Maxsurf

[christos]

Hi there,
Any maxsurf users out there?
Im trying to locate a Maxsurf users' forum or newsgroup and some good feedback from serious users.

Thanks
Christos Athens Greece

[ErikG]

Hi Christos.

I don't think there is one! There should be!
I think Formation shoud set one up on their website. That would make a good addition to the existing support system they have.

The problem as I see it is that the total number of users aren't that big. I have no idea of how many users there actually are.
Judging from a previous poll here on boatdesgn.net it looks like around 20% prefers MaxSurf. If that poll is representative... I don't know, but ok here goes...

If a total number of designers/drftsmen for marine applications are (guessing here) 600 worldwide and 20% uses MaxSurf then they only have around 120 users! Thats is not a lot. If realistically 20% of the users use a Maxsurf forum you'd have only 20-25 users on that forum. And generally speking thoose that use forums are people that are learning and not always the "gurus".

On the other hand if Formation's developers would support the forum it would be exteremely helpful.

AFAIK there are no such forums for any of the products mentioned in our poll here.

ErikG

[christos]

Thanks Erik,
have you tried to input an existing lines plan? What is your opinion?

thanks

Christos

[ErikG]

Nope not yet.
Come to think of it... I haven't even thought about doing it :-)

Great idea, I have to figure out how to do it soon...

Erik

[BrettM]

I use maxsurf and have modelled existing hulls on a number of occaisions. Prefit helps, but depending on the hull in question there are different ways of doing things.

[dougfrolich]

I just purchased MaxSurf. I am thrilled with it. I used the demo for about nine months while evaluating other software. I also use Rhino, and AutoCad. All the software translates well. The Bass boat I posted was developed in MaxSurf and rendered in Rhino

[Jeff]

Beautiful job so far on your bass boat and thanks for posting the sequence of images in the gallery for us all to look at and get inspired by too

[Andrew Mason]

Christos

This may be the best place to have such a forum. We would prefer to have users discussing the program in a public location rather than hosting it on our own site. We had considered setting up a Usenet group, but Boatdesign.net is probably a friendlier place to do it.

If you have any questions please post them here and I will endeavour to answer. Alternatively, if you have technical questions or suggestions for improving the program, you can always contact me via support@formsys.com

regards

I am using Maxsurf for a short while, and i am surprised about the possibility's.
The second surprise is that when you import a excisting model (3D nurbcurves without surfaces) you get only markers, that is OK for me
but after that I try to fit a surface over the markers like y did in Multisurf,
but this is for me impossible and I think it is not a good idea to move
manually al the control point of a surface to al the markers.

Is there anybody with good suggestion to help me with this problem.

Thanks in advance and sorry for my english.

Ed

[Andrew Mason]

If you do not wish to fit the surface manually you need to buy the Prefit module, this also enables the surface fitting functions in Maxsurf.

[MikeJohns]

I started designing with Autocad then discovered Rhino which I have used extensively for marine design.

I tried maxsurf(M.S.) but was disapointed by the one-way transfer of surfaces (M.S. to Rhino only) to transfer from Rhino to M.S. is a lot of work in M.S., so I stick to Rhino with hydro 3rd party plugins.

I found Rhino vastly superior for modelling and surface fitting.

Cheers

[Andrew Mason]

Mike

Maxsurf can read untrimmed IGES NURBS surfaces from Rhino no problems. It does lose trimming information from trimmed surfaces but the actual surfaces come accross fine. The reason for this is that IGES transfers only static surface trimming whereas Maxsurf's trimming is dynamic (i.e. updates as you reshape a surface) so it needs information about the origin of the trimming that cannot be transferred via IGES.

Generally this is not a problem as Maxsurf is used upstream of Rhino, rather than downstream. Typically the overall design of hull and larger superstructure surfaces is done in MAxsurf and then passed to Rhino for detailing, not the other way around.

[MikeJohns]

Andrew
Thanks for your reply. However I will take you to task about Rhino being "Downstream of Maxsurf" There is no hard and fast rule here. Rhino is undeniably better at surface work than Maxsurf. It has a much better and more powerful function set for surface creation and editing. This alone makes it Upstream of Maxsurf in some respects. I suspect Maxsurf would benefit greatly by modification in the import area.

We designers could then transfer the Artwork side of our creations easily into a good and thorough package to check the real performance, prior to model production and tank testing.

Cheers

[ErikG]

Mike
Curious... Why would you need to?
Neither the hydrostatics, VPP uses anything other than the basic shape, they don't care about the internals. Hydromax on the other hand might benefit some from the basic internal structure, I haven't tried it so I can't comment on that, but other than that, I can't see the use...

Could you expand your views on this?

[Andrew Mason]

Mike

I suggest you learn a little bit more about Maxsurf before you jump to conclusions about what it can and can’t do. Rhino is a good general purpose surface modeler and has some good tools for creating and modifying surfaces. Maxsurf specializes in the creation of production quality surfaces and in addition to having an environment specifically set up to suit the needs of the naval architect, it has several surface evaluation tools that Rhino lacks. As such it is a far superior environment for the precision modelling of hull shapes.

Thats why it gets more votes as a hull design package than Rhino in the user poll, serious designers appreciate that a Rhino is not an ideal hull modeller. It is great for doing superstructures and detailed modelling, but as I said before, that is a downstream function.