Hi Burr, yeah like Danny mentions it would be easier to give advice if you could give some more specific examples of what you want to do.

Maya would be more if you wanted to do animation and rendering type stuff, but it wouldn't really be the right thing for CAM related stuff.

SolidWorks is really great for mechanical design, but not really quite as general purpose for other things such as architecture. On the other hand, Rhino is not at the same level for mechanical design, but a lot more flexible for using in different areas, like it would fit better for architecture type work.

CAM and architecture is something of an unusual mixture, so definitely more details would help...


> (I think Parametric is well beyond me)

Not really, I mean if you're willing to do training and stuff like that you can certainly learn how to use it, it follows a pretty logical pattern. It's more difficult than MoI but should be feasible if you are able to devote some time to it.

- Michael