Thanks for the reply Miker...
I should have made clear that I'd like each vertex to act as a hotspot in the 3d window. I have AC 8 and I use Zoom gdl to convert .3ds files from 3ds max to the .gsm format for placement in Archicad. I think this workflow can produce any of the organic forms we are now starting to see with Maxonform, and I think I can even solve the problem of sharp/smooth (ie visible.invisible) edges in the imported object.
However, it would be nice to be able to snap to the vertices in the 3d window - is this possible without getting into too much coding. I don't have any experience with gdl so far. Does anybody know of a workflow, or know of any tutorials on the web. Thanks