Best Marine Design Software for Hull Modeling? (2011)

[Admin]

Continued from http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/design-software/best-marine-design-software-hull-modeling-2010-a-31058.html

Which hull modeling programs do you use as your primary hull design software?



Autoship (Autoship Systems Corporation) (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=3)

DefCar (DefCar Engineering) (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=26)

Delftship (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=7414)

Fastship (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=22)

HullCAO (HullCAO) (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=2933)

HullForm (Blue Peter Marine Systems) (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=21)

Maxsurf (Formation Design Systems) (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=4)

MultiSurf (Aerohydro) (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=19)

Napa (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=8527)

Naval Designer (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=4460)

NX (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=8528)

Prolines (Vacanti Yacht Design) (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=142)

ProSurf (New Wave Systems) (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=20)

Rhino (Robert McNeel & Assoc.) (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=294)

Naval Designer (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=4460) (US Sales by Forum Marine (http://www.forummarine.com/id17.htm))

SeaSolution (SeaSolution) (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=3568)

TouchCAD (Lundström Design) (http://boatdesign.net/cgi-bin/bdn/jump.pl?ID=3901)

[Leo Lazauskas]

Michlet, Flotilla and, best of all, the wonderful Gnu Scientific Library.

[zeroname]

Rhino, Maxsurf, Autoship and hopeful for NAPA this year to put into my fav list.

[yipster]

Best Marine Design Software for Hull Modeling? (2011)
if it was only hull modeling i'd say rhino, and there is orca, but maxsurf has the more complete design package i belive

[PI Design]

Hi,

Can you add Paramarine to the list?

Happy new year everyone!

[bbsboat]

maxsurf for hull and rhino for deck

[timo]

?! How do you know if you are not familiar with most of them?
I use Solidworks because thats what I learnt to use during my studies.
I think Solidworks is very user friendly. I have used Solidedge & Rhino - I definatley think SW is better. One thing I would like to know though - SW does not seem to have a tool that can convert organic/ 3d shape to patterns, except for the sheet metal feature which I either don't know how to use or it can only convert box shapes. If these other programs can convert 3d shapes to flat patterns - which for instance would be useful for planking or RIB tubes- i would like to know.

[bernd1972]

I´m surprised there are still hullform users around. I mean it´s a great program for doing a quick & dirty drawing/lines plan, but then you´re quite finished with it. No fancy rendering stuff and so on, no reasonable options to go on and do a complete design in one program. Quite retro.
Nevertheless, I like it, it´s so simple and convinient for doing the first step.

[Felix Muehlhoff]

Bernd,

I'm not only a hullform user. As I wrote years ago I'm using Siemens NX for the whole design and production process of ships and I'm still happy with it. For hydrostatics and damage calculations I'm using Paramarine because there is a direct link to NX using the Parasolid.

Grüße

Felix

[amariner]

Rhinomarine 401 for design and hydrostatics. sometime maxsurf for hydrostatics to compare

[Dean Smith]

Michlet, Flotilla and, best of all, the wonderful Gnu Scientific Library.
Leo
If you were a builder and not a Guru (not gnu) and you had no real training, where then would you begin?
Can you explain why you prefer such , in simple language please.

[Leo Lazauskas]

Leo
If you were a builder and not a Guru (not gnu) and you had no real training, where then would you begin?
Can you explain why you prefer such , in simple language please.

As usual, it all depends on what you want to achieve with the software.

I would choose a free version of one of the most popular ones so far to see if it is roughly what I need. I would prefer one that has an online forum where users can exchange plans easily, and where beginners can have their questions answered promptly by other users and the owners of the software.

I would also recommend that beginners be prepared to spend many hours learning how to use the program. Don't dump (e.g. Freeship, Delftship or Maxsurf) from consideration before spending less than 10 hours playing with them. Of course, not everyone has the luxury of being able to spend that sort of time on learning new programs, but it will take at least that long for an absolute beginner to learn the basics and to produce a decent rendition of a simple hull from scratch. (Just my uninformed opinion, of course).

Good luck!
Leo.

