BoatExpress version 1.0

Discussion in 'Software' started by Gerard DeRoy, Oct 16, 2006.

  1. lewisboats
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    lewisboats Obsessed Member

    "But why, oh why, is development of another Windows CAD package needed? There are already so many available and in widespread use. Why are software developers beholden to Windows, when the logical, productive, and stable MacOS platform is available. (Please don't flame me. I have no wish to start or participate in a Windows vs. Mac war.)"

    No war...just the fact that for every Mac there are probably 99 Windows PCs. Why market to 1 % and leave the other 99% saying " what...do my armpits smell???" :D :p :D

    Steve
     
  2. Crag Cay
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    Crag Cay Senior Member

    Yeah, yeah. But the percentage of Macs in the hands of 'creative people' is much, much higher. And in most areas of that creative world, there is an excellent choice of Mac software. For instance, architects have Archicad as well as Vectorworks, etc.

    Therefore it is a little galling that designing boats is one of the few fields that is completely 'Mac free'. But a little bit of history may help understand why.

    It used to be so different. Way back then there were even glossy colour Apple brochures promoting the use of Macs in engineering and design, with Rob Humphries as a featured user. So it was natural to put Apple on our shopping list as an option when we decided to switch over to CAD. As we were leaping into the complete unknown, we spent a lot of time researching it all, including visits to Vacanti in Seattle and several other software developers on the US east coast. It didn't help much as we didn't understand a word they said, either about computers or their software. But with Pete Newlands in Cowes, we saw a machine and software that made some (a little) sense, and left with a Mac SE30 with a 10 inch greyscale screen running a limited (single surface?) version of MacSurf. We then added Clariscad to prepare the working drawings and a A0 plotter.

    Apart from the problem of distinguishing between differing control points on the screen (and the price of the system, especially as I forked out for an extra 4Mb of RAM) we thought it was all pretty swish. As CAD use became more sophisticated, MacSurf continued to develop and we had the choice of other CAD programs (some 3D) including AutoCad, MicroStation, MiniCad and my favourite, Ashlar Vellum. Dxf seemed to be a robust and reliable file transfer system and everything in the Mac Cad garden was rosy. And Andrew Mason promised us it would always be so.

    But then Apple lost the plot and went through the wilderness years under various highly paid CEO's who didn't know their computing arses from their elbows. People left the Mac camp in droves including, most significantly, AutoCad. And like it or not, AutoCad remains the defacto CAD system, especially in the commercial boat and ship building worlds, which of course, are the the big buyers of hull design software. So with Apple running an indifferent OS (system 7.5.3) on exasperating hardware, it's not hard to see why MacSurf followed AutoCad over to the darkside and became MaxSurf. And staying on a different OS would have only compounded problems with file conversion, especially as more sophisticated entities translate less well. (Yesterday's battle, even with all on PC, was with iges files created in NAPA).

    So here we are with a resurgent Apple, but ironically, no software to run on it. (Not even MacSea anymore when we go sailing). CAD and engineering were never promoted by the returned Steve Jobs as a market Apple were going to chase again. So I agree, I think lots of amateurs would appreciate a low cost Mac hull design program, to augment the many excellent Mac 3D and CAD packages still available. However I fear the professionals are probably tied to the whims of Autodesk and the habits of the large yards.

    NB: No guarantees over accuracy can be given for this bloated and overly nostalgic wallow through recent history, as it has all been viewed through the rosy tints of a couple of glasses of a very decent Bouchard Pere & Fils, Domaine du Chateau de Beaune, Beaune-Marconnets 1985.
     
  3. Andrew Mason
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    Andrew Mason Senior Member

    Crag Cay

    Unfortunately "always" is a very long time in the computer industry.

    I think if you went back 15 years and told the Mac faithful that one day -
    1. Apple would ditch the Motorola 68000 CPU and adopt and IBM processor (the PowerPC)
    2. Apple would ditch the Power PC and adopt an Intel CPU
    3. Apple would ditch their proprietary Mac OS core and adopt one with a UNIX core

    most would have said you were dreaming.

    As it was, we supplied Maxsurf solely on the Mac platform from 1984 to 1997. We then supported Maxsurf on both Mac and Windows until 2005, when we finally ceased sales of Maxsurf on the Mac, primarily due to lack of interest.

