My long time favourite static 3d modeler. Easy to use, good control over objects, faces and vertices. Has a reasonable texture mapping tool if surface is reasonably simple, Boolean operations not great. Does not have all the bells and whistles of 3dMax, etc. ... but price is very good.

Exports and imports a number of formats including .obj and .3ds. Imports VRML1, exports 3d objects as SHAPE nodes with texture mapping in VRML2. Newest version has some interesting plugins (eg knife).

Although you can use notepad or similar to add scripting, the folding nodes, colour coding, error code-checking, material editor, plugin capability make this a must have tool.

Not exactly cheap ... but a free version with reduced functionality (max file size: 64kb, max copy to clipboard: 32kb) is available

If you need something more than the UV mapping capability of AC3D, then Steve Cox's UVMapper is a great tool. It is a stand-alone texture mapping utility for the creation and modification of UV coordinates of 3D models in the .obj format. (AC3D imports and exports this format.)

The Classic version is free. The Pro version has lots of bells and whistles including relaxing facets, multiple viewports, displaying inverted facets and the ability to use it as a pseudo-3dpainter with Photoshop, Paintshop Pro and Painter.

This java based software has been placed in the public domain by Michael St. Hippolyte and his company Trapezium. An essential tool for optimizing VRML files. Not only does it allow numeric adjustment and format, also indicates VRML code errors, bad faces, useless nodes, and removes normals. Will split a large terrain grid into pieces for use with LODs, Cells etc.

Useful for cleaning up files from AC3d and other modelers before opening in VRMLPad ... makes VRML easier to read. A Users guide can be found here.