FastShip vs. MaxSurf

[skibber]

What is the main differences between FastShip and MaxSurf?
Maybe it has been a topic before, but I have not been able to get it clarified...
Is there anybody who have an overview of the the differences.
/Benjamin

[alidesigner]

Both programs are no doubt capable of modeling hulls but the ultimate test is what you find easiest to use so download a demo of each and try them. You will soon be able to tell which is easier to use.

I cant say anything about Fastship as I have never used it but I have used Maxsurf for many years and here’s what I like about it.

You can buy 3, 6 or unlimited surfaces versions so you can buy to suit your budget, types of boats being designed, and other cad systems being used.

Its menu layout is very intuitive so it’s easy to learn. I can spend around half an hour showing a graduate naval architect how to use it and they can then do most things.

It gives you quick buoyancy data at the DWL but you will need Hydromax for full stability analysis.

The manual is easy to read and it comes with plenty of demo hulls.

The workshop module will develop a plate even if its not 100% theoretically developable. It then shows you the strain in the plate so you can see where the problem is. Some programs wont develop a plate if its not 100% developable. This is important as how can you fix the problem if you dont know where it is. Also sometimes you can accept some minor forming strain in your design. This is a feature I use extensively.

The stringer generation in workshop is awesome. It’s just so fast and easy to use.

It also has sea keeping and resistance modules so you can do just about everything from the one model file.

The support is very good. They respond quickly and know what they are talking about.

The results of the poll on this forum also speaks volumes.

And no, they don’t pay me a commission.

[JesperW]

Just to make the descision harder :

FastShip's surface manipulation GUI is much easier to learn and faster to use (more similar to traditional CAD systems, so if you haven't used any such this is not a valid point).

The "poles" functionality makes it very simple to maintain relationships between surface control points, thus making it easier to maintain fairing while editing the surface.

A nice touch is also the instant dispaly of LCB/LWL and Cp in the editing window.

Also, MaxSurfs IGES import is not perfect, it frequently fails to find surface intersections and sometimes looses parts of a surface or sends vertices of into distant places.

Those were just some random points to balance the previous post... trying them both and seeing which you prefer is really the way to go.

/j

(Tried both, use neither )