Ship constructor good and bad points

[stephen gibson]

I am evaluating 3d software to implement and this week its ship constructor...

i would be interested in hearing what the program does well and also what its shortfalls are. normally i would not even consider 3d software that runs on the back of a 2d package, but my hand is forced so its got to be done.

I am specifically interested in how the software performs with large assemblies, eg everything on a 60m megayacht, and what spec machine you run it on? how it handles clash detection? how automated the structure is, eg can you define 1 frame then tell it the next 10 are the same? how it handles heavy equipment such as engines, eg can you add weight and COG to a dumb solid? and anything else you think i should know

Thanks

[Raggi_Thor]

It's been a while since I used it, but what I experienced as a kind of shortfall was that you couldn't draw one frame and say the next 10 are the same, you had to go to the next frame and use a command to project geometry from other frames or "planar groups", and the hull of course, then draw the parts of that frame. I work quite fast in AutoCAD so it would be just a few minutes per frame, including numbering and definition of parts to the database, that's maybe the good thing, it's easy to find people who knows AutoCAD inside-out, and direct manipulation is often much faster to edit than parametric models, even if the advertisements claim the opposite :-)

[Raggi_Thor]

Have you talked to the European distributor, Design Systems & Technology, Nick Danese in Antibes? www.ds-t.com

[stephen gibson]

Thanks Raggi Thor,

we have a shipconstructor demo next week and i wanted to get some information to decide what to ask them. the shortfalls i have heard of are, there seems to be a lot of problems going from 2005 to 2006 because the program has changed so much, the clash detection is very poor and resource hungry, the automated production drawings require a lot of cleanup and again if there are modifications, editing the components seem to be quite slow because of the database comunication, and "more bugs than starship troopers".

on the plus side, it will do the job and staff are easy to find. there are programs that will fill in the holes and any young program is going to be full of bugs but they do seem to clear them quite quickly once reported