Maxsurf please HELP!!

[lazeyjack]

Would really appreciate help
As a very experienced boatbuilder, with NO CAD experiencxe, I'm surely struggling, can someone give me some pointers
When I open "new design" and start by plan view, fair up the plan of sheerline and open body plan, , why is there a section of a round hull allready there?
why when I try open offsets, is there nothing there?
thanks, I would like some help away from forum, perhaps by email

[Andrew Mason]

The round section of the surface is there because you probably started by adding a surface called "default surface" which is what we use for tutorials. If you look at this surface in the perspective view before you change any control points you will see it is roughly half a cylinder.

You don't get a surface when you read in offsets, because offsets are not a surface, they are merely unconnected points in space. You need to create a surface that fits through them, either manually or using something like Prefit

Have a look st some of the tutorials on the Maxsurf Academic site as well as the manual, it is a lot of reading I know but the information is all there.

Regards

[lazeyjack]

ok, after three silid days, i have three lines drawn, sheer, plan and profile, upper chime plan and profile and lower plan and profile, sitting in space, not connected in the body plan, if I had a day job, I would not quit same
regards

[Andrew Mason]

LazeyJack

Stop using the program and do not touch it until you have read the manual fully, including tutorials.

Maxsurf is a surface modeller, not a curve modeller. If you have got disconnected lines as you say you have completely cocked up the surfaces by deleting too many control points.

Andrew

[lazeyjack]

I have read fully, but cANT DOWNLOAD the one in academic,(I got son who is at taft to register) not working, in fact I have read the bloody thing over and over, in the tute, it never says start with a box, so to start with was using default, like a round yacht, took me two days to figure that out!! allthough I can see the programme IS simple compared with Rhino, it still assumes too much
If I start a new surface , model the sheerline, what the heck are those control points doing on the bottom of the box on centre line? I never put em there
iI am only to aware that many want to fly before getting wings, but I did not, I read the manual over and over
So there
If you take a look at my builds in gallery you can see why I,m mad!! I could have lofted longhand by now
thanks for reply anyway

[Andrew Mason]

LazeyJack

You need to appreciate that a surface is not a curve. NURB surfaces are basically four sided. They don't just have one edge such as a sheerline, there is a second longitudinal edge and in your case the second edge defaulted to being on the centreline. When you add control points into one longitudinal edge they get added as a column all the way across the surface.

[lazeyjack]

thanks, you see, what we do , from olden times is start with sheer, then profile, actually , I,m not a quitter, but I think I either will do that or have to have someone talk me through it
I dont want to be a designer, just want to put my existing designs here so I can do cut files, but thats looking like down gunbarrel a 1000 miles long and there is no light there, should I be using NURBS or B SPline for chine yacht,
I used to taper battens(splines) For drawing complex U sections forwards, and now I feel like a kindergarten kiid,
Do you know of anyone on Suncoast QLD runnning MAXSURF