Automated Initial Ship Design - pipeline: Excel, AutoCad, Rhinoceros, Maxsurf...

Guys I am, trying to make workflow between different software's with encompassing the simplified design process of ship/boat... mainly for my personal educational purposes.. If somebody wants to join is always welcome critiques also .


Basic workflow:

Initial Design:
Calculations done on Excel - so they can be understandable and changeable,
2D Drawings done on AutoCad - to learn how to draw technically as well as relation between softwares.
3D model done on Rhinoceros - using AutoCad 2d Drawings with exact dimensions


Plugins used:
Maxwell render, Vray or Mental ray - for visualization purposes
Molding, Nesting and technical drawings, detailed documentation - Change of Ship Constructorstill needed

Engineering:
Expert - specialized software for gathering initial information for optimal project using classification society for the particular ship
Internet sources - for gathering information of similar ships
Maxsurf - Intact, Damage stability, Resistance / Speed. And other FormSys products http://www.formsys.com/maxsurf/products
LBR5 - Scantling optimization
StarCCM+, Ansys - Analyses
ModeFrontier - Optimization and adjusting Rhinoceros drawing - Connection still needed


Projects for reference:
Automated Container ship designed for my Bachelor's degree with already made connection between AutoCad and Excel:
http://www.2shared.com/photo/ERIslhsY/svet8.html
Sorry but there is a limit to upload, and also for Bulgarian language - but I think engineers will understand
http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showt...ne-intersection-s-of-2-curves-and-dist-t-line. Thanks to LeeMac for solving my problems with Lisp..
And Yacht project for my first semester that we designed for Masters, which wasn't accepted.



We will start with the Cruising yacht

Description
Design of a pleasure craft, respecting the French rules (Division 240 to 244).
The boat is a motor yacht for small series production, of a length between 70 and 90’.

It must have all the conveniences of the yacht of such sizes. It must contains 3 to 4 cabins, one of which is for the owner (depending of the version), 1 cabin for the crew, living rooms (inside and outside, technical room, the place to store a rib boat and access to the sea.

The ship should have 2 helms (inside and outside), with a flying bridge or something else.
The ship should reach 20 kts with 80% of its power and its operating range of 500 NM.
The fresh water capacity should not be less than 1500 l if there is no desalinisation plant.

Rules to respect : French Division and BV rules (or equivalent).

Document to provide:
- Explanation about the general arrangement and justification of the architectural concept
- General arrangement
- Deck plan
- Scantling
- Structure drawing and midship section
- Engine structure
- Rudder dimensioning and drawing
- Weight estimate
- Lines plan
- Stability calculation
- Resistance and speed prediction
- Electrical analysis


GOAL: Optimized 3d Model, with report of documentation, and excel calculations

FUTURE GOALS
This need to be completed for.. to have the pipline developed and to
Passing to more complicated task:
Amphibious boat - car, boat and maybe airplane in one we will see...
Idea which started with this presentation
http://www.slideshare.net/neykov/present-killerwhalever1


Detailed design - further development....

Cheers!

 

Sinmania Hello, I think it's great what you're trying to do. I have not read in detail all the ideas you exhibit, because they are many and need to be devoted enough attention.
I have seen, only the AutoCAD drawing with shapes and other details of the container.

Again, I just have done that, but, if I may, I'd like to make some quick tips:

• Never you could make correct calculations with Excel.
• The splines, with which you drew your boat forms are very treacherous (see attached picture):
  • they have packages that are not eligible when you are projecting a real ship
  • It will not allow you in an easy way make the forms of a ship with knucles.
  • Curves ofr several transversal frames in your drawing must be tangent to the bottom, and they are not.
• Therefore I recommend you to start doing correctly the first steps, as the work you propose is huge and if you do not start well, your work will be even more complicated.

I think you've done wonderful things to perform your container project. A real boat needs much more precision than you could get from the tools you used.
It is the view that I have taken after a very fast read of your thread. `Maybe later in more detail I could expose the drawbacks I see on methodology you want to apply.
With all due respect, and would love to be wrong, not to discourage you
Ignacio

 

Dear Ignacio,
Thank you for the quick response.
I completely agree with the remarks and I will try to fix them for next time.

