Steve,
You are correct about the differences in the way Visual Studio 2005 handles Active X controls. However, Visual Studio automatically takes care of the hard part for you. When you import an Active X control onto a Windows Form, Visual Studio .NET automatically creates Windows Forms wrappers for you.
What this means for you is that once you load your 3D Graph in Visual Studio 2005, and the Active X wrapper is created (along with the necessary DLL files), you can use the graph as you normally would.
If you would like to know more about how this works, read
Using Measurement Studio Active X Controls in Visual Studio .NET, specifically the sections titled "Windows Forms and ActiveX Controls" and "Loading the Measurement Studio ActiveX Controls."
You can also look at
Interacting with Measurement Studio Graphs in Visual Basic for more information on graph controls in VB.
Matt Mueller
NI