I've done some reconstruction work in crime/accident cases with C3 pro thru C5 pro, and things have gone pretty well. What I'm looking into now is a way to mathematically prove relative distances and angles without spending $1000's for an app like Maya. Anybody got a suggestion?

I really don't know you might want to look at some different software and ask at their forums. I would look at some of the more pro tools; not all of them are expensive. I would check in the Lightwave forum here and CG talk. It runs less than 1K$. Try also at CG talk try Electric Image and PMG messiah. I am waiting for my copy of messiah now and look forward to using it but really can't answer questions like that. Also check Blender too they might have a plug in for that and then it would be free.

Look for a CAD based app.  - Rhino is a good choice, but will run about $800.  Amapi 6, which I think came with Carrara 4, is another possibility (may be free on the web somewhere).

Attached Link: Polyloop

Ken

Lightwave certainly can measure distances and angles.

Isnt there anything in Carrara that will do that ? or allow you to calculate them .

As long as you maintained consistancy, I don't know what would be wrong with using the generic dimensional "unit" in a given software. It could represent inches, feet, meters, miles, km, furlongs, cubits,  whatevers, etc. But you'd have to keep in mind what your unit was and do any conversions or fractional scaling yourself. Basic angles and distances this way can be done in just about any 3D program.

About the only thing you might have to worry about is placeholder digits. Working with trig values and long distances could give variation in results that depend on how many significant digits (and level of precision) a program supports. (Such as how many places does pi go to in a program's constants table, etc.) That'd be something to watch out for. I'm not sure how easy that would be to answer.

I have Amapi 7 but haven't worked enuff with it to know the full potential. (thanks for the tip). Carrara won't give me the answers I need, but I can extrapolate mathematically, or, in most cases, place a neutral object from point "A" to point "B" and read the virtual size off the object stats and do any scaling, (if needed), from there. Sometimes I wish I was still young enuff to learn as fast as I used to. I'd make better use of some of the apps. on my hard drive. Like to plug myself into the tut's and "Help" files. LOL I appreciate the suggestions and wake-up call on Amapi. Have to use these things mor often.

Attached Link: http://iconico.com/protractor/specs.aspx

Quote - I've done some reconstruction work in crime/accident cases with C3 pro thru C5 pro, and things have gone pretty well. What I'm looking into now is a way to mathematically prove relative distances and angles without spending $1000's for an app like Maya. Anybody got a suggestion?

I do this kind of stuff in autocad all the time... 
For a lower price, Rhino would be more then adequate and quite powerful. I forget at the moment if Autocad Lite would do all you need to. Some of autocad viewers have the ability to meadure distances too, but I forget off the top of my head which ones. I'd suggest checking out Autodesk's product lineup.

With Rhino, you can download a fully functional demo that allows you 25 or 30 saves. If you ration your saves well, you can make that demo last for a while ;)