    I have gone from one of Apple's greatest evangelists to someone who just wants to get my work done and no longer owns any apple hardware (other than an ipod). Apple makes excellent machines and their OS is impressive, however their arrogance and errors in marketing their products have been astounding. They neglected the CAD and engineering market completely in the 1990s, with the results that there are virtually no mainstream CAD products now available for the Mac.

    Not many people like Windows or think it is the best OS, but as I said, I just want to get my work done, and Windows has the tools I need to do that.
     
  4. ludesign
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    ludesign Senior Member

    As a supplier of TouchCAD I have to disagree. TouchCAD is cross platform and runs on both Windows and Macs. The Mac version is a true Mac program, and runs natively on the latest Intel Macs. www.touchcad.com
     
  5. Crag Cay
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    Crag Cay Senior Member

    Andrew, I hope I implied no criticism of your decisions as none was meant. I understand your position entirely and have been happy to use whatever is necessary these days, as we too are only interested in getting the job done. I guess the only reason your comment stuck in my mind all those years ago was indeed because of the evangelical conviction of it, at a time when we were beginning to feel less than certain about the direction computing would go. I appreciate you continued to support MaxSurf on the Mac until 2005 and I know at least one well known designer who is still happy to use that version.

    Claes, I'm afraid as we no longer use Macs (at work), I was not aware of your software. Sorry to be so dismissive of your product. Wine and ignorance are not a good mix.
     
  6. Gerard DeRoy
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    Gerard DeRoy Junior Member

    An on-line demo is now clikable on boatarchitect.com

    Hi,
    Just to illustrate the drawing capabilities of BoatExpress, a demo has been added under Documentation at www.boatarchitect.com.
    For those not interested in downloading the software or the documentation just click on the On-line Video, sit back and enjoy it.
    You will see how a complete hull is mouse defined from scratch in a few minutes.
    For beginner, this is how hull were drawn before the advent of CAD software.
    For those preoccupied by the learning curve required on many general CAD have a look.
    Enjoy,
    Gerard Deroy
     
  7. buckknekkid
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    buckknekkid Senior Member

    Touche! I have been working in ACAD for a few years but anything that does the job is ok
     
  8. DavidJ
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    DavidJ Senior Member

    Huh, I didn't know that Maxsurf was originally a mac program. That explains both the ease of use and the fact that the right mouse button doesn't do anything(at least nothing I can figure out).
     
  9. marshmat
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    marshmat Senior Member

    Gerard, your new software certainly looks intriguing and I will have to give it a try when I get a chance.
    Robert, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Although I do understand the reasons why most CAD software is Windows-based, I don't agree with most of them. Windows is popular because a bit over a decade ago, Microsoft got incredibly aggressive both in terms of marketing and in terms of buying out or shutting down competitors. The result is an OS that's everywhere, but that only just scrapes by on the quality front. I recall one Microsoft programmer describing WinXP as a "bloated hairball", it's just so inefficient and unstable. Yes, Apple made many big screwups; now that they've recovered, though, and proven that their new stuff blows the pants off a Wintel, I'd really like to be able to go back to one. So yes, CAD companies and programmers, please write code that can also compile under Unix derivatives, Linux, OSX, etcetera. We'll love you for it!
     
  10. Jeff
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    Jeff Moderator

    Plus Microsoft was smart enough not to demand a hardware monopoly.
     
  11. Gerard DeRoy
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    Gerard DeRoy Junior Member

    Xerox Apple Microsoft Gui and BoatExpress

    In the way this thread is going:
    The following link gave an interesting story about the evolution of the Graphical User Interface we use today.
    http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_history.html

    As the programmer of BoatExpress, here is the simple answer to why it is not available on Mac platform:
    I developped the application for myself and had a Windows system.
    I used the smalltalk language SmalltalkExpress which was and is still free.
    I used this language because I found it easy to use for a graphical application developped by a non professional programmer.
    If there is a Mac developper out there with a Smalltalk knowledge, I would be happy to gave the source code away so that the application is available to Mac user.
    On a related subject:
    The invitation goes to Cad suppliers who make you jump in the middle of a provided hull design with all the capacity of designing a winch to the finest details or colour rendering of your chef d'oeuvre while you have no information on the naval architecture value of what your doing except if you are a proficient designer. These CAD are much more powerfull then BoatExpress but many are missing the naval architecture way of designing a hull. I think these companies should invest a little effort to make their product more adequate for boat design. I simply invite them to look at BoatExpress and have a similar process to guide the boat designer user of their product( would be happy to freely exchange with them).
    It could be interesting if this forum came up with a Boat Design Software Specifications Paper as view from hull designers.
    Gerard
     
