The best jewellery CAD software, compared: Rhino, MatrixGold, 3Design, ZBrush and Blender
What each package is good at, which ones run on a Mac, what they cost, and how to choose the right one for the work you do.
Short answer: most professional jewellery CAD is done in Rhino, either with a jewellery plugin on top or as MatrixGold, which is built on it. 3Design is the main parametric alternative that does not depend on Rhino. ZBrush is the tool for sculpted, organic work, and Blender with the free JewelCraft add-on is the realistic choice when the budget is zero. Which is best for you depends on the pieces you make, the computer you use and what you can spend.
| Software | Best for | How it models | Runs on | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rhino 8 | Precise, castable models, and the base for most jewellery plugins | NURBS surfaces | Windows, Mac | $995, permanent licence |
| MatrixGold 4 | Fast rings, settings and pavé on everyday work | Parametric, on Rhino | Windows 10 and 11 | $5,995 with Rhino, $5,495 without |
| 3Design | Parametric jewellery CAD without Rhino | Parametric, own engine | Windows, Mac | Quoted by the maker |
| ZBrush | Sculpted, organic and figurative pieces | Digital sculpting | Windows, Mac, iPad | Subscription |
| Blender + JewelCraft | Learning on no budget, renders, organic forms | Polygon mesh | Windows, Mac, Linux | Free |
Rhino: the base most jewellery CAD is built on
Rhino is a general-purpose NURBS modeller. NURBS means true mathematical surfaces rather than a mesh, so curves stay curves at any scale and dimensions stay exact.
On its own Rhino has no jewellery-specific tools — no stone library, no prong generator. What it has is precision, stability and near-universal file compatibility, which is why most jewellery plugins are built for it. Rhino's own jewellery page lists MatrixGold, CounterSketch, CrossGems, RhinoArtisan, Pro-J and Peacock for Grasshopper among them.
Rhino 8 runs on Windows and Mac. A commercial licence is listed at US$995 and, in the maker's words, is permanent and does not expire, with no maintenance fees. An education licence is US$195, and there is a free 90-day evaluation of the full program, after which saving and plugins stop working.
It exports cleanly to STL for printing and to STEP, so a model stays editable by whoever picks it up next.
MatrixGold: jewellery tools on top of Rhino
MatrixGold, from Gemvision (a Stuller company), is aimed squarely at jewellery: a parametric history you can step back through, gem placement, pavé layout and profile builders, plus gem maps and reports for manufacturing.
The advantage is speed on conventional work — a four-prong solitaire with a pavé shank can be built in a fraction of the time it would take from scratch. The trade-off is that heavily parametric files depend on MatrixGold to remain fully editable; exported as STEP or STL they are fine, but the build history does not travel.
It is the most expensive option here. Gemvision lists a full licence at US$5,995 including Rhino 8, or US$5,495 if you already own Rhino, both with technical support and a six-month membership. Its system requirements list Windows 11 and Windows 10 only, on processors that are not ARM, so it is not supported on a current Mac. Rhino vs MatrixGold compares the two in detail, including the cost over time.
What happened to RhinoGold and Matrix?
Both are earlier jewellery packages for Rhino, and both are now legacy software. Stuller, which owns Gemvision, says Gemvision no longer offers technical support for Matrix or RhinoGold, and points owners to MatrixGold. A second-hand licence of either comes without that support.
3Design: parametric, without Rhino
3Design, from TYPE3 Software (part of Gravotech), is the main jewellery package that is not built on Rhino; the company says it has always been developed as an independent 3D engine. Its parametric engine keeps a design's parameters, so a ring size, a stone count or a profile can be changed later without rebuilding the piece.
It runs on both Mac and PC, comes with a free-form modelling module called 3Shaper, and offers a free trial. Prices are given on request rather than published.
ZBrush: for sculpted and organic pieces
A digital sculpting tool, not a CAD package. It works in very high-density meshes and is unmatched for organic and figurative work — faces, animals, heavy texture, anything hand-modelled in feel.
