Rhino v. Surfaceworks/Solidworks

[Rick Loheed]

While a would agree with you in part, don't discount SolidWorks- it is very powerful. I too have a strong preference for Rhino, but most of my mechanical work I now do in SolidWorks. I have also used SolidWorks to import Rhino surfaces and solids, not just surfaces, then create my drawing layouts instead of using AutoCAD. When it's time to show it on the boat, I export it via STEP to Rhino, it is more bullet proof when dealing with the surface model of the hull and of course does those great renderings with the water plane, etc especially using Flamingo.

RE floating on their lines- Proteus Engineering has a great plug in for Rhino they call Phazer- it does a great job of hydrostatics. Not all that expensive either. They also have a generalized Marine design package for Rhino.

[MikeJohns]

Rick

Yes Solidworks is a powerful program and it is excellent for machine design.

Phaser has become Rhino-Marine, it is a good hydrostatics addin with a nice output and free to trim stability curves.

[Raggi_Thor]

I think RhinoMarine is great, also because it gives you the lines you want. allways updated.

[Wellydeckhand]

Hi experts,

My shipyard goin to invest a design combo with price ranging from US$ 5,000- US$ 15,000. We are designing ship and boat ( pure working and crew boat )...... no fancy sail design yet.

The design program that would drive CNC for profiling of steel and aluminium.
I not quite sure if this is nessecery because I am not that techno incline in this field yet.

We would be employing an expat to do the design work but would consider what software first to better understand it.

Thanks

[Raggi_Thor]

Rhino is easy to use if you know a little AutoCAD.
If you allready have AutoCAD, maybe ShipConstructor is a good add on for steel detailing.
I think it is important that you find software that you like to work with and suppliers that can support you. There are many solutions that may have the capabilities you need but are hard to use.

[Andrew Mason]

Originally Posted by Wellydeckhand

Hi experts,

My shipyard goin to invest a design combo with price ranging from US$ 5,000- US$ 15,000. We are designing ship and boat ( pure working and crew boat )...... no fancy sail design yet.

The design program that would drive CNC for profiling of steel and aluminium.
I not quite sure if this is nessecery because I am not that techno incline in this field yet.

We would be employing an expat to do the design work but would consider what software first to better understand it.

Thanks

Wellydeckhand

contact me directly and I can give you some details on the Maxsurf/ShipConstructor combination.

AndyM@formsys.com

[Rick Loheed]

SolidWorks has an import add-in that opens Rhino files directly, for the most part. It has been improving.

I saw yesterday a plug-in for Rhino that is supposed to open SolidWorks files directly too, haven't tried it yet but will.

Incidentally, STEP has worked the best (keeping the solids intact even, plus exporting assemblies), from SolidWorks to Rhino. IGES is a 'verbose' standard (makes big files) and seems to deal with surface definitions, not solids. (You have to re-join them frequently)

I have also been impressed with Alibre and have their basic design package (that came with Algor), but we settled on SolidWorks due to the wide acceptance of it despite the price difference.

My opinion is that no matter what design program I use, I will always have and recommend Rhino as a companion. Despite others assertions that all the CAD programs import/export all the important formats, Rhino still has the widest range of capability I have ever seen in my 20+ years experience in design.

Due to seeing it referenced on this site, yesterday I downloaded Free!Ship. I was very impressed- as an initial design tool, particularly for free, it is quite good, particularly for sailboats but it is very flexible! Also, I write code in Delphi and it is open source written in Delphi!!! I downloaded the source code. Wow! I also downloaded Michlet.

So far playing around I have written a macro to export section lines from Rhino to Free!Ship for testing and so I can potentially export to Michlet. I will report back on the results, it was successful but needs more 'tweaking'.

[Raggi_Thor]

As an alternative to SolidWorks, take a look at Alibre Design, it opens Rhino files directly (and STEP). www.alibre.com

[pacoblasco]

I have been evaluating SolidWorks and it is very good for mechanical design.

But I am making the whole boat with it and it seems to have lot advantages respect Rhino. I have tried some ways to do it an I am not so sure if I am in the right way.

Does anybody can give me an idea about how to structure the design, i.e., the hull, bulkheads, beams and deck all in one part (or body), or should they be separate bodies and be joined in an assembly?

