CAD Design Question - Basic

Hi all,
I tinker with wood working, boat builds, and various other construction projects. I've designed and built a couple CNC machines but my builds have always been 2D. I typically use pretty basic CAD and CAM programs to run my small CNCs.

I've built boats 'by hand' with plywood on the ground, long rulers, printed paper plans, etc. But I was wondering, for some small model boat making, what basic software would be recommended.

My desire would be to design hull shapes on the screen and simply be able to export out only the panels required to stitch the hull shape together. Even just being able to screen capture only the panels (sides, bottom, transom, deck, etc.) would be great.

I've played around just this evening with Delft Ship and Free!ship, but what I can't seem to be able to do is just have the panels shown without the station marks, waterlines, and other data. Is it possible to have only the panels shown?

Any suggestions are very appreciated.
Many thanks,
Dan

 

With freeship, yes of course: stations, waterlines etc at any intervals or spacing or nothing. I'm positive Delftship is the same.

It's very straightforward to achieve. [Section/station lines do allow one to register one panel to the next [espec complex shapes] - as you probably know but maybe a help to others].

After an evening's work, one needs a little more stangseattime - so the getting to the how by discovery [or the manual] will open up other helpful features.

 

Thanks Mick. I appreciate the reply. I do need to work with the programs a lot more. I'll start with the manual and tutorials and go from there. Might even learn something...

Thanks again,

Dan

 

Hi, there is also the Hullform program available for free (Hullform9P). It is very simple to use for most hull shapes; and it is very modest on computer power.

 

For small models, you may consider 3D printers.

 

This man, I'm afraid, need to learn to manage a CAD program. He not even knows to get a list of results on a normal printer, how will he now think of a 3D printer?

 

Remember that to build a boat from large plywood panels the hull shape needs to be "developable". To get the shape of the panels from software the developable shape needs to be accurately modeled in the software, and the software needs to accurately unroll the hull shape to create the shapes of the flat panels.