What software do professionals use?

I am working on a ship hull suvery/inspection program that requires an image of the ship being surveyed to be displayed on the screen. I am trying to gather information on the most common ways ship designs are creating and storing ship plans.

I have read through the other messages in this forum and I am wondering which software package large shipyards/ designers most commonly use? (Designers of Navy, Cruise and Tankers, etc...)



Thank you in advance for your help.


Gregory Kaufman

[Stephen Ditmore]

I'd guess the market leaders are AutoShip and FastShip, with MaxSurf and MultiSurf also having significant followings. Links to all these are available at http://www.boatdesign.net/software/index.htm

There are also some European companies now offering big expensive suites for shipyards.

For links to file translation software see my posting of 12-07-2001 at Transform 2D plan into 3D object

[Stephen Ditmore]

re: 'There are also some European companies now offering big expensive suites for shipyards.'

http://www.cadmatic.com/ship.htm
http://www.defcar.es/

There's also a big Swedish one the name of which isn't coming to me at the moment.

I think it must be Tribon - http://www.tribon.com ?

[Steve Hollister]

" ... a ship hull suvery/inspection program that requires an image of the ship being surveyed to be displayed on the screen. "

... A lot depends on what you want to display and how accurately you wish to display it. Do you want just a 2D profile view of the vessel or do you need the plan and section views? Do you want to show the compartments and tanks? Or do you want to have the full 3D hull definition. Most all boat/ship hull design and fairing programs (like ProSurf, MultiSurf, FastShip, MaxSurf, etc.) can output a variety of 2D or 3D geometry information to standard geometry transfer files, like IGES and DXF. However, if you wish to show the hull shape and the compartment geometry, then you need to look at some marine-specific geometry transfer file formats, like SHCP (US Navy's Ships' Hull Characteristics Program)and GHS (Creative System's General HydroStatics). These formats define both the 3D sections of the ship, plus the 3D sections of each tank and compartment. Remember, the hull fairing programs use things like NURB surfaces to define the exact shape of the hull. For calculation of things like hydrostatics and stability, the other "station and compartment" definitions (GHS, SHCP, etc.) are not as exact, but are much easier to create or use in other programs.

I really dont think you want to get into trying to read trimmed NURB surfaces form an IGES file. (I don't think anyone in their right mind wants to do that!)

Generally, if you want simple 2D profile, plan, and section views of a vessel, then all you have to do is to write some routines to read a DXF file for polylines. If you really want to display the compartments and tanks along with the profile, etc., then the best bet is to try reading the GHS ".gf" file format. This would be more difficult than reading a DXF file. For GHS, there are two parts; first is a definition defining the hull sections, and the next are the definitions defining the compartments. Reading the compartment and tank geometries is a bit more difficult than reading the hull definition. I know, since I wrote routines to read GHS hull and compartment definitions. The other nice thing about this definition is that it is the exact same definition that is used by AutoShip's AutoHydro program. That is because AutoHydro is a direct derivative of GHS. We have our own station and compartment definition format but I wanted to be able to read and translate other formats. We use this format for our on-board stability and strength program. It shows the hull in the three views and shows the different levels of fluid and cargo in each of the compartments and tanks.

... Perhaps, if you give me a little bit more information about what geometry you want to display on the screen, I can be more specific about the easiest way to get the geometry.

Steve Hollister
New Wave Systems

[Brian]

Originally posted by Guest
I am working on a ship hull suvery/inspection program that requires an image of the ship being surveyed to be displayed on the screen. I am trying to gather information on the most common ways ship designs are creating and storing ship plans.

I have read through the other messages in this forum and I am wondering which software package large shipyards/ designers most commonly use? (Designers of Navy, Cruise and Tankers, etc...)

I use Hullform 8. First the hull is designed, then I go to the 3D view mode and do a [alt][PrnScrn] and paste it into a word procesing program which contains the report I am making on the vessel. But this program and the other hull programs can output screen shots as a file and then the file can be insterted into your survey reports. The hard part is defining the hull shape in the hull program. Outputting into reports is easy.
For surveys taking a digital picture would be the easiest way in my opinion. I would not bother making a hull model in a hull modeling program unless I need the hull model for hydrostatics, structures or powering analysis.

