Modeling boats

I am a young naval architect and working as a boat builder now. In the near future I would like to enroll Westlawn in order to be able to design boats. I am aware that by that time I need to improve my Rhino and Maxsurf knowledge which are best for boat designing.

The problem is that I am not sure what somebody needs for modeling boats. Is lines plan of a vessel needed for modeling, I mean, should one require lines plan to create the 3d model? Or will I able to obtain lines plan after modeling and importing that model into Maxsurf. We were drawing lines plan at university by the help of offset table given to us, but I have doubts for designing custom boats.

Thanks in advance

 

You don´t need a linesplan to create a boat in 3d. You can just start from scratch in any 3d modeling software no matter if it´s specifically intended for hull design or just a general purpose 3d modeler. I am not familiar with Maxsurf but all hull design software should allow you to create or to convert your 3d boat model automatically into a linesplan at the flick of switch....or to be more specific at the click of a mouse. Good luck with the experimentation and let us know how you progress.

 

Thanks for your guidance, what you've mentioned about is as I thought. It is logical to obtain lines plan from 3d model. The most difficult point is modeling the form of the hull on your own, under the design constraints. I hadn't done this before that's why I have doubts. Thanks for your help...

 

try freeship, its good shipdesign software and its free
if you dont enter your own boat it opens with
a standard boat model you can modify