T-Splines in Yacht Design

[Grant Nelson]

Has anyone tried using T-Spline in designing a boat? Since it is relatively a free form design tool, it looks like it would be hard to work within many of the constraints of yacht designs, in particular where fit and or smooth curvature over large surfaces (ie. hull) are need and modifiying the easily is relatively easy/controlled process.

I can see it would be nice for designing topsides, but not for tuning the fairness of a hull or adding bulkheads, tanks, etc... or for rigging design..

[yipster]

have drawn similar nurbs dolphin in max, must check these T-splines better
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy-I5...eature=related

[Joe Petrich]

I'd like to try T-splines some day. I can see where it could be useful for adding fade out chines or similar features. If anyone has exprience with it I'd be interested in hearing their views as well

[yipster]

got the Latest edition www.tenlinks.com/news/tl_daily.htm
with http://blog.tsplines.com/2010/05/t-s...-released.html

saying "I believe that [T-Spline] technology is poised to
significantly influence the future of ship design tools and methodologies.”
http://www.tsplines.com/applications/marine.html


as Martijn_vE pointed out here
PowerNURBS

[Martijn_vE]

There's ssems to be a problem when exporting to other programs using NURB surfaces. For this the TSpline surface must be exploded into a number of smaller patches. Judging from the screenshot there are some obvious discontinuity issues at the corner points of some of the exported patches if these corner points are irregular.

[yipster]

sharp eye Martijn, but is it the t-spline model exploded to nurbs or a seperate nurbs drawing
T-splines sound good, dont know whats different in version 2.3 but will re-instal rhino4 and orca
check those splines, competability and and amongst other things

[msederberg]

Originally Posted by Martijn_vE

There's ssems to be a problem when exporting to other programs using NURB surfaces. For this the TSpline surface must be exploded into a number of smaller patches. Judging from the screenshot there are some obvious discontinuity issues at the corner points of some of the exported patches if these corner points are irregular.

Yes, sorry for the ambiguity. The NURBS (on the left) were the patches which were simplified and merged together to form the T-Spline surface (on the right).

Best,
Matt Sederberg
T-Splines, Inc.

[Martijn_vE]

Thanks for clearing that up Matt!

[Grant Nelson]

Matt, I would love to see a tutorial on creating and tuning a hull, both one with chines and one without. I have, with my limited knowlegde, created a hull from ORCA3D, with the goal of creating a tighter bow area. I converted to t-splines, but what ever I did had too much local impact and I always lost the fairness of my bow area.

On the other hand, removing control points to make it easier to smooth the hull, using pretty much the same techniques I use earlier - careful movement of the Nurbs control points (not the ones on the surface) might be of some value, but I have not tried it out yet. But that seems a pretty limited use for all T-splines has to offer.

Still I have this gut feeling that it must have some great potential, but I am going to need someone much more expert than I to make it clear and usable for me..

Thanks,
Grant

[Grant Nelson]

So, I guess Matt of T-Splines came, gave one post, and went.

I would really like to have seen that tutorial for uses of T-splines for yacht design, in particular hulls... if it would make shaping and fairing any hull easier, it would be an instant hit in the Yacht Design market..

[Grant Nelson]

Darn, would really like to see a tutorial on using T-splines to design a fair a hull or deck...

[bearflag]

Anyone know if there is any difference between t-splines and subdivision surfaces in almost any pro-3d application (non engineering)???

And are t-splines class-a surfaces and well defined in other programs?

I like rhino, and I used to use it, quite a bit, but its lack of parametrics and history seems limiting.

But I can usually bash stuff out in rhino way faster than Catia, Pro-E, or NX

[pavel915]

I really am interested to know about the experience of any ship designer in T-spline. I hope it can greatly be utilized in our designs, but if someone already has experienced it, then it would be a guidance for us...

[gerardpetersen]

We've been exploring T-Splines for ship hull design and posted an article with video at Rhinoceros Report

Thanks,

Gerard Petersen
ScheepsbouwKunst - RhinoCentre

[Grant Nelson]

alas, just a marketing trick to get you to sign up for a course... no price given..