Please note that with the container ship the goal was the points to be on exact spot that excel calculated, and the spline can be smoothed "refined" further, but this is all computer calculated and generated I didn't draw it maybe I have wrong calculations somewhere in excel sheet.
Still the point was to make automated curve in Autocad from excel calculation, which worked, and it is nice and smooth (See the Attachment)

The problem about the lines I think is coming from my knowledge about ship design or from Autocad Spline - function (which I think it is good enough ) not from Excel precision.

About Excel precision this is for educational purposes. I will start like this if it is not working well I will try to do it on program language like Python, but I like the easy usability of excel because anybody can trace the formulas and learn.
I also made an interpolation method to find in between points which can give you the precision you need how much points you need is how much excel rows has so this was just test that you saw with few points.

For the going out lines on the board - it is wrong calculation.
For this last points on the waterline 0 my teacher told me that they end it just smoothly without way of calculating I will appreciate better knowledge if someone has how to end the Waterline 0 lines. Because now I do it by hand and eye which is not good for - automated method. (eyefix.jpg) All my calculation end at the edges. (maybe is designers job)

About the knucles maybe I need to find a way in Autocad for smoothening the curves with keeping the same calculated area and fixed points.

For the exchange between Acad and Excel LeeMac made me script so I can find coordinates X and Y of point intersection of strait line (abscise) and curve (this is useful for gathering coordinates of the limiting sections).
So now I have connection Autocad - Excel, Excel - Autocad - more or less automatic, maybe semi - automatic, because you use copy and paste

"they have packages that are not eligible when you are projecting a real ship." This I didn't understand? Please explain.

About the 3d model I think that T-splines for Rhino has the ability of creases of smooth surface.

Still when I find some free time I will post.

Greetings!

 

In order not to bore too much to other readers, I thought it best to put my response in the attached file. These are my opinions, they do not have to be the absolute truth.
I hope I have answered some of your questions. In any case, I'll be happy to continue this discussion that talks about some interesting issues. from my point of view.

 

Rhinocerous

Ok little refresh:
I started to learn rhinocerous via this tutorials:

http://progettazionenautica.blogspot.com/p/video-lezioni.html

Everything worked great until some misconseptions, which I solved by this ways:
In LEZIONE 11 - Riprodurre un piano di forma, parte 2 around 9:55 min problem with not crossing curves, and forma need to metain the excatness of the drawing as well as the continuation of the plan curve.


Problem with snaping last point to other curve by moving in one section plane.. ZY for example. To mentain the sections. So I put a plane surface, and used Intersect command to get a point, then I snaped to it for the last.





After tutorial I offseted the surface inside using command Offset Surface with flipped direction on inside to mentain the full characteristics. And this simulate the thickness of the boat shell. I put then Edge surface to connect the tu peaces using Edge curves comand.
About the edge



The problem with this was crossecting surfaces which i trimmed making small line in top ortographic view and then using command trim removed the extending of the 2 inner surfaces and the 2 edge ones to mentain nice edge.







And here is final shape



Greatings soon expect more.

 

https://anna.nscad.ns.ca/help/pdfs/rhino_marine.pdf - very good guide step by step - for Rhino and making hulls...

 

thank you so much!!
any more tutorials about the subject please do share.. thanks

 

I will, first you need to finish level 1, 2 of Rhino(
http://www.rhino3d.com/download/rhino/5.0/Rhino5Level1Training
http://www.rhino3d.com/download/rhino/5.0/Rhino5Level2Training

http://www.rhino3d.com/download/rhino/5.0/)
... It assumes you know them... They are step by step tutorials.. By the way the previous tutorial, is made for learning Rhino, not naval arhitecture, but you can use it for the beggining... Then you will need a book for example: http://www.boatdesign.net/Directory/Technical_Resources/Books_-_Boat_Design/
http://www.boatdesign.net/Directory/Technical_Resources/Books_-_Boatbuilding/
http://progettazionenautica.blogspot.com/p/tecnica.html

You can also explore forms with softwares like free:
http://www.hydronship.net/programs.htm
and not free:
http://www.formsys.com/maxsurf

Then try to make something similar in Rhino...

