share plans- which is the best software??

i have been trying to design with autocad for 5 yrs and its very difficult - i now know more since reading this forum

i have just downloaded free!ship (this morning) - i have been working on cat designs (yacht)- for some time with autocad

does anyone know
1- how to import autocad into Free!ship ( or any ohter free packages)

does anyone have plans they can share so i can learn the way around freeship quicker? (or any free software) ( is it easy to modify a carcass design into what i have designed)?

there has been a lot of talk about which is the best software to get on - but all the discussion has just caused confusion on the various merits - can a vote be on "which is best" and what one will be most accepted so that i can get work on the most popular one once i have learnt it?

can averyone vote on the ultimate softare - Now that everone has had a chance to read everone else's comments.

i iknow this will be hard but can a final pole be posted ( post discussion) and without further discussion- and let the unanimous voted win ( based on all previous discussion- no more comment allowed).

i just want to know which one to invest time in

regards
skegarus@netscape.net

 

Maxsurf, Freeship, ShipConstructor, Autocad, Solidworks, Sea-Power, Hyss.xls, Rhino3D and you are ready to go

 

If you are not concerned about compatability with others, then TouchCAD and Vectorworks on Mac OS will provide all the modeling/drawing/rendering power with the easiest, simplest interface.

Or you can be like the the others and use Autocad and Rhino.

Equally difficult in the design process is finding information on the theory of cat hull shapes.

 

I disagree. With TouchCAD and VectorWorks actually have excellent compatibility with others. Mac or Windows does not matter at all.

 

Plans of all sorts of ships are available from the Freeship website. Start with one close to your design (canoe?), remodel and export via DXF to Autocad. If you want to spend money you can buy something more fancy like Autoship or MaxSurf but the advantage over Freeship may be small.

Finnish the design in Autocad. If you already have experience in Autocad it is best to stick with it as it is widely accepted all around the world.

 

Only meant that, Vectorworks doesn't use the same file format as Autocad. So files will have to be exported or imported by Vectorworks to Autocad. Sometimes .dxf files don't open up or are unreadable in Vectorworks. (I have an older copy) Or maybe it is a cross-platform problem.

The exchange of files between TouchCad and VectorWorks has been flawless for me.

From the posts, it seems that the real toss up at present is in the hull modeling software. FreeShip shows promiss for the free type. It is not complete as yet. TouchCad is stable and complete. It has a logical cleaner way of controling surfaces also.

I have several years of Cad experience, but, sometimes get frustrated at the dominance of AutoCad experience recruited for many job offerings.

 

The current VectorWorks (v12) reads and writes DXF/DWG up to version 2006, including NURBS surfaces and solids. They are members of the OpenDWG organization, which also applies to most other major non-AutoCAD software developers. It also reads and writes IGES (both surfaces and solids), STL, SAT and 3DS files. Other supported formats include most commonly used image formats, editable Adobe Illustrator files, and PDF files. The communication with other programs generally work very well, regardless of platform used (Both VectorWorks and TouchCAD are cross platform programs and work on both Mac and Windows).

Both VectorWorks and TouchCAD can generate QuickTime presentation movies.

 

There is probably my problem with VectorWorks. I am on version 8.5.1. No nurbs support and too many years out of date. Interesting enough it works with no flaws with all the versions of TouchCad I used.

skegarus,

didn't mean to deturn your thread. TouchCad has a quicktime movie explaining one way to make a hull. If I understand what your asking, it would probably be better and quicker to redraw your hull in TouchCad. This would make the hull fair. It will also be fairly fast for you to do.

Must also state, as others have posted, TouchCad has excellent tech support!
 

 

NURBS surfaces came in VectorWorks 9 though you need at least v10 to be able to process and import TouchCAD NURBS surfaces.

You can of course import a model and continue working on it in TouchCAD, but it usually takes much more longer than doing everything directly in TouchCAD. To me, it does not make any sense at all, unless you already have something that you want to refine further.

 

I used Autocad and excel as my main design software for a long time. I generated polynomials and produced fair curves which I generated and read into Autocad. Then I discovered Rhino.

Autocad is not a good surface modeller but it is good for detailing drawings, dimensioning and output, and most of us use it for this.

But when it comes to surfaces Rhino is becoming something of a standard CAD package for many Marine designers. The dedicated design packages such as Maxsurf are excellent and functional products (I beleive maxsurf has a free limited version) but I feel they are better for analysing your design than for generating it. You will probably want more design freedom and a surface modeling package such as Rhino will give you this.

There will never be One standard over the entire industry but IGES is the format often used for data exchange between packages. Freeship is limited in this regard.

 

I think Rhino is great if you have a clear picture of what hull shape you want, maybe a few sketches as well. Freeship is free and quite easy to use as an initial tool.

 

And of course BricsCAD/IntelliCAD/AutoCAD for 2D drawings, details and working drawings.

 

I cut and paste into freeship from Acad...

Here's what I do...
I create my station profiles in 3d acad along the centerline.

You need to be able to work with a 2d station cross section and the flip it into position in 3d...very easy once you have the whole 3d thing down...There are preset ucs in acad for top, front, right and left, etc. to help you flip back and forth...you can even use the preset views that set the ucs at the same time...very helpful....

I then set the ucs to the start of the centerline of the 3d model as Freeship requires...using the centerline as the X axis and the Y being the port side the model and Z being up.

Then simply list the polyline Station Section and cut and past the listing text into a txt file.

You have to find and replace the silly X= and Y= junk that acad uses to list the component...but that's easy using find and replace all with blank.

Once you have master the text file you can import as a surface into freeship.

I can create a ship in a few hours in cad and then about 30 minutes to import into Freeship... Very easy...and then you need to massage the design back and forth...you can also then export the Freeship design as a dxf surface and put her back into cad to finish the 3d model...

I hope this helps...I've only been working with freeship for a few days and I've got her mastered...I've been working with acad 3d for over 18 years...In fact I own an original DOS version 1.0 acad...