Hi Phil,
You will see some links to the common jewelry CAD programs on my
company’s web site http://www.raisingintl.com/page3.html.
No doubt, Rhino is a very powerful software. It’s widely used in
many professional fields but not only the jewelry industry. In
another word, it’s not jewelry specific program and it’s not
developed for jewelry design only. The good thing is that it has
plug-ins like Gemvision Matrix. If you decide to go for Rhino, you
may want to have the plug-in as well. That will make your design work
easier.
JewelCAD is an old jewelry design software. It’s been in the market
for 16 years. Compare to Rhino/Matrix, its interface looks simple and
plain and it’s easier to learn. One of the interesting features is
Boolean and dis-Boolean. All the Boolean operations (Union,
Intersect, and Subtract) can be reversed (dis-Boolean). That means
when you receive the design file, you can reverse the operations and
modify small pieces and assemble again. Its weakness is that you
can’t add CV (control points) and it’s difficult to do twist type of
designs. Many designers complain lack of support and help for
JewelCAD. In fact, JewelCAD comes with a built-in help. The official
web site has English manual, tutorials, and evaluation version to
download. There are some forums but you’d better can read in Chinese.
Rhino/Matrix is quite popular in North America. I don’t know the
market in New Zealand. In Asia, JewelCAD has more users because it’s
developed by a Hong Kong company and they can provide better support
in that area.