I have used ShipConstructor / SHipCAM at three different shipyards so far.

[EmilSB]

I use Tribon. It is a complet software for design, construction and planning ships. This software have all moduls which you need and which you don't need.

[Milko Minchev]

Originally Posted by EmilSB

I use Tribon. It is a complet software for design, construction and planning ships. This software have all moduls which you need and which you don't need.

Some additional resources useful for Tribon users can be found at http://www.mbmproject.com Specialized software for Tribon data extraction, data base management and Tribon software tips and tricks.

[Toro]

Does any one have the Tribon Cd? please let me know if any one can send me a copy in

ar_giahi@hotmail.com i think all of us need a personal copy for ourselves ;-)

HELLO TO ALL PROFESSIONAL NAVAL ARCHITECTS!!

I HAVE SEEN PEOPLE IN THIS FORUM MENTIONING MAXSURF, FASTSHIP, SHIP CONSTRUCTOR; SO I WANT TO TELL THEM THAT THESE SOFTWARE ARE SPECIFIC FOR ONE STEP OF THE PROCESS AND DO NOT COVER ALL THE DESIGN PROCESS. SHIP CONSTRUCTOR TRIES TO IMITATE THE BEST SOFTWARE EVER DEVELOPED FOR THE COMPLETE SHIP DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION PROCESS WHICH IS TRIBON, DEVELOPED IN THE '60S. SHIP CONSTRUCTURE IS DEVELOPED USING AUTODESK LANGUAGE AUTOLISP, THIS IS NOT GOOD BECAUSE IT IS NOT CONCURRENT AND ASSOCIATIVE, BUT I WANT TO CONGRATULATE ALBACORE RESEARCH FOR HOW THE MARKET THE SOFTWARE ALTHOUGH ALL THEY TRY TO SELL IT IS NOT TRUE. I WANT TO INVITE ALL THE PROFESSIONAL NAVAL ARCHITECTS THAT IF THEY EVER WANT TO GET INVOLVED INTO REAL COMPLETE SHIP DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION PROCESS, YOU MUST GET INTO TRIBON THE LEADING SOFTWARE FOR THIS PROCESS. INVITE YOU TO VISIT THE WEB PAGE WWW.TRIBON.COM
GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL AND HAVE A VENTORUOUS CAREER!!!!

[quote]As a Senior Marine Designer with 14 years of experience, I've traveled from New Orleans to Maine, where I reside now. I've worked designs for ships including a 33' Navy Fast Seal deployment boat, 52' tugs, 157' off shore supply vessels, 152' yaht, 560' Navy Destroyers and 1170' cruise liners for Walt Disney. From my experience with multible ship yards, and multible contracts the most commonly used software seams to be AutoCAD 2D and 3D, and platforms that are compatable with AutoCAD.

[PNACS]

As you are a surveyor, it is not feasible for you to model entire hull and tanks to report your findings for each spaces, unless the vessel Owner can provide you model file (like .GF file for auto hydro & GHS). But it is not worth buying such softwares for your kind of job (surveying), unless u dont do any stability analysis.

Some of the vessel Owners have started implementing sofware developed by "American bureau of shipping" called "Safe Net - hull maitenance module". Entire vessel structure call be modelled in it, Ultrasonic thickness gauging / damages / repairs etc can be recorded.

Still, implemetation of above software is expensive, will cost average $60,000 per vessel!!.

Be satisfied with 2D GA & Tank Plan of the vessel.

[PNACS]

If you can get model of the vessel in .gf format (model file for autohydro and GHS stability softwares), you can use a free software called "deadweight" to read the model file and display 3d model with tanks.

visit following link.

http://www.ghsport.com/COMPAN.HTM or http://www.deadweight.com/

ShipConstructor is written in C++. It does not contain a single line of AutoLISP.
http://www.shipconstructor.com