I'm not very familiar with Carrara, but I'm thinking about upgrading. I currently use RDS 5.5 which also couldn't import bitmaps to the background to use as guides in modeling. I know of 2 work arounds for this. Personally I import the bitmap into CorelDraw and build vector shapes that I import into Raydream amd place, connect and form my model from. The other way was by a gentleman whose name escapes me. What he did was us one or more plane objects with the bit maps as the shader(s). Then position the planes to give you the "illusion" of a bitmapped background. I don't know if either of this would really work in Carrara. If anyone experiments with this, let me know how it works so I cna use it if I ever do find a copy to upgrade to. Mike