[Dean Smith]

Thanks
using Freeship I developed some very fair decks using my old freehand way
Drew in crown H, divided 1/2beam by three , used factors.8818 and .5393 Of H and put a point at each and then curve network , from sheer and crown and all those points joined
I have r4 and max 13 . I think maybe I am too ancienne to hold this stuff in my head.
I am not alone in this i personally worked with some brilliant long time yacht designers, who could not adapt either.
i use rhino for structure and because i prefer cut from a fully lofted body plan and not use cut files, I have no use for maxsurf workshop. I actually think , well not think--I know that for one offs CAD adds to time
maybe I should add to that
Add to cost for experienced builder of small ship
Say I had lines from you and knew they were fair
I would lift the body plan and draw say 40 frames in two days. with structure.
i would bend the frames from T or Angle CAD would be of no assistance in this
But the key is taking offsets from a designer , are they accurate. The first time I did this I ran some diags and then say if a buttock and wl intersection on the body were only say 8mm apart, then you knew your man had it right--when your batten clicked!!!

[Kestrel]

It, obviously, depends on what kind of matters you are dealing with. We are involved since a long time on R&D applied to planing stepped hull, specially, for which we use SUPHAD (http://www.idet.it/idra.html). For CAD modelling, many solutions mentioned here are good. We use Thinkdesign, (Think3), since this is our standard tool for different engineering applications.

regards
K.

[F3M4]

Sketchup(in the tutorial I just posted) should be a viable option, especially at the cost.

[frank smith]

F3M4, I am just getting into sketchup and would like to import from freeships .
I get an image but it is in wire frame , and I find a way to do any thing with it.
Any info would be appreciated.

[veggie]

Definitely not for amateurs, but I had the opportunity to work with Friendship Framework for my bachelor thesis. Really interesting software.

The cons:
Fully parametric modelling is complex, takes a lot of time to get a model
Some specific shapes can not be obtained with some parameterisations

The pros:
Very good hull variation and optimisation
Advanced access to all the features of the software: consider it as a programming language for naval architects, with possibilities to define your own scripts. Extremely powerful tool.
Good interfacing with other softwares

www.friendship-systems.com

[DavidJ]

The BEST software is the one you know how to use.

[shattle]

auto CAD and pro/e,this is I can get free this moment,calculation is still by hand.

[billybobobrain]

The BEST software is the one you know how to use.
And if you don't know how to use any? then which one is the best?

[DavidJ]

Haha, if you don't know how to use any then the best one is the one that you can learn to use. ie; it's the one you can afford or the one that you can find an experienced user to teach you or the one where the best tutorials are available. An expensive piece of software with all the bells and whistles is completely useless if you don't know how to efficiently produce high quality models.

Additionally, the best software to learn are the ones that are most widely used in your chosen industry. For new people entering the industry being knowledgeable in a companies design software can definitely be a help getting hired, although it usually isn't absolutely necessary. It is also useful at a company level to use common software. As in the marine design industry, as in others, it is very common for many different individuals from many different companies to work on a large project. Being able to exchange files in their native format saves a lot of headaches. Yes, most 3d software can save in multiple formats. IGES and STEP are very common file transfer formats for example. But if you export your solidworks file to an IGES all of the tree info will be lost. Then when you get your parts back from the Rhino user they will no longer be parametric solids, but will instead be "dumb" surfaces.

[DavidJ]

If you are a student I'd recommend trying to figure out what software is used by companies that you are interested in working for. This info is sometimes on their websites or brochures. Other times it might require an informal interview. Most companies will be able to find the time to talk with an interested student. I have also been to a few of the larger boat shows and for my own curiosity I did informal polls of the builders and designers about their design software and people were always happy to say what they used.

Now, I selected Rhino on this poll and this is why. The question only asked for the best software for hull modeling. I don't believe their is any such thing as the "best"software. However, I like Rhino best. I find it the easiest to use. It works the way I think. It's the one I know how to use.

We learned Autoship in school, but I found the software to be difficult to learn. It seemed archaic and just didn't respond to my way of thinking. I tried the demos of Prosurf, fastship, and touchcad but they just didn't strike me. Maxsurf had their free education version (very smart marketing) and I taught myself to use that. I loved it. I found it suited me much better and I ended up using it for my hull design projects.

