Best Marine Design Software for Hull Modeling? (2006)

First select some objects and then type the command EXPORT,
or use the "Export Selected" command in the File menu.

Then you have some choices after you select the DWG file format.
If you want to make 2D drawings in AutoCAD, I suppose PolyLines are OK.

 

Thank You.

 

Thank You...worked like a charm. I "selected the object" then export to dwg in 3d. Cool stuff...

Ray

 

Hello,

I am not much a designer yet as I just learn basic program such as CAD and Lightwave.

I have bought a suggested program Prosurf and will use it for study purposes and intensive try out.

Now my question is with so many program out there, I have heard and seen advertisement of Shipconstructor but its not in the poll?

Is my future safe bet on Rhino Marine bundle? When the latest version will be out.? I hate to get a version and fund that 2 month later I need to buy an upgrade.

How come Autoship have such a low polling? Is it not a good program?

I hope to find out the best software for my need . If it will take a few type of software, that's find with me, just hate to buy all the software and find it turn into a part of the furniture.

Thanks

Student

 

Shipconstructor is not in the poll as it is a ship production system, not a hull design system.

The systems in the poll cover the naval architecture part of the design process, ShipConstructor starts where they finish.

 

Autoship polls low because it is so expensive that it is generally found only in fairly high-buck NA offices, and in big shipyards.
My advice to 5554x is, don't drop big bucks on these things until: (a) you know and understand how the design process works without them, and (b) you've had some experience with a few different programs and know what you're looking for.
Rhino 4 is on the way, eventually. It is being demonstrated at a few industry conferences in the next couple of months.

 

I agree with Matt, and I am looking forward to Rhino 4, with layouts and other enhancements for drawing production.

 

I like Andrew's Observation. Seems we all have very different hammers.

Clearly, it seems the industry primarily uses Rhino and AutoCAD. Or at least, that's the perception. It would be interesting to see what the Big Boys like Beneteau and Hunter use. SolidWorks was used for the America's Cup boats (maybe that was the problem ). I recall one large shipbuilding firm using Catia. I would be willing to bet that there are quite a few folks using ProE as well.

One thing to consider is what the whole production process entails. Sure, the software might be nice for the designer, but more and more manufacturers are requiring the 3D model as well as or in place of the 2D drawing. Does the software play nice in a manufacturing environment? Certainly, Rhino can output to IGES and STEP. Both are acceptable, but there can be problems. Manufacturers are requesting native formats. This helps eliminate issues with disjoint faces, poor tolerencing, etc. To my knowledge, there aren't any CAM packages that will take NATIVE files from any of the software listed in the poll.

Cheers,

Rick

 

Sonadora

The point of my post was that Solidworks, although an excellent general purpose solid modeller, is not a complete solution for yacht designers and naval architects. The naval architecture part (initial hull design, parametric transformations, hydrostatics, stability, resistance, propulsion, VPP, seakeeping etc.) are best done in specialised programs tailored to the special needs of the marine industry.

The problem with CAD companies outside the marine industry is that they all think that their standard solutions should be ideal for hull design and construction because they haven't had to deal with the specific issues. As a result, the very big ship area is dominated by Tribon, with ShipConstructor pretty dominant for the medium through to large steel and aluminium builders. Solidworks, CATIA, ProE and the other solid modellers have only very small market share, and no commercial shipbuilders use them for all phases of the design and construction process .

This is for good reason. ShipConstructor is built on AutoCAD, but it is also steers clear of doing full solid modelling for plate entities. These can be much more efficiently modelled as surfaces in a plane with a throw direction and a thickness, along with edge treatments where required. You may think SolidWorks is efficient, but see how it goes when you are modelling a vessel with 100,000 parts.

That is not to denigrate Solidworks in any way. It's a good program, just not appropriate for the initial hull design and analysis stages, nor it is appropriate for the construction of medium to large metal boats. It is very good for composite vessels and of course it is excellent for mechanical assemblies.

A case in point is the America's Cup. Solidworks is widely used among the syndicates for structural and mechanical work, rig and keel design. But the naval architecture part is almost exclusively the domain of Maxsurf, with every America's Cup winner in the past 10 years being designed using the program. In the 2003 cup, 7 out of 10 syndicates used Maxsurf to design their hulls, and the percentage is higher for the 2007 cup.

The reason for this dominance is that Maxsurf is a precision surface modeller that is focussed on producing and evaluating fair surfaces. Most surface modellers are poor when it comes to getting direct control over the surface. The ones that do give direct acces to control points are often difficult to use as the direct manipulation tools are clumsy. Worse, most surface modellers focus on rendering surfaces with a small number of polygons (for speed of rendering) using phong shading. The effect is produce a pretty picture, while masking unfairness in the surface. Maxsurf makes a point of rendering surfaces with a high polygon count, which may be slow, but reveals underlying surface problems more quickly.

Similarly, tools for the evaluation of surface fairness and tools for correcting areas of unfairness are poor or missing from most general purpose surface modellers. These are essential for good hull design. America's Cup designers are extremely picky about surface quality and fairness and have voted with their feet.

As I said, Solidworks is an excellent program for a segment of the industry and for a particular portion of the design process. I have recommended it to many Maxsurf users and it is rated highly by those who have it. However, it is not a complete solution and is not appropriate to the design of many vessels, particularly those assembled primarily from cut plate parts.

 

Good points, Andrew. I'm not surprised to see you plugging your own product of course, but then again you are quite justified in doing so. If I spent my days designing boats (I wish..... ), I'd at the very least give Maxsurf a serious try.

True enough. I don't think any one program is, nor will any one program ever be, a complete solution. Try to build the perfect program for everything, and what you will end up with is a lot of buggy bloat. Multiple softwares that are each geared for a particular type of work, is usually a much better choice than one-size-fits-all.

