Best Free or Low Cost Marine Design Software? (2008-09)

[Manie B]

i have tried everything on

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=125391

still no can do

any suggestions?

i have 3 python files in my program files but they wont extract

Winace Achiever freezes on Extracting from zip file???

[Manie B]

i got onto blender.org finally thnks

[Manie B]

got it all

Blender is Excellent

if anybody needs help with python installation i have done it - can do

[Manie B]

Mas how have you gotten along with blender
are you using it yet?

[masalai]

YES local time 07:15 am 25 may 08 no problems.... remember your link shortest route may be up to Europe abd then across the Atlantic cable and if either are busy, expect delays.... OK Manie, you will find it has more power than a malley bull in a china shop.... and they come at more than 2 tons....

When you consider what it has been used for, we are just playing at the edges....

[masalai]

Still struggling with the blender interface - maybe I am tooo much of a retard???? - - I may have a brain fart soon and suddenly everything will click -

[shellexpansion]

If you just use the software for a simple design. Don't forget Ablire Xpress. It is a freeware.

[Nikimathew]

Marine Simulation has released Volume Two of the ROVsim Undersea Pilot series The Undersea Pilot series is a collection of remotely operated (submerged) vehicle (ROV) simulators intended for ROV and marine professionals and based on Marine Simulation's ROVsim simulator. By implementing the very latest technologies for real-time 3D visualisation, it is able to simulate a wide range of mission variables: from changing currents and visibility, to electronics and gear failures.
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Nikimathew
CONNECTOR

[Design_1]

I use Rhino v4. I have been using Rhino for since v2 and love what I can do with it. It cost $875 US and is worth every penny to me. Have done steel hulls up to 257' with scantlings. works well to flaten developable surfaces for nesting with Rhino Nest.

[Sean Herron]

Hello...

The best software out there is what you can afford and bend your mind around without chucking the computer out of the window in a drunken rage or banging into your new hardwood floor whilst screaming like a Meth addict at it (that rhymes) and asking the machine - which cannot talk back - like kicking a dumbed puppy - 'WHO IS IN CHARGE HERE - WHO - YOU OR ME' - yup - however - same must also output information that REAL boatbuilders can use on a lofting floor or other - (I remember Prolines) - or other for the backyard crowd - who in many cases are beyond the kiddies hired to loft...

In short - whatever hammer that fits the job at hand - I love Carlsons' freeware - and still use it - import into Rhino - make surfaces and take off curves to reduce the amount of control points - but I use it to get there...

Rhino Marine per Proteus Engineering is fantastic - albeit their powerboat hull wizard creates a surface that is very 'edit' limited - above works again - suck out the curves and go on your own...

In short - it is all good - there is no one package deal and I believe that there will never be - just fill your toolbox...

As for Blender - just cruise YouTube - there are highschool M/F's posting tutorials...

Also see http://www.cogfilms.com/tutorials.html ...

You may think this guy had a hand in Penguin for Rhino - you just may - maybe ...

Cheers...

SH.

[Fanie]

The best hull design software sits right between your ears. Unfortunately we all have become a bit lazy and I have to admit computer software does make very accurate measurements, but aren't we relying on it too much ?

Maybe a combination of the two resources is what makes the real difference between good and gooder

[Sean Herron]

Hello...

About the only time I pick up a pencil is to mark up some gibberish on the shop floor that was spit out of a computer...

Or - if I can get the file - I take it home and clean it up and replot it into something that 'the boys' can actually use on the floor - one hint - STOP PLOTTING DIMENSION IN YELLOW INK DUMBASS...

LazeyJack - you can set the Constuction Plane to any flat surface - as in you have a forward raking house and you want a true 2 inch radius on the window - a 2D projection of a curve to that surface will give you a distorted radius when you develop the surface - start by right clicking on the upper left view tab - lots of options there...

Trust me - I am learning on my own too - Rhino is damned tricky - for ADS folks - all men - who hate reading manuals - it is a steep learning curve for sure...

NAFI is NO AMBITION AND F'CK ALL INTEREST - tough club to join...

SH.

[Design_1]

I have been using Rhino for 4 yrs. now and love it. I have drawn everything from 14' perogues to 257' OSVs and scantlings with it. It does very well with unrolling developable surfaces. I mainly appreciate the fact that I can draw through 4 view ports with multiple construction planes with minimal effort. I also love the fact that I have several option for drawing any given surface. I attached a 24' hull with complex surfaces that I drew in Rhino.

[Chris Ostlind]

For what it's worth, I concur with Herron's use of Hulls as his sketch pad for doodling ideas and then porting them to a higher plane of software. Personally, I also use Freeship as an intermediary stop after "sketching" in Hulls, where I get really good hydrostatics that match-up well with those produced when I take it to Rhino and Rhinomarine.

Fiddly? Well, maybe, but it's just like my old days in the design classes at college when I would move from one media type to another, always looking to discover a new potential in the concept I was working with at the time.

It's called a body of work discovered by only one ethic... that being, time in the shop/on the drawing board/in the process media work-arounds until you arrive at several iterations that have great merit.

There are no shortcuts, unless you are one of those dudes who can draw an atom bomb on a napkin... AND it will work the first time out. The rest of us come to this thing after many hours of diddling around, walking away and having a beer, chasing some tail, eating out with the kids and finally.... distilling the mental and visual stew into a final form.

Do have fun, whatever you choose to do along these lines.

[PI Design]

Please help...

In Freeship I sometimes feel that I can't control the lines of my designs as much as I would like. For example, I would like to be able to directly draw waterlines etc, using a function similar to the very basic curvy line feature on Microsoft Word. I would then like to be able to edit that line to ensure that it is fair. In Freeship, you use the control net to create the design, but because the points on the net do not lie exactly on the hull surface, I feel that some control is lost. For example, trying to get the hull to exactly touch a measurement point is very tricky, if not impossible (e.g hull beam 2.5m aft of bow, 200mm above base should be 1.22m). Also, I would love to be able to specify buttock angles, line lengths and chine radii directly, or at the very least measure them. For example, in Freeship, the only way to set the aft centreline buttock angle is by doing some sums and even then because of the reasons above it only ends up approximate - it would be much easier to be able to input such values directly.

I hope this makes sense because I would really like to know whether a (cheap) package with such features exists. Perhaps even Freeship can do these things and I'm not using it properly? I guess maybe I could do this kind of thing in Rhino, but then you don't get the waterlines, sections and hydrostaic calcs (presumably Rhino Marine does this, but I'm only doodly dinghies at home, so don't want to pay big bucks).

Thanks.