Free!ship Plus newbie questions

[henrikb]

Hello Everyone!

Just downloaded Free!ship and I'm now starting to learn...

A few questions that maby some one can answer:

- How do I "nudge" control points in smaller steps? Default nudge step is to big, can it be changed?

- When using the keel and rudder tool. How do I move the keel or rudder into position? I can not select only the keel and move all the points in one go.

Probably, there will be some more Q:s popping up

Best regards,
/Henrik

[Guest625101138]

It is helpful if you master the mouse. You can zoom and also grab and move items around by using the mouse. Work out how to use the right mouse button. Zooming allows much finer control of points. Grabbing and moving the hull relative to the viewing window keeps the area of interest in the window. If you want really good precision you can enter the exact numbers for any point. Using the control key you can select a number of points and give them all the same value on one axis (this can be a bit twitchy and you might change more than one axis data but it is easily undone and then the second try it usually works OK)

When you load a keel it is best to place it in a new layer. You can then use the tools to select a whole layer and reposition it. It can be moved along any axis and rotated about any axis.

The other thing to learn about is the layer controls. You can make items in each layer a different colour. The layer can be either part of the hydrostatics or not. You can choose to mirror within a layer or not. You can add weight data to each layer. You can choose items in a layer to be developable or not.

Rick W

[henrikb]

Thank's alot for the advise!
I'm used to rhino, and I have always been using the arrow keys to nudge. I see your point on using the mouse, editing a point in 2D and viewing the 3D at the same time is very good.

I got the keel and rudder working also, but i managed to put a part of the stem into the same layer as the keel... Is there a way to change layer of a surface once it is put into the model?

Best regards,
/Henrik

[marshmat]

- How do I "nudge" control points in smaller steps? Default nudge step is to big, can it be changed?

Clicking on "Incr. distance" in the status bar below the drawing window pops up the window to change the nudge increment.
Generally, I will manipulate points with the mouse at first, and will use small nudge increments only for final fairing of the control curves.

Is there a way to change layer of a surface once it is put into the model?

To the left of the drop-down box on the main toolbar showing the layer name, there are four buttons to control layer properties (also see the "Layer" menu). Turn on "show interior edges", select the surfaces you want to put on a new layer, and use "Auto group" to move the selected control faces to a new layer.
I can't remember right now how to move objects on one layer into another layer that already contains objects, although I do recall it being possible in earlier versions....

[Guest625101138]

Henrik
I have not tried to change points to another layer.

For plate development I make the original hull complete in one layer and then export the hull as part. I then import the part to a new layer and cut out all but one plate. I keep doing this until I have all plates with their own layer. If you have put a lot of work into a particular part that you want in its own layer you could do something similar by making the current hull a part and then import it twice to different layers and delete the respective bits from the two new layers.

Rick W