It does not do precision. A ZBrush model has no exact dimensions in the CAD sense, so most studios sculpt in ZBrush and take the result back into Rhino for shanks, seats and anything that has to measure correctly.
ZBrush is made by Maxon, runs on Windows, macOS and iPad, and is sold as a subscription that covers both desktop and iPad.
Blender: the free option
Free, open source, and genuinely powerful — but a polygon modeller and renderer built for animation and visual effects, not manufacturing. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and its rendering is excellent.
What makes it workable for jewellery is JewelCraft, a free add-on released under the GPL-3.0 licence. It adds gems, prongs and cutters, a component library, spacing between gems for close settings, weight in several precious alloys, and colour-coded gem maps.
The limits remain. Blender has no NURBS precision, so it suits renders, organic forms and learning better than a calibrated pavé field, or a file someone else must later edit as STEP. Blender for jewellery design covers setting it up.
JewelCAD
Long-established and still widely used in manufacturing, particularly across Asia. Fast for production work and familiar to a generation of designers. Its file handling is more closed than Rhino's, which matters if the model needs to move between studios.
CounterSketch: customising designs at the counter
Also from Gemvision, CounterSketch is built for retail. It centres on a digital library of designs that you customise with a customer in real time, with quick quoting and a route to manufacture. It is listed at US$2,995 including Rhino 8, or US$2,495 without, each with a one-year membership. Its designs cannot be exported for outside 3D printing; manufacturing goes through Stuller.
Is there free jewellery CAD software?
Yes, with limits. The realistic free route is Blender with JewelCraft. Tinkercad, which runs in a web browser, is fine for first experiments but too basic for stone settings. FreeCAD is a free, open-source parametric modeller built for general engineering rather than jewellery.
If you are deciding whether to buy Rhino, its 90-day evaluation is the full program, which makes it the best free way to learn before paying. Before you use any free or personal licence for paid work, read its terms: some free tiers exclude commercial use. Free jewellery CAD software compares every free option and its terms.
Which jewellery CAD software runs on a Mac?
Rhino 8, 3Design, ZBrush and Blender all run on a Mac. MatrixGold does not: its listed requirements are Windows 10 or 11 on a processor that is not ARM, which rules out current Macs. On an older Intel Mac, current versions of Blender and 3Design no longer run. Jewellery CAD software for Mac goes through each tool.
Which one should you choose?
- You model rings and settings every day and speed matters: MatrixGold, or Rhino with a jewellery plugin.
- You want precision at the lowest entry price: Rhino on its own, adding plugins as the work demands.
- You work on a Mac and want parametric tools: 3Design, or Rhino 8.
- Your pieces are organic or figurative: ZBrush for the form, then Rhino for anything that has to measure.
- You are learning with no budget: Blender with JewelCraft, or Rhino's 90-day evaluation.
- You sell bespoke at a counter from ready-made designs: CounterSketch.
Or skip the software
The licence is only part of the cost. The rest is the time it takes to become fluent, and the hours each design takes once you are. If you need a handful of designs a month, outsourcing your jewellery CAD can cost less than a software licence, and you pay per design only when there is a job.
What a jewellery CAD design costs sets out the numbers, and in-house, freelancer or managed studio compares the three ways to get CAD done.
What the software means for the files you receive
If you commission CAD rather than make it, ask what you will be handed rather than which software was used.
- An STL for printing and casting — every package produces one.
- A STEP file if you want the model editable by a third party later. This effectively requires a NURBS-based workflow; see STL, STEP or OBJ.
- Renders for client approval, which any of them can produce to a good standard.
- Confirmation that the model is a closed, watertight solid at the scale you expect.
A studio that cannot supply STEP is telling you something about how portable your file will be.
We model in Rhino with jewellery tooling on top and deliver the formats your quotation names, typically STL, with STEP where the model must stay editable. Quotations are free, so send a design and see what comes back.
