Yacht interior layout

Steve: How do I create an intersection curve in ProSurf? I'm sure I'm missing something simple, but I've scanned all the menus and the help file and can't find the command to actually create the intersection curve? I presume this would be the easiest way to add a transom as well for example?

Paul: I gave Biodesign a try but couldn't get the hang of it either. I also found that the hydrostatics module made it so my mouse locked up. Scott also mentioned giving it a try and having a difficult time.

It's interesting to see DesignCad 3DMax come up. Back in ~1992 I bought DesignCad, but I thought it faded away (I guess I drifted away as I learned how to do 3D in AutoCad.) I haven't heard much if anything about DesignCad until now and didn't realize they were still around - I think I'll have to take a look just to see how far they've come in the past few years.

Edit: I just found the original 3.5" floppies for the version of DesignCad I had back in 1992 (DesignCad 3-D Version 4.0), and it was not the program I was thinking of when I posted the line about ease of use (which I removed from the above). Back then the animated DesignCad presentation was amazing compared to what else was around, but once I bought the program, I found DesignCad a little too difficult to use and never quite got the hang of it - I actually found AutoCad easier to use by far! Of course, I was just starting with CAD back then. I was using TurboCad for 2d work which was the program I was thinking of when I said "it was extremelly easy to use and faster than Autocad for some things".

 

DesignCAD

If you still have your software liscence #, even from that long ago, they may give you the upgrade price. You still get the same software and manual. That's what I like about the company - they believe in providing good value to their repeat customers without a lot of B.S.

 

Jeff,

In ProSurf, to turn on the calculation and display of a Surface-Surface Intersection (SSI), you need to right click on the surface to display its attribute box and then check the "Surface Intersection" box. Do this for all of the surfaces you wish to show the SSI. Although I think that our SSI calculation routine is the fastest in the industry, it still is very computationally intensive (we dynamically update all intersection curves while dragging edit points on the surface), so you should turn on this option for only those surfaces you need.

In general, I try to avoid trimming surfaces unless that is the only way to do the job. Trimmed surfaces (for any trimmed NURB surface design program) add a lot of overhead and constraints to a design and make it more difficult to go back and modify a design. If possible, wait to do trimming until the surfaces are just the way you want them. Note that trimming surfaces (in any program) doesn't actually trim off the surface - it just does not draw the trimmed off portion. Although ProSurf has a way to temporarily turn on the edit points of the trimmed portion of a surface to edit its shape, it's best to wait to trim surfaces until the surfaces are just the way you want.

For transoms, trimming works well, but I still like to find ways to bond a surface to the hull to create the transom. That way, there is no trimming overhead and I know that the hull or transom surfaces can be updated without "exploding" or separating surfaces - they remain bonded. BTW, "bonding" is our term for attaching one surface edge to another so that there is no gap between the surfaces and both surfaces update automatically when one of the common edge points is moved. Note that some programs do not let you edit points along a common edge between two surfaces(some call this a polysurf). This would mean that you could not edit points along a chine without the two surfaces separating.

I am sorry that I am digressing. I could go on all day about these things. See the article I wrote called "The Dirty Little Secrets of Hull Design by Computer" at www.newavesys.com/articles.htm. I discuss a lot of the problems (and benefits) of NURB surfaces. NURB surfaces are the dominant mathematical approach used by software in all areas of CAD for designing smooth surfaces. Although subdivision surfaces have had some success in the animation/game market, NURB surfaces dominate the CAD & mechanical design market.

 

Thanks Steve - works like a charm now that I know where to find it.

I also appreciate your comment about bonded surfaces. I haven't had as much time as I would like to work with the demo yet, and I wasn't fully understanding the power of even the merge point to point command. I didn't realize that if I simply merged the points of the edge of the transom to the edge of the hull that the curves would stay 'bonded'... I was imagining that it would simply lock the points but that the curves would stay separate and thus unmanageable. The way it works is fantastic!

 

And thanks Stephen for the DesignCad tip, but I already know of another program that I'm going to buy first

Fernando: You "imported the hull" into what? DesignCad Max3d? Or? I take it the general deck was done in Maxsurf, just not the deck hardware, railing, mast, wheel, etc? Or was part of the deck done in the other program too?

