CompuServe Messages

To All: I need some advice. I used to own both Mac and IBM environments. I'm a software engineer, and I do development work on IBM, and had a Mac IIci for personal productivity, graphics and recreational software. (Actually, graphics software, for me, falls into the category of recreational software, too.) For graphics on the Mac, I really loved the Japanese software called DynaPerspective. It was, for me, the perfect blend of power, relatively light computing resource requirements, ease of use, and the TYPE of 3D drawing that I wanted to do. It did (almost) all the things I really wanted (the lack of a "punch a window in this wall" [cake-cutter] tool was the most irritating drawback). About 8 months or so ago, occurring at the about same time: 1. I saw the writing on the wall regarding Apple and dumped my Mac 2. Dynaware USA, the US rep. for DynaPerspective, and Dynaware Japan attempted to screw me (in my opinion). When I dumped my Mac, my intention had been to switch over to the IBM version of DynaPerspective. In view of my execrable treatment by Dynaware, this never happened, and won't ever happen, period. For some months now, I have missed having a good 3D drawing package. I used DynaPerspective to draw my house before building it, and now want to do some more of the same kind of drawing. So I'm in the market for a good 3D drawing package. Unfortunately, I know nothing about IBM PC based drawing, and have no idea of what is available. I would assume something other than DynaPerspective that does what DynaPerspective does MUST be available. I need some advice. What would be a good package for me to buy (or look into buying). Is Autodesk 3D Studio good for my purposes, or if not, what else? Basically, I'd like something like DynaPerspective, with DynaPerspective's slant or bias on 3D drawing, only better. I want to draw buildings and furniture and such. I think that's called solid modeling (but I'm not at all sure…). I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT want to draw clear blue-glass balls with chrome highlights with my logo wrapped around the surface (or that type of thing, which seems to be very popular). I have NO use for this at all. All I would want in terms of surface texturing would maybe be wood grain (and I don't even need that; solid colors are just fine if that's all that's available). I want to draw stairs (a stair drawing tool) and punch windows in existing walls and have a roof-slant tool. If I take a chair and embed it halfway thru a window (or something else involving conflicting planes and hidden surface collision and resolution and transparent solid surfaces), I want it to look just like a chair embedded halfway thru a window. If I take a beam and stick it thru a wall, I want it to disappear at the point of intersection (in other words, look like a beam embedded in a wall). I want to work in wire frame and then render as a solid. I'd like a couple of light sources. And, while I'm biased toward architectural drawing, I don't want whatever software I buy to be SO biased that I can't do anything else with it. If the pillars I draw aren't absolutely smooth but actually consist of bunches of facets, that's just fine. Hopefully, the facets would be relatively small. I want to be able to view what I'm drawing in several different views all at once. I want to be able to draw with both mouse AND by specifying Cartesian points AND spatial math (draw a line or a wall from this point to this-point-plus-2'11.5" along this axis.). In general, the spatial co-ordinate system must be VERY precise and VERY flexible and VERY powerful. I'd like to be able to scale in feet and inches and meters. I'd like multiple drawing planes and be able to assign and move objects arbitrarily to and between planes. I'd like to be able to group and copy objects. I'd like VERY versatile object rotation capabilities. Object orientation, alignment and movement features must be very powerful, both object-to-object relative and object to absolute 3D gridpoint. And point to point distance calculations should be available. I DON'T need any French curve object bending and warping crap. Unless it comes free. And I paid $800 for this in DynaPerspective. *sigh* I have a 486/66 with 1/2 meg video, 200Mb hard disk, 20Mb RAM. I have a LaserJet IIP with 2 MB RAM in it. The LaserJet has no PostScript capabilities. Can anyone suggest anything?