as well so in a certain sense MoI can be a good introduction to help you make more sense out of Rhino as well.

The only real thing I could see for Amapi would be if you want to do some polygon modeling instead of NURBS modeling, Amapi does have a nice set of tools for that.

- Michael

Thank you Sir!