 

Jeff: I did the hull, transom, deck and appendices with Maxsurf. Then I exported them into IGES (Nurbs) into Mechanical Desktop. Where I included all the deck fittings, mast, boom ... When using Mechanical Desktop I only worked with surfaces, because being a parametric software makes it very, very tedious (spelling?) to work with solids. I also did the renderings with Mechanical Desktop, if I wanted to get a smooth sheer line, for example, you'd have to export the model into 3D Studio. I didn't expend more time with the renderings because with my home PC would take ages.

 

What kind of surface interaction tools does Mechanical Desktop offer? At one point I really wanted to get Autosurf which I believe merged into Mechanical Desktop, but I'm not very familiar with what it offers now. For example, if you wanted to draw a few bulkheads or maybe a couple of stringers which would fit right up against the curved hull - is this a piece of cake in Mechanical Desktop? Or would you still have to generate 2d-curves at the locations in Maxsurf to then model with in Mechanical Desktop?

For interior (approximate) modeling, is there any abilty to trim solids using surfaces? (I suppose the fact that the hull would be made of multiple non-closed surfaces makes this unlikely, but it would be very neat to have... I would love to be able to take a solid, select a cutting surface or adjoining surfaces, a degree of accuracy, and a side to be removed, and have the solid sliced away.)

 

>>For example, if you wanted to draw a few bulkheads or maybe a couple of stringers which would fit right up against the curved hull - is this a piece of cake in Mechanical Desktop?

As you say, it'd be a piece of cake. The surface of the hull is made out of Nurbs, then you just draw perpendicular surfaces to the "floor" and trim them against the hull. It's a two seconds job.

>>Or would you still have to generate 2d-curves at the locations in Maxsurf to then model with in Mechanical Desktop?

Actually, you can generate an intersection line out of the hull-bulkhead if you'd want to.


About the interiors question, you can draw solids and then transform them into surfaces. But that's a waste of time, because it's a lot easier and faster to draw surfaces straight away. Even Mechanical Desktop is from Autodesk, it defers from AutoCAD. Drawing with solids is a lot easier in AutoCAD, but not so useful.

I cannot tell you about all the qualities of the acutal version of Mechanical Desktop, I think it's version 6 at the moment. I just use version 2, which brings AutoCAD 14 as well.

Do you have any other question?

 

> that's a waste of time, because it's a lot easier and faster to draw surfaces straight away

As an example I was thinking of cutting a doorway into a bulkhead. If I were using solids I would draw the profile of the doorway (a rectangle with filleted/radiused corners) extrude that, and then subtract it from the bulkhead and that would be it (presuming of course there were an easy way to trim the solid bulkhead to the surface model hull.) Using surfaces, I would have to trim the profile from the bulkhead surface, then copy/offset the bulkhead surface 1" over (to give the bulkhead thickness), and then draw the little surfaces of the door opening itself, a top, bottom, left, right, and the four curved corners. If you want interior partitions to have thickness, is there an easier way with surface modeling than drawing one surface, offsetting it the desired partition thickness, and manually drawing the "sides" of the cuts you make in the partitions?

> Do you have any other question?

But of course

What specificallly are the main 5 or 10 things that you can't do in Maxsurf that you can do in Mechanical Desktop?

 

A weekend with Prosurf3 Basic

My 2 Euros worth on software continues...

Just to say that as a complete amateur never having used any CAD or hull design package before (except a couple of hours on "hulls") and learning how to read a lines plan as I went along . I spent half of Saturday and most of Sunday playing with the Prosurf basic demo. By Sun afternoon I had the offsets in and surface points pulled off the plans (as suggested in the tutorial), by the evening I had a reasonably smooth hull - even looked good rendered - had bonded the transom in, made the sheer to knuckle line into a separate surface and developed a "plate" off it - to stick to the cardboard model.

I also had a very sore mouse finger (don't laugh- it still hurts!)

Obviously from the above it's intuitive, well documented and easy to use (Prosurf3 not my finger). I was suprised however at just the single tool bar and the lack of a customisable one - it would save 2-3 mouse clicks every time I needed to change between tools. A way to identify/change (text or colours) any of the individual surface rows or colums (for frames for example) and if I had fixed it in position or not would be usefull too.

I'm sure I have only used about 15% of the program so far - but it has been fun. I'll be "trimming NURB surfaces" with the rest of you soon...

Now to see if I can build the deck, pilothouse, keel and more importantly - what got me into all this in the first place - THE INTERIOR!

