Which's Best Program for Us?

We want to design medium fishboat, yacht etc. by some ship design program.
But we can't decide which would be better.
We consider 3 programs-Maxsurf, Multisurf, Autoship.
Wo'd like to solve the problems of ship stability, speed and also hull design. And the cost of the program is significant.
Which program would be the best?
We wish your good replies.
Thank you for reading.

[Stephen Ditmore]

As I look at my budget I consider all three of those programs pretty expensive. I think Steve Hollister's ProSurf should be a candidate, and I'd also point out that Baseline Technologies
http://www.basline.com/
is now supporting Rhino, which has gained considerable popularity among yacht designers.

MaxSurf is very popular among Mac users, who seem to like it.

I'm most familliar with MultiSurf, though I haven't used the latest versions. It's very capable, but heady rather than intuitive, and unless this has changed recently it doesn't provide enough file format/translation flexibility to facilitate working back and forth among several 3D programs. (It will output a 2D file to CAD without any problem).

[Stephen Ditmore]

Actually, the gold standard for what you're talking about is FlagShip from Proteus Engineering, which includes software from all the companies at
http://www.hydrocompinc.com/imsa.htm
The question is, can you afford it.

You might also want to speak with Dick Akers at
http://www.shipmotion.com/
and Rob Schofield (I don't have his current web address, and I may have spelled his name wrong, but he's a frequent presenter at IBEX) about analysis software before deciding on a lines fairing program.

Also, there's a guy named Sintes in New Orleans I read about recently who has a pretty nice system worked out for outputting patters for C-Flex construction, for whatever that's worth.

[Jeff]

Of the three you mention, I would personally select either Autoship or Maxsurf.

I don't have any experience using Multisurf, because while I'm impressed by what it can do, I just couldn't get comfortable using it... it's not nearly as intuitive as the others. I probably didn't give it a fair chance.

As Stephen said, if you haven’t at least downloaded the demo for ProSurf, you should give it a try. ProSurf is not as “slick” in terms of the user interface, but it is very powerful and very intuitive, and I have a lot of confidence in person behind this program (Take a look at some of the posts by Steve Hollister on these forums). Prosurf is actually very easy to use, yet at the same time is quite flexible. And a very nice feature is that the control points are on the surface you are working on which I believe is a major benefit.

I personally would download a demo for every one of the programs on this list before making a decision: http://boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=82

But my short list would include Autoship, Maxsurf, and ProSurf.

[burakreis]

between the stuff you asked about (Maxsurf, Multisurf, Autoship) multisurf is far best for the modeling point of view. even the limited capability and cheaper version multisurfLT can easily beat the other two because of it's different geometry kernel .

on the other hand maxsurf and autoship gives very good modules which can do the full design process very easy and fast. these both software are also easier to learn than multisurf.
there are also some modules (stability, vpp, plate expansion)for multisurf but i dont have any experience with them so no idea.

as a last word don not under estimate rhinoceros, it is very flexible and capable also relatively cheap and very popular among the marine people in these days...

[Brian]

For one boat I would use either the free or shareware version of Hullform. You can free version at www.hullform.com.

ProSurf would also be a good choice. Easier to use than Hullform but it is not free. The pay versions of Hullform are also very reasonably priced and easier to use that the free version.

Rhino also sounds pretty cool.

I would not buy the expensive programs you mentioned for just one boat. In some cases it may be less expensive for you to hire a designer who had rights to these programs and have them design the boat for you.