Originally posted by flugzoid
...which software would be more capable for a non-cad user to learn...
I use Rhino (v2 still) & it was my introduction to 3d cad having used autocad 2d quite extensively. Its a great program. Do a search here & you will see some pretty neat examples. You can do pretty incredible things after a short while, but like anything, its time & effort ramping up the learning curve. A lot of the command usage was autocad in nature (or easier) so it made the transition easier. I heard that Rhino started out life as a 3d add-on to autocad because acad was so pathetic & limited at the time. If you have zero cad experience, you will have a bit more work in front of you. The best thing from both a financial & learning standpoint is to take some courses & see how you like it at a much entry cost.
The specific model project I worked on was eventually exported & became high end cnc milled molds. Rhino is known for good import/export file capability in that regard. It is also very well supported on an active (free) newsgroup basis. Sorry I dont know much about solidworks to compare but Im a very happy Rhino customer. Their v3 has been out for quite some time, some of the new features seemed a bit buggy from the n/g discussions but I suspect they have things well under control. . Good luck.