However, when I graduated the first company I got a job with did not use Maxsurf. They used Rhino (for 90% of hull design work) and Autoship. I had purchased an education version of Rhino while in school and I used it for almost anything not related to hulls. Once I had access to Rhinomarine and I picked up a few hull fairing tricks, Rhino was all I needed. The more I used it, the more I liked it. ie; I got better at using it. It became the one I knew how to use. Of course it also has a big advantage over hull specific software like Maxsurf and Autoship in that you can continue to model other parts of the vessel without switching software.

I also have extensive experience with Catia and as far as I can tell it can do anything Rhino can plus much much more. And it does it all within the same package without any pain in the ass conversion. I love Catia. It is truly amazing software. However, I didn't choose Catia because it ridiculously expensive. Training is expensive. And there is almost zero internet presence for the software. I can google almost any bizarre error or simple command for autocad and come up with answers, but with Catia it can be near impossible. And while there are plug-ins available to do almost anything in Catia they are also expensive and require more expensive training. It just isn't practical most of the time.

Those are my personal experiences. As to which software is most common my only experience is in North America. From what I have read on these forums it sounds like Maxsurf has a pretty strong presence in Australia and I've heard rumours that Catia training is free in France and therefore the software has been widely adopted. I know smaller fabricators often love Solidworks, but they don't hire many Naval Architects or engineers. I have worked for three different marine design companies and I have knowledge of the software used at many others through friends and colleagues. What I have found is that the combination of Autocad and Rhino is extremely prevalent in North American marine design. I'd like to declare they have a monopoly in that field although my sample set is rather small. Out of say 25ish marine companies I know people working at, one uses Microstation for 2D drafting. All of the others use Autocad. While I did work at a company that had used Solidworks for some aspects of their designs and were phasing that out in favour of Catia, they still used Autocad for more than half their 2D work, and all 2D that was not produced from a model. They also used Rhino on every project for something (including the point of the poll - hull design). Like I said I have asked builders and designers about their design software at boat shows. I am not exaggerating when I say that every single one I asked told me they used Rhino and Autocad. A couple told me they used Solidworks for interior work, but those same companies still listed Rhino and Autocad. So I'd say for a student looking for marine design work in NA learn those two. Anything else you can pick up is a bonus but if you have those in your toolkit you will have the best chance of being hired. I'd say shipconstructor and solidworks would be the next two if you had the time and inclination.

[Mick@itc]

Anyone offer a drafting service for a boat I have in my head???
Mick

PS, 18 Meter Cruising sailing Catamaran

[FMS]

Anyone offer a drafting service for a boat I have in my head???
Mick

PS, 18 Meter Cruising sailing Catamaran

You could ask Westlawn or the Landing School if they could point you to a student who would like some basic drafting work or post it on their job board.

Or post a request under services here a few forums down.

[chemionix]

AutoShip, TouchCad,and NAPA is the best software.
Napa system makes extensive usage of the 3D CAD technology to develop and build unique ship designs.
Autoship system is developed in a way that both technical and non-technical parties involved in the ship building process can understand the concept and implement their ideas to test the models.Ship and boat design software has take the ship designing process to a whole new level with increase in automation , 3D simulation techniques, and thorough analysis programs.
TouchCAD was created by a Swedish structural engineer, Claes Lundstrom, who built boats in plywood as a teenager and later wanted a design program that could flatten sheet materials from compound-curved shapes. TouchCAD can also unfold very high resolution images applied to 3D models.

[rafaelcoelho]

Mathsurf for hull design and after CATIA .

[naval arc]

I am use Maxsurf for Hull modeling and the use Rhino to make structure and for detailing use solidworks.

[CmbtntDzgnr]

Two Delftship presentations, one (the first) with some kewl, intense instrumentals. (Imagine if amps and reverb and electric guitar existed around 1700...)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmdl7tzDLW0&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTE1QBKk3y0&feature=related

[Boat Design Net Moderator]

Continued in 2012 at http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/design-software/marine-design-software-hull-modeling-2012-a-41153.html