what was the last version you touched? Version 4? There are a few new tools. They had sketch rendering before, but I was never able to get it to work. Sketch rendering works pretty well in version 5. There is also a "Doodle" sketch mode. There is a patch to version 5.0.3. I talked to formZ tech and they say it fixes some bugs with selecting some dialog box like 200 times and formZ crashes.

There is also more plug-in support in version 5.
formZ Version 5 Features. Check out this link for a more extensive list of new features.

thanks wisof! the info is much appreciated. I have been using Autodesk 2004 and Viz as of late but I figured picking up formZ again wouldn't hurt. i wonder if there is a way to get a seed of Rhino?... now that is something I could learn to use.

use the internet man! here is a link for a demo of Rhino. This demo is pretty cool in that it doesn't time out, but does not function after 25 saves. So, as long as you do not save all the time, you could learn the program pretty well.
Rhino Demo

I don't think I've downloaded that patch yet. I hope it fixes the bug with the snaps. There's a very annoying, documented glitch in which once you select an object you can no longer snap to points on that same object (center, endpoints, etc.) You can get around this by holding the option key while you work on the item, but that's annoying.

In general I'm happy with 5.0 mainly because there's been a great speed increase both with performing operations and with the screen redraw.

The sketch renderings are fun, though haven't really come in useful for anything yet for me (it's fun to make hairy pyramids and such, but what to use them for?)

yah, i have the demo of rhino but i wanted a full version that i could exceed the 25 saves... i suppose im just greedy and cheap. thanks though!