  12. marshmat
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    marshmat Senior Member

    Just DLed it and gave it a try... other than having to run in 256c under win95 mode (my old Radeon card doesn't like that much), it looks pretty neat. I'll have to learn a bit more about how it works but I'll be back with more comments when I do.
     
  13. Robert Miller
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    Robert Miller Junior Member

    Gerard:

    I very much agree with your thought here.

    I have looked at the major packages I could find access to - (unfortunately, that does NOT include all of the packages in use by designers). The advantage of what you have done is significant, and is no small contribution to the boat designers CAD world. We are, after all, supposed to be designing boats, and that is precisely what you have accomplished, or have in development in BoatExpress.

    What I am trying to say is: CAD that approaches boat design precisely as designers have for a long time - a method and set of practices that have evolved over a century or two, and is familiar to naval architects around the world, is just what we should seek in CAD.

    The computer is nothing more than just another tool to use in boat design. It can make things easier, it can make the process faster, it can provide the calculations, it can allow rapid chaanges when desired, etc. There is, however, no real justification for throwing out methods that have developed over a long period of time just because there is a new tool we can use to make the process easier. Your documentation for BoatExpress describes the yacht design process as we have all learned it. Period. Please keep on with this project. In my view, it is much needed.

    My wish?... well, as I said a few posts back... port BoatExpress to UNIX, so that it will run on Linux and MacOSX operating systems. The need is real, the OS is light years beyond Windows, and I predict you will find many converts from existing CAD packages.

    Robert
     
  14. Gerard DeRoy
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    Gerard DeRoy Junior Member

    Robert,
    Thank you for your encouragement and the emphasis you put on not losing the great culture resulting from a 100 years of ingenious reflexions and developments by so many great designers. One of my favourite is Fenwick C Williams on CatBoat Design. His 10 pages on cat design should be read and memorized by all naval architecture students.
    Of course diagonals should be easily available on all Hull CAD(referring to one of your comment on Rhino). The difficulty on this case is that you must ask designers what they want and how to specify their diagonals. One way is to specify the diagonal by it starting point on the vertical center line and and angle. In boatExpress it is specify by a percentage of the hull height from the top and one angle, Ex: Diagonal(20%, 70deg).
    You may specify what you want but interestingly I found that using complement of 90 gave something close to normal to the hull. (20, 70), (30,60), (40,50), ...,(80,10).
    It is revealing when a user ask how to obtain a classical object such as a diagonal. It should be right there in a menu identified as Diagonal.
    Thinking about Linux and MacOS but my boat construction is taking lot of my time. The seed has been drop on the ground!
    Gerard
     

  15. mjf55
    Joined: Jun 2007
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    mjf55 New Member

    Gerard,
    I hope you are still looking at this thread as it is getting a little old. However, assuming that you are, I have to say BoatExpress looks to be a very impressive program. I have looked through the documentation and I like the step by step process to design a boat. Having not designed a boat before, I am starting to study, I plan to use it. The precision you currently have is more than enough for me at this time. Thank you for having spent the time and effort in developing this application.

    All that being said, I would like to see greater than 256 color support. Not because the app needs it, but my video driver ( and I suspect many drivers) do not support that low of a color depth. ( my laptop t41 supports 16 and 32 bit under windoz). That brings me to the second request to port it to Linux. As stated many time, it is a superior OS to MS anything.

    Knowing the personal resources you invested, might I suggest that you license it as GPL and Open Source it. Start a project on Sourceforge.net and I'll bet you would have many helpers (I would be the first to help), making this a fabulous application. There is no boundary as to what can happen, import / export designs to AutoCad, Rhino for the greater precision and modeling in 3d. BoatExpress would perform all the hydrostatic crunching and the final design would be great. Something to consider.

    Anyway, no matter what , this is a great program and thank you for it.
     
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