And you can use Orca 3d
http://www.orca3d.com/Orca3dJ/ to investigate the form you made..
Or even CFD software, making optimisation of certain shapes.

You can post your progress here, I will try to help you as much as I can... I am also learning the stuff.

 

Sinmania, you've provided so valuable information for me to start, thank you so much for your time I am not very new to Rhino nor 3D modeling, i know the basics, but am way much better in 3ds max and v-ray in object modeling, architecture, interior and exterior renders.. However i will use rhino for boat related concepts, may be 3ds max/v-ray will be the renderer platform. What i am trying to catch is especially understanding and studying the shape of "hull" in general, learn it well and then modeling with references or imaginary. All i am into boat design is my "admiration" about them, what excites me about the subject is that i've seen in rhino that a hull can easily be created with helps of a few splines or t-splines. I know its not that easy to complete a whole project in this way with a few splines, but at least its a reachable start for hobby modeling and learning. Thank you again for valuable information and looking forward for any shares.

 

For such curved shapes you need Nurbs based program (Rhino, Alias Studio tools, Autodesk Automotive) not poligonal Box like modelling such as 3ds Max or Maya... They are not build for this type of engineering design work..

PowerNurbs for max or Maya Nurbs modeling is a cheatable way...

For cars also is the same not only for boats but this is other subject.. that a lot of people do in poly because they think is easier....but such nice sharp edges only Rhino can do - go from where the soft starts, Rhino is soft for Nurbs modelling from begining so you know is best there

So now the way is this: learn Rhino, if you want Class A surfaces go for Studio Tools, Catia etc.. you need to be master in Rhino if u want the same..

About T-splines is something like subdivision modeling for nurbs but first start with loft, Sweep 2 rails, extend curve etc... http://popoff.deviantart.com/art/turboHybrid-02-02-120331778 this is done without T-splines and you can see you don't need to complicate your life with a lot of buttons but just what you want to use..

There is Vray plugin for Rhino, no need to export in big and slow Max..

For review if you want Visualization use Max, if you want nice surface shape ready for production, with exact dimensions and more nice Visualization use Rhino and then put to max if u know the soft good but i bet u can do the same only in Rhino, because 3dmax has bad habbit of tesselating everything...

 

Interesting and good luck to you, although if you ever get the chance to use Catia you will find the system does it all for you, kinda takes away a lot of the old lofting skills of course but such is progress although still to see a system that can develop and expand shell plates (all of them that is) to the old time standards perfected over some 150 years of iron and steel ship/boatbuilding.
Seems like a heck of a lot of work for what you are trying to achieve and as I say well done and good luck to you.

 

Rhino linesplan update:

 

Guys I have problem: I need to draw hydrostatic curves on Autocad one y axis and multiple x axies on same graph but they are with different scales. I have drown them 1:1 but they stretch too much in x.. So my problem is how to scale them only by x axis, mentainng relationship of the axis, or how to make new axies for each one curve that looks good and measures exact, what is the exact procedure. Because I've lost in aritmetics.. Two variants: 1 I am scaling nonproportionaly with block command, but how to figure out good numbers on the x scale axis like 15, 20 rounded by 5, other is just to try to make new axis but how to do it. For now I get the biggest value, and the smallest in my table then? The difference I divide by the number of 5 because I want nice numbers or what and then I have the number for offset the marings of x lines? And if it is true for the axies, how to find my scale to compare how much I scale down my block from 1:1 draft like if my scalex is 0.1 so i have 1:10 so if is in mm this means i have 1 mm equals 10 of my other unit for example? Does somebody knows the procedure for drawing axies and then for finding scales on this axes? I will be very gratefull.. How to make multiple scales in x graph in Acad no in Excel..

 

maybe the attachment will help solve your problem

 

It's too bad you've already drawn your curves.

Just like drawing on paper, you have to plan ahead even with CAD. Most hydrostatic drawings uses different scales for different quantities: the displacement will have one scale, VCB another, and so on.