 

Sonadora

I failed to address the points in your second paragraph. These days only small builders in third world countries build solely from drawings, CAD models are a lot more pervasive than you seem to think.

As far as model quality from design systems such as Maxsurf go, IGES is fine and will transfer a NURBS surface from one system to another flawlessly.

Rather than people clamouring for NATIVE formats, the last few years has seen a push to independent files such as STEP. For example, a few years ago the 5 major shipbuilders in the U.S. were using 5 different ship design and production systems, yet they were often building common vessels such as the DDG51 Arleigh Burke destroyers. Their need was to be able to transfer CAD models from one system to another without problems, hence the millions of dollars spent on STEP. Arguably it would have been cheaper to just standardise on one system and for the navy to pay for the installation of that system at all the yards, however different work practices, politics, inertia and vested interests make that suggestion unrealistic.

Even if all shipyards in the U.S. standardised on one CAD sytem, that system would not be Solidworks. Millions of dollars have been spent on CATIA to try to make it more suitable for ship production, but it still has a long way to go, and Solidworks is a long way behind CATIA in terms of specific functions for the shipbuilding industry.

In the smaller production and custom boat building industry Solidworks may have a place. It certainly cannot ShipConstructor's functionality for the design and production of smaller steel and aluminium boats, so it is probably restricted to those doing composite construction, and in this market Solidworks has to compete with SolidEdge, CATIA and a whole host of other good solid modellers.

 

Maxsurf definetly a mature program for future designer try out, but now we gonna tighten our belt and start with affordable software.

I wonder is maxsurf have any special price or program for westlawn or other design school? Nice to get a version during study period.

Student

 

Andrew,

Thanks for your informative reply. I probably didn't make it clear enough that SolidWorks (or ProE or Catia for that matter) would NOT be practical to model the millions of parts in a complete ship (think - fasteners).

And, your points that millions have been invested in software development specific to the industry is valid.

My point, however, is that as a modeler for vessels up-to 60 ft or so, SolidWorks could be a viable solution. The fact that it is not currently used does not mean it can't be.

As for surfacing, solid modellers do have their limitations. However, I will say that a lot of the surfacing adjustability you speak of is beginning to show up. The new release of 2007 SolidWorks allows precise adjustment of surfaces. I'm not referring to surface bodies, but actual surfaces on the solid body. This is done by establishing handles along a path on the surface. This gives very precise adjustment control to the surface points and don't require the handles to be on the nodes of the mesh.

The reason I made such a fuss about this is due to the training agenda that currently seems to pervade the small vessel design school of thought. That is: Model in a surfacing program then send it to AutoCAD to 'document' it. And, though it seems that few builders use drawings for construction, they still require them. Few will deny that working with 3D in AutoCAD is a complete mess, especially when trying to 'flatten' the 3D model to make nice AutoCAD drawings. Even Autodesk has admitted to this by dumping the technology all together (for 3D modelling) to pursue a true parametric modeler.

For SolidWorks, the drawing portion is simply a byproduct of the modeler. It is completely parametric to the model and vice versa. This has huge implications for a soup-to-nuts approach for manufacturing.

Again, I would be the last person to sugges SolidWorks be used in the complete design of ships. That's not to say just the hull could not be designed in SolidWorks, including the plates.

Rick

 

If you are a westlawn student you are eligible for a free copy of Maxsurf Academic. See the Maxsurf Academic website listed below -

 

In this size range for composite vessels it is appropriate and is already used by many in the industry. For bigger vessels, or for virtually any size of vessel in steel or aluminium, Solidworks is a poor solution to the problem.

The point is that hull design is a surface modelling problem, not a solid modelling problem. Introducing solids into the mix at the early stages of hull design is like using a hammer to fix a watch.

You're right, orthographic drawings are pretty much a waste of time. However for vessels built to class (i.e. where the structure is under the approval of a registered classification society such as Lloyds or DNV) orthographic drawings are a statutory requirement.

I know of builder of vessels of 100 metres plus that do not send any orthographic drawings to the shop floor, the NC cut parts are assembled using undimensioned isometric assembly drawings. However, the builder is still required to do drawings of all of the structure to satisfy the classification society.

Working in 3D in AutoCAD is not an enjoyable experience, however working in ShipConstructor within AutoCAD is a totally different situation. I suggest you get a better understanding of how ShipConstructor works and why it is a more efficient approach for steel and aluminium vessels than using a full solid modeller before you suggest that Solidworks must be a better solution.

But what is the point when there are other programs that can do the task faster and better? And if you design the hull in Solidworks, how do you do the hydrostatics, stability, resistance, propulsion, seakeeping etc.? As I said, hull shape definition is a surface modelling problem, not a solids modelling problem, introducing solids at that stage gains nothing and restricts the designer from easily using a lot of analysis tools that are available.

The marine industry has heard the cheerleading from the solid modelling vendors for years, but the argument always seems to be "Use a parametric solid modeller because its a better solution". Unfortunately if you ask what makes it a better solution, the answer always seems to be "because its a parametric solid modeller". The implication that because something is new technology or more modern or more powerful it is better does not hold true in this case. Sometimes the simpler solution, efficiently implemented, produces a more agile and effective tool.

The fact is that while programs such as Solidworks are great for general mechanical design, the modelling of highly sculptured surfaces and cut sheet parts are not what they do well or efficiently. Solidworks is an excellent program that has a role at a particular stage of the design process for particular types and sizes of vessels. Outside of that role, Solidworks, as well as most other parametric solids modellers, are not an ideal solution for the problems facing a large portion of the marine construction industry.