Cheers

Paul

I'll Bet my 30 days on 3dMax will run out by the time I get round to that!

Edit: - Jeff, Gades - sorry to break in there - you guys got going whilst I was writing this.

 

I know exactly what you mean. ProSurf is both very intuitive and a little addictive. (I also just spent 3 hours with it tonight )

I also emailed Steve that I would like to see more shortcuts (both icons and keystrokes)

-the ability to rotate the 3d line view and the 3d rendered view with either the mouse (dragging like the 3D orbit in AutoCad) or the arrow keys and page up/page down to rotate in all directions (like Accurender used to do it). Currenty it's a lot of clicks. Also the ability to zoom in on the render view would be great (without the four click process of opening up the dialogue, entering a number, and seeing if that's right.)

-shortcut keys and/or icons for common commands. (I would love to just hit a key and be able to drag move, merge point to point, etc.) And I would love to have at least a half dozen icons for the surface and curve menus to save a lot of time pulling down menus.

While I'm thinking of it I would also like

-ortho mode and the ability to limit the movement to just the x or the y or the z direction (I keep having to enter one of the coordinates numeracially to keep the transom and centerline points exactly lined up)

-and a redo function and the option to set the number of undo/redo "buffers"

All and all it is an excellent program!

 

Since this thread accidentally brought back memories of using Turbocad, I also went to the TurboCad site and because of this statement:

I downloaded the demo for TurboCad Pro v 7.0. I was curious if it might actually work. As a test I created a revolved surface from a complicated and very irregular profile, and sure enough it was able to transform the surface model into a solid. But (as expected) no luck on a hull model exported from ProSurf (I'm guessing because it is composed of multiple surfaces?)

 

Thank you Jeff and Paul for your comments about ProBasic/ProSurf, but you should see MY notebook of things to add or change in the program! Even when I use my program I find myself somtimes grumbling or saying naughty words. Generally, when I am confronted with the choice of adding a new function to the program or making the program run more smoothly (dynamic 3D rotate and zoom or customizable toolbars), I will add the new function. I know this isn't always the best approach.

As for "Surface-to-Solid Conversion", I'm not sure what is going wrong for multiple surfaces. If you transfer the surfaces as IGES NURB 128-type surfaces, then you know that the exact mathematical representation of the surfaces are output. If the surfaces are output as refined meshes, then the target CAD program might have difficulty with it. If all of the surfaces are "bonded" together in ProSurf, then you know that all of the edges are "watertight" or mathematically the same. Just make sure that you are outputting a closed solid - one that has surfaces covering the entire object, because some solid modelers require that.

Some solid modelers have difficulty with imported surfaces if the edges are not mathematically, exactly the same. You have to be careful with some solid modelers that will try to close off tiny gaps between surfaces with polygons or other very small surfaces ("healing"). This is OK if you do not wish to edit those surfaces in the solid modeler. If you do, then you will have to deal with all of those tiny little gap-closing surfaces. It is best to transfer the hull surfaces to a solid modeler only after the hull shape is completely done and no changes are expected.

One of the major problems with all CAD software is their difficulty in dealing with major 3D model modifications. In spite of construction histories, parametrics, relationships, and constraints, if you want to make a major change (or even not so major) to a complicated model, it is sometimes best to delete a bunch of geometry or start from scratch and take out key geometries from the original design.

 

Actually it's you who deserves the thanks - you're the one who has done all the work But I am excited to see a few little user interface items that would make a big difference (in terms of probably hours saved drawing.). The render view is really good, for example, and it's so close to being a much better tool. It's like a brand new BMW with a 3" steering wheel. I realize though that every little detail takes a lot of work to get just right.

As far as the surface->solid, unfortunately TurboCad isn't able to import IGES files, so it's probably something in the translation to DXF, or maybe it is just beyond it's capability in terms of the object’s complexity.

You don't know of any other reasonably priced programs that are capable of transforming a surface to a solid model do you?

 

DXF doesn't handle NURB surfaces. For DXF, the NURB surfaces have to be changed to 3D meshes or 3D FACE entities. You can check the TurboCAD manual or web site to see what is says about restrictions or conditions.

I would start with the program that you are going to import into to find some utility or service that can do the conversion. A lot depends on the requirements of the solid modeler. Surface modelers like ProSurf and Rhino deal with free-form surfaces with no conditions on closure or being solid. Some solid modelers handle these free-form surfaces better than others.