>>present work that makes me think that I can achieve what I need with Max/Radiosity. I want the ability to present realistic, accurate images, showing my lighting design, not simplistic renderings<< Unfortunately there seems to be a large disconnect between accurate calculations and good looking scenes, Angela. At the point where you can take readings of light quantity the scene looks terrible and then there is a lot of "fudging" to make the rendering look good which has nothing to do with engineering. There was an Autodesk presentation at Siggraph last year that appeared as though it would reconcile the two; but in the end it was all "make it look good" after a few accurate measurements were taken. I've never heard of any software that does both, it probably a matter of computing power. Good luck and thanks Ted