I finally figured out how to use Corel draw to make .ai files to use with cross-sections. Old news to most of you I'm sure but maybe someone will benefit from this. First Image: (lower right hand corner.) A jpg inage was derived from the fractal generating program kaos-rhei.

Second Image: (upper right hand corner.)
In Corel OCR-Trace the jpg is converted to a black and white image with a threshold of 128 (a lower number would be more solid) and then inverted, traced as an outline and saved as a (Vector) version seven .AI file exporting text as curves, and all the convert and simulate boxes checked.

Third image: (main image)
In the spline model of Carrara the .AI is imported with crossection one selected.
the inport took less than two seconds. cheers, -TJ

Man, that is one groovy Mandelbrot figure. The analogous procedure in Photoshop is to import a jpeg, desaturate, click on the black, Select Similar, then go to the Paths menu and Create Work Path (tolerance 2.0 - 4.0 e.g. depending on how smooth you want it). Then export path as pathname.ai and import it to a cross-section.

Cool! I made the mistake of buying PS 5.0 LE which doesn't seem to have the functionality to export AI and the EPS files it does export are the wrong flavor for Carrara. I'll try it this way and see if the functionality shows up,but I doubt if LE will do that. I also noticed that micrografix designer will export AI files of the right flavor but I haven't played with that much. BTW kaos rhei can be downloaded here. kaos rhei

The problem with PS LE is that it doesn't allow for the same type of path editing. (Or, channel editing either. :<) You have to be able to create a path, chose the path, and then export it as an .ai file. I have had great success this way as well creating great 3D logos for clients of their original 2D version. 2 minutes of work, looks like I've slaved for hours, BIG checks! ;>