Unfolding formed boat panels to flat sheet

[Rohan_Tink]

Hello all,

I'm interested to know if anyone knows of a CAD package (hopefully not too expensive) which would allow me to model the finished boat (aluminium run-about) and then unfold into flat panels for CNC machining.

I would like a solids modeller, or something that would plug into a solids modeller to allow me to manage my bill of materials etc.

I am currently looking at Solid Works and a Rhino add-in called Expander. Is anyone using either of these, or have you investigated them in the past?

Thankyou and best regards,
Rohan

[grob]

Many high end CAD packages have sheetmetal design attachments that can do this, you could also look at Pro-Engineer and Ideas (both around £5000), although I use both of these packages I have never used them for sheetmetal work so I cannot comment on how good they are. I am sure the resellers would be only to willing to give you a demo!

[CGN]

Originally Posted by Rohan_Tink

Hello all,

I'm interested to know if anyone knows of a CAD package (hopefully not too expensive) which would allow me to model the finished boat (aluminium run-about) and then unfold into flat panels for CNC machining.

I would like a solids modeller, or something that would plug into a solids modeller to allow me to manage my bill of materials etc.

I am currently looking at Solid Works and a Rhino add-in called Expander. Is anyone using either of these, or have you investigated them in the past?

Thankyou and best regards,
Rohan

Hi, Your are correct with the software you are looking at, Expander and Rhino is a good mix, expander as you may know is coming form a very well know company that especialized in that expansion of plates and shipbuilding software, their main software is Shipcam wich is teh one that develops plates lofting and fairing and they have an add in for autocad called shipconstructor, if you feel good with the cost of this too, i recommend you to stick to them, as a additional software for solidworks or Pro E this combination will cause the least damage in your pocket, thinking that a shipbuilding suite called Naupas, shipconstructor and Autocad, and many others cost around 10 grand more or less.

so:

Prosurf+Rhino+ Expander + (Solidworks, Pro-E, Solid Edge or even IronCad)+Any 2D cAD

Solidworks + SurfaceWorks+Flatten (Plate development form Surfaceworks)

I like the first one becosue i use Prosurf for my hull design, and then send it to rhino to tweak it if i need to, and add decks and more, even renderings and so on, then i will create the surfaces for Expander and save this surfaces of the hull as rhino and open them in Solidworks, and thats all, ready to go on with the rest of the structural details.

the fisrt one seems a long shot but price is good and you get all theh right tools to go on, the diference between the firts one and the second one is that you don't have a flexible solidmodeler like rhino that can wokr with all this software and render your models, no need of flamingo, just BMRT an rhinoman works like a charm

good luck

[Rohan_Tink]

Thankyou for the suggestions, they were very helpful. I'll follow them up and let you know how I get on.

Cheers,
Rohan