Maxsurf Academic

[Andrew Mason]

Maxsurf Academic is now available for download to students free of charge.

We have set up a special website at http://msacademic.formsys.com with program download, documentation, tutorials, technical papers, forums and demo designs. We have set the demo designs section up so that users can contribute their own work, please feel free to add designs.

You will need to create a login with a genuine email address to access the site, but after that all of the features listed above are accessible.

We will be adding more to the site in the coming weeks, so please check back on a regular basis.

[zhmeww]

That is good a thing. thanks!

[Mario]

Could you extend your special website on persons who are not students ?

[Andrew Mason]

Mario

We will set up a Visitor account where you can enter the site but not download - this will allow you to view all the other information provided on the site.

[josch]

Is it just maxsurf or the package with hydromax and span which is available
for students, how many surface are offered at the academic version, as much as I want???? For designing a sailing yacht you need round about 6 at the minimum and the you have the hull, and to work effective you need the hydromax tool for calculating the yachts stability???

with friendly regards
josch

[Andrew Mason]

Just Maxsurf, 3 surfaces only.

On the contrary, most sailing yachts can be designed using three surface or less for the hull. Maxsurf does contain upright hydrostatics, however for large angle stability you need Hydromax.

Keep in mind we are a commercial organisation that is willing to make some concessions for academic users. These concessions include a free 3 surface version, an Academic web site with lots of useful stuff, a dramatically discounted classroom licence, and a 50% discount on all other software. We feel these offers are extremely generous considering the normal market rate for this software.

We are happy to discuss these options, or negotiate a price for a system for a specific research project, however we remain a commercial organisation whose goal is to provide software for the ship building industry worldwide on a viable commercial basis.

Please don't expect us to do everything for free.

[josch]

It doesn´t have to be discussed or it is not the expectation of any student as I suppose, to get anything for free
and It is not my wish to get Maxsurf for free, everything has its price.
It is heatedly argued, that it´s the universities and schools responsibility to allocate licenses for the tools which are used at the ship building market..... not the responsibility of the industry

But that is not the reality, I know many students who would like to learn how to use and work with common software, may be out of personal interests, personal training, to have better chances at applications, or as it is in my case to find software to take part at a yacht design competition.

It is the goal of studiing to make yourself the best education possible.
But for sure education is often a question of money.

My thread was just a question not a critical or demanding one


Anyway educational licenses e.g. for widely spreaded Nurbs modellers or FEA softwares, to mention just a few are available for viable prices.

In my opinion that is a good solution for both sides of the party, because students have the ability to learn and improve knowledge on the field of CAD and CAM without doing something illegal, and software providers, get money and bring up a big amount of well trained and conditioneds users of their software. And the future engineers are tho ones who order new software.

I have heard Maxsurf with hydromax and span is round 4000$ for students that is just contingently viable in my case

It is not a secret that copies of nearly every software, yours too, are available, but I on myself prefer using legal 1st hand licenses.

[julian]

Maso, the years go on but the ideas keep spurting out! Best of luck, but I don't think you will need it!

[Andrew Mason]

Hi Julian

Long time no see, how are you? I was looking for your contact details a while ago but couldn't find them, drop me an email at andym at formsys dot com.

cheers

Andrew

[BillB]

Originally Posted by Andrew Mason

Just Maxsurf, 3 surfaces only.

On the contrary, most sailing yachts can be designed using three surface or less for the hull. Maxsurf does contain upright hydrostatics, however for large angle stability you need Hydromax.

Keep in mind we are a commercial organisation that is willing to make some concessions for academic users. These concessions include a free 3 surface version, an Academic web site with lots of useful stuff, a dramatically discounted classroom licence, and a 50% discount on all other software. We feel these offers are extremely generous considering the normal market rate for this software.

We are happy to discuss these options, or negotiate a price for a system for a specific research project, however we remain a commercial organisation whose goal is to provide software for the ship building industry worldwide on a viable commercial basis.

Please don't expect us to do everything for free.

What are you going to do with all that OLD SOFTWARE that's out dated by todays, standards? It sure would be nice for us poor one-off-in-the-garage bost builders to have fun with.

[Andrew Mason]

Bill

If you are specifically looking for OLD, OUTDATED SOFTWARE, we don't have any, we only stock the shiny new stuff, but I'm sure if you talk to some of the other suppliers of marine design software they will be able to help you.

Andrew

[hello]

if wo have had a line plan,
how can we input it to maxsurf in shotest time?

[BillB]

I tried to do a transparent overlay by using a layer, but MaxSur does not do this as does most graphics pgs. You can scan in your line dwg, print it to a clear film, tape the film onto your monitor, and connect the dots. Forget being accurate!!! These pgs are good for large scale ships and commercial vessels. but for small (under 50') I like using the old clay block method, taking a digital shot of the thing, and doing a Paint Shop Pro graphic image of the mess! At least I get some sort of close line dwg in the computer. Like with any line dwg in a computer, it can never be perfact simply because all electronic lines are never pure curves. Good luck!

[Andrew Mason]

Bill, obviously you didn't think to try reading the manual.

Maxsurf allows you to import most graphics formats as background images and scale them to your needs. You can then set depth in the z direction and digitize the lines plan onscreen to give a 3D set of data points (see pic)

File menu -> Import -> Background Image

For tutorials on surface fitting, please see http://msacademic.formsys.com/tutorials and download "Maxsurf Tutorial 5" and "Maxsurf Example 3"

I'm full of admiration for your clay block method, it's good to see someone prepared to get their hands dirty in this day and age. Wouldn't a better procedure be to slice the clay model up, then stick the slices directly on the screen and trace around them, that way you save on the cost and innacuracy of a digital photo.

[BillB]

Hummm! That clay to monitor is a good idea, except I'd use a clear package rap and place the clay cuts on my scanner for an exact dup. HA!

No, I haven't mastered much of Maxsurf yet. It is a great pg, and BIG!

I use Paint Shop Pro 7.04 & 8.10, Photo Shop, and a few odd small pgs to do graphics, but I will get into Maxsurf deeper.

Thanks for the imput!
BillB