RE: CAM Software: Opinions Wanted

>I "evaluated" BobCAD for close to a year before I decided to buy Vector.

I'm glad I did.<

Alan, like you I have had BobCAD/CAM for quite a while now... but am
disappointed with it... it is capable of doing the job but (for me) it
doesn't have a fluid/logical method of going about the tasks... and if you
have a change part way through, you may as well start that detail over...
the CAM part is nice in the fact it is integrated but always manages to get
something not quite right... I spend so much time going over the code
looking for the erroneous "fly off over here for no reason" moves that I
may as well have coded by hand... So even though I have the money invested
in BobCAD/CAM I do most of my 2 1/2D work based on sketches done in
AutoSketch 2.1 and coding by hand in Word or NotePad... I know this sounds
slow and long winded, but my familiarity with Sketch means I can get the
geometry and the tool path offsets done in very short order... then the time
to key in code is not much more than the time to read over the code to
verify it as I would have to do with BobCAD/CAM... so when it comes to doing
3D surfaces it is a real PITA having to get BobCAD/CAM do it all right... I
have Pro/Desktop (Pro/E basic) for modeling in 3D but nothing to use with it
for code... I have demo of Solid Edge, but haven't got into that yet...

I have wanted to look at Vector as it has been getting good praise (in
general) by those that do have it... but like the majority, I don't have
enough blocks of time to conduct an evaluation inside 30 days... therefore
have not signed up for an evaluation copy, yet... Rhino and RAMS also looks
like a good possibility... but once again getting time to evaluate them is
almost impossible...

Does anyone have experience with Rhino and/or RAMS that would like to
comment?

Thanks for all the good input on this thread... I'm following with interest.

Bryan