[Raggi_Thor]

If money matter, you can buy Rhino + RhinoMarine + Alibre Design + BricsCad (AutoCAD "clone") for less moneu than one SolidWorks.

You can make the hull in Rhino and then the other parts as separate files in SolidWorks or Alibre. For smaller boats its probably faster to do everything in Rhino, but it can be a very large file with many details.

[pacoblasco]

Originally Posted by Raggi_Thor

If money matter, you can buy Rhino + RhinoMarine + Alibre Design + BricsCad (AutoCAD "clone") for less moneu than one SolidWorks.

You can make the hull in Rhino and then the other parts as separate files in SolidWorks or Alibre. For smaller boats its probably faster to do everything in Rhino, but it can be a very large file with many details.

Ok, Raggi_Thor, thank you

[Raggi_Thor]

Just have to tell :-)
My neighbours here modeleed a new 30 feet fishing boat in one Rhino file. It was 100 Mb with all details needed to build it.
http://www.kystfiske.no/nyheter/utnyttelse01.html
http://www.kystfiske.no/nyheter/selfa-speedsjark01.html

Another company nearby made a model of a 200m (600 feet) ship with som simplifications. That was 30 Mb.
http://193.41.96.195/Custom/template...____29000.aspx
http://www.wartsila.com/en,service,0...45269680,,.htm

[SeaSpark]

Does anybody can give me an idea about how to structure the design, i.e., the hull, bulkheads, beams and deck all in one part (or body), or should they be separate bodies and be joined in an assembly?

I would make a seperate part for each steel element you are going to use, this may seem excessive use of parts but it is the way solidworks expects you to build your model. The model will be more manageble and creating (and updating!) a bill of materials when ready is easy. In general you should use Solidworks the way it was designed to do, their working metheods are VERY well thought about.

I have been working with Solidworks and Rhino professionally and find it hard to compare the two. The price difference is evidence of this.

Solidworks was developed to be a complete and parametric solution for mechanical design and i think they succeeded very well. A package like this will never be easy to use but the Solidworks aproach is a good one. Rhino was developed as a curved surface editor. They aso did a fine job especially when you concider the price. Unfortuanately a have not tried the latest version of Surfaceworks yet.

In general, a boat designer will always have to work with different software tools to get his job done. So many aspects of engineering are involved with boat design that i think there will never be one package that does it all.

[pacoblasco]

Originally Posted by SeaSpark

I would make a seperate part for each steel element you are going to use, this may seem excessive use of parts but it is the way solidworks expects you to build your model. The model will be more manageble and creating (and updating!) a bill of materials when ready is easy. In general you should use Solidworks the way it was designed to do, their working metheods are VERY well thought about.

I have been working with Solidworks and Rhino professionally and find it hard to compare the two. The price difference is evidence of this.

Solidworks was developed to be a complete and parametric solution for mechanical design and i think they succeeded very well. A package like this will never be easy to use but the Solidworks aproach is a good one. Rhino was developed as a curved surface editor. They aso did a fine job especially when you concider the price. Unfortuanately a have not tried the latest version of Surfaceworks yet.

In general, a boat designer will always have to work with different software tools to get his job done. So many aspects of engineering are involved with boat design that i think there will never be one package that does it all.

Thank you, Sea Spark. I have been working with Rhino, but I need a parametric design. SW can change the position of a bulkhead or the height of a door just changing the distance instead of repeating the whole operation.

I changed the way of working with SW as you told me and it seem it work quite good.

Do you have a model that you can send me, just to see the way you structure the model? I do not want to copy your boat nor your design. I do not mind if it is an old boat or some boat not built, I want it just to see the way you work with SolidWorks in a boat.

Thanks

[SeaSpark]

I do not have a Solidworks model of a boat for you.

Worked with Solidworks for a mechanical engineering company up until two years ago. We engineered things like soap dispencers and an electric vehicle for parcel delivery, no boats. Stupidly did not take some of the models i made there with me. At the moment i am using Freeship and Rhino to make boat models.

Cannot afford Solidworks but would realy like to try the current version of Solid/Surfaceworks.

Best of luck with your project.