Exporting from FreeShip (Free!Ship) importing into Blender

[alanrockwood]

I'm a novice using FreeShip (Free!Ship) and have never actually used Blender or any other 3D rendering software, other than starting the program(s) and staring at the opening screen. I have used some CAD programs in a very rudimentary way, particularly DoubleCAD

Just to help get me started, what would I do to export a hull from FreeShip and import it into Blender?

Thanks in advance.

[CaptBill]

I am pretty sure you can export DXF from FreeShip and Blender imports DXF (File | Import | DXF) but in reality you will soon find, if you want ANY real control for 3d work, then you need to aquire the lines of you model vs. a DXF (which is hundreds or thousands of triangles). You need to transfer the lines themselves to Blender as bezier or NURBS curves if you want to do any serious work with the model data. Old fashioned lofting techniques are what you still need to have working understanding of.

[alanrockwood]

I figured out that FreeShip will export an stl file, and Blender can import an stl file. I manged to do that, at least to the extend of getting a file loaded into Blender.

[CaptBill]

Cool. I need to eval Blender more. It has some really nice curve/bezier tools that look very promising for hull modeling.