@Mugsey:

This has probably been covered in the above posts, but I didn't have the patience to read them all...

Bump maps don't affect the geometry of the object they're applied to. They're a render effect.
Try the following to prove it: Start new scene, load a cube/box.
Apply a strongly-textured image to the bump channel of the cube. Rotate the cube 45 degrees in Y and render. Although the surfaces of the cube appear to have bumps and dents, the EDGES of the cube will still be straight.

Displacement mapping actually adds "micro-polygons" to the mesh at render time, thus making actual bumps on the mesh (although there's a down-side to that; displacement is carried out along the "normal", the 3rd axis on a 2d polygon, and so can make gaps along the edges).

Bryce doesn't support displacement. Nor does Vue (although I understand the Vue 6 is supposed to, but Vue 6 isn't stable enough yet AFAIK).

Poser 5 and onwards supports displacement (but only in renders, the resulting mesh can't be exported)

Not sure about Wings, I've got it but haven't used it in years.Ask in the Wings forum here..

Hexagon supports displacement mapping and can convert the displacement to an actual mesh which can be exported. However I'm not sure if it can apply displacement from a grey-scale image (never tried it - need to have a go).

Hope that helps..

Cheers,
Diolma