Runabout developable surface

Okay, I have to practice with Rhino because what you explain me is an option that I'm really interested.
Thanks

 

I will confirm David's post concerning NURB curves through points etc in Rhino. They are exactly through the point. Very useful when dealing with chines and multichine hull forms. Partly to get 'better' or at least sweet, lofted shapes, and partly to get the developed surface output.

I have before now unfolded real aircraft wings, as developable surfaces and Rhino can 'show' the stretch a material like aluminium will give and still form a wing. Note not necesaarily the material limit, but acceptable for real world use. One reason was to pre punch certain rivet holes prior to folding and then getting them to line up.

TANSL, please note you can select either, to use the points as control points, which are (as you described earlier) not connected to the later resulting curve, or you can select (as in Interpolate Curve) to go right through the point, which remains exactly on the resulting curve.

There are a lot of very useful commands, such as curve editing, rebuild with fewer points, similar with surfaces, which can be useful for fairing and assessing a surface. If you use the History command as well, you can rebuild an Interploate Curve curve, after moving say one control point. Note, not fully parametric but saves time having to put a Curve through say 5 or 8+ station points.

 

SukiSolo and DCockey, thanks a lot for your answers, they are really intersting for me.
I have never worked very thoroughly with Rhino because I needed an application that not only serve me to create the model of the boat but, above all, serve me for calculations of naval architecture. Here, although there are plug-ins, Rhino does not help me because it lacks many of the calculations and studies, at least I need to do.
I use a lot Maxsurf, in naval architecture is extraordinary, but modeling is a torment. So I had to develop my own application that is very good in modeling and very good in naval architecture.
I have to say that to me modeling itself has never interested me. I just was worried the model as a tool for calculus. Maybe it was a mistake because it really helps to sell the designs but my reality is that I have abandoned the commercial side, among other things because I have not needed.
Thanks again.

 

TANSL, I would be very surprised if you could not get your routines to run in Rhino. Maybe as scripts or perhaps a C++ or Visual Basic routine. There are already a lot of inputs such as spline curve through points using a *.csv file (which you can edit) and others.

Also because unless you have a very Autocad specific (LISP?) routine, you should be able to get it to transfer. There are Marine addons and other specific modules available for more speciality users, and very different industries.

McNeel developed a product called Accurender for Autodesk many moons agao. I am not sure what went on between them and Autodesk except they (McNeel) were removed from the list of authorised resellers. As the Americans say, go figure!. I could hazard a guess, but not on this forum. Generally McNeel have been incredibly supportive and helpful, responding well on repeatable bugs and fixing them. So definitely worth investigating. I have had a look at Maxsurf and played with it. It does give sweet shapes and enough data to assess a hull better (initially) but is less flexible as an all round tool, in my personal opinion.

 

Although it has nothing to do with this thread I will explain briefly what I've done. My applications are developed in Visual Basic and use AutoCAD as drawing module. Calculation modules are all mine. I also use Word or Excel to present the results.
The object oriented programming allows me to use objects from other applications for my particular purposes. For example, I can tell AutoCAD to create the solid model of my boat and then the properties of this object, which provides AutoCAD, let me get areas, volumes, centers of gravity, moments of inertia, etc.. with accuracy.
All this, with Rhino, I have not known how to do, maybe because when I started all this, there was not Rhino. Anyway AutoCAD as CAD program (not modeling) I think it's more powerful than Rhino.