I haven't seen any mention of Rhino here so here goes. I've been using it for years mainly doing mechanical design and was able totreach myself the basics in a summer with no previous 3d experience. It's also used for jewelry design, boat design and you may have seen it used for the city-scapes in Spiderman. Very user friendly. The sales site has "Commercial" and "Student and Teacher" pricing as low as $195.00. Do yourself a favor and check youtube for examples. See pic of one of my drawings.
Here's the link: [
www.rhino3d.com]
