SolidWorks Experience?

[Matt Ostmeyer]

I know SolidWorks 05 pretty well, and have done some other projects in it... but this will be my first boat... any advice for forming the hull??? Techniques??? Examples??? I really appreciate it, you might save me a lot of time!!!

I am not sure as to the best way to go about creating the hull shape... from there, cut extruding the interior out will be cake. I am simply doing a form study, so offsets for hull thickness are not essentially important. What is important is that I create the complex curves of the fiberglass hull accuratly. The best way I can figure to do it is setting up segmented profiles and sweeping the shape, but complex sweeps in SolidWorks are not easy in my experience, and capping the ends is a real issue.

Thanks in advance!

[Raggi_Thor]

The best advice is to import the hull as an Iges file. If you don't have the add on called "Surface Works" I think maybe the loft command in SW just isn't good enough. You can make your hull in Rhino 3D (demo version lets you save 25 times) and then import it as a feature in SW, I guess. This is the way we do it with Inventor and Alibre Design.

[Sander Rave]

Hi Matt,

I was pretty sceptical in the first place, as I started out the way you did. I followed the route you described some time ago. The result was pretty satisfying! (when you make a model the first time you always discover you have to do it over the other way around in SW ;-)

I'll try to attach an example so you can judge for yourself. This is just a test to loft a hull!!! (I feel realy ashamed if you should judge the raped design)
Nevertheless there are applications better suited to do the job. I'm just not that fast in them as I am in SW.

Contact me if you need some advise.
Good luck!

PS. it's an e-drawing, I think you know your way around with it

[Raggi_Thor]

Sander, did you get the hull shape he way you wanted in SW?

[Sander Rave]

pretty much. if you look at the file, you can see I had a hard time aft and above the rudder. I'm working on that.

The hard thing is you want as little control points/curves as possible. I think in SW the more cross sections you make, the better the result gets. This is the weak spot of SW, or it is mine ;-)

[Baldur]

VERY NICE MODEL!!!

I have created hulls in SW by offsetting a plane at each station then drawing the frame or offsets onto each plane. After that I sweep it all into a solid and then shell out to required thickness.
Another way, is to create each and every plank, board, ect. Then make an assembly. This process is very accurate and takes a long time, but makes it easy to make changes and drawing of individual parts.
I prefer to use a parasolid based modeling program like Mastercam or Unigraphics which usually are not easy available to home builders.


There of course is the option of finding "pirates" out on the open sea of the internet.

[Matt Ostmeyer]

Hey All- Thanks for the quick replys - it's great to find an active online community inline with my interests!

Sander - thanks for the example! I know it can be done now! I used Rhyno a couple years ago, but have grown accustomed to the SW interface and tools, so I'm leaning towards sticking with SW rather than re-learning Rhyno... although that might actually be what I should do... plus, I never got that advanced in Rhyno. I agree that lofts and sweeps in SW can be troublesome at times. I'm going to play with it and see what happens. I may be contacting you at that point!

Baldur - Your patience is impressive - creating each plank and board and assembling it all, WOW! I have no experience in parasolid based modeling - what is this you speak of??? Perhaps I'll have to visit the "pirates" once again... not that we have ever had relations in the past

Raggi - I'll get a hold of surface works and see what it does too.

HERE WE GO!!!

[Sander Rave]

Baldur,

I can use UG too, but in this stage of "designing" it's just too much hassle. I think by the time I'm a pro, it's time to realy learn the ins and outs.

Matt

Parasolid is the engine on which UG, SW, Solid edge and others are based on. It's prametric, that means you can change dimentions and other stuff after you draw your fantasy model bow, and it's not quite the same as in your dream ;-)

Good luck!

[Matt Ostmeyer]

Sander-
Hey, I can't thankyou enough for the help... In the model you sent me, how did you make the initial "Phil Bolger" hull shape? Did you thicken a surface, or did you loft/sweep a solid and shell it out? From your comments, I assume you used cross sections to loft it. What approach do you think will work best?

So SW and UG are just different incarnations of a parasolid engine. Cool. Thanks.

[ABoatGuy]

Matt,

UG and Solid Edge (as opposed to Solid Works) are owned by UG and use the parasolid engine which is also owned and sold by the UG people for development.

UG, although awfully expensive, has some pretty incredible surfacing tools. GM uses it for most of their body work and several major boat companies are using UG for surfacing and 3D modeling.

[Sander Rave]

Matt,

I can send you the original file, so you can figure out for your self.
Just tell me your email.

There are two ways to do it: the easy way: just trace lines and loft it, I did this with a solid and used the shell command. It's a prooven design, so no big surprises.

The 2nd is by designing your own. Then you not only have to make a cool looking hull, but als have to figure out all physics (what looks cool, isn't per definition stable and predictable) but that's the way it works ;-)

[Matt Ostmeyer]

mattostmeyer@gmail.com THANK YOU!

I will be designing my own... its a wakeboard inboard boat, based somewhat on existing running surfaces, but building into a very unique deck. Yes, physics are essential, but for this model, stability and predictability are going to be based only on rough estimates of what the hull shape needs to be. My design will be prototyped 1/5 scale on a Z-axis router. The goal is to explore and illustrate some new ideas about the human interaction with the boat, primarily on the deck, but built on a realistic and feasible hull. I've been sketching the concept for sometime now and am ready to build the model, I just need a GOOD 3-d representation of it so that the router can do the shaping, and not me! And of course, in building the model, I will solve a lot of problems that don't neccessarly come out in 2-d drawings. Sound industrial designer enough??? Its true, I am

[Sander Rave]

It's om it's way now. Have fun!