Using 3d boat design software

I am an experienced building designer, having used Autocad software for a number of years. I am now in the process of replicating the hull of a long sunken 62 ft wooden commercial fishing boat. I will not be building the actual boat, but will be building a 1/30 scale model as accurately as is possible. I have many pictures of the boat in dry dock and at sea, so dimensions etc. are pretty accurate, plus the boat owner is still available for questions.
I have purchased "3d Boat Design" software and have played with it some, but am not sure of how to proceed with the hull design. I merely want to sculpt the hull to match the pictures, and be able to produce a table of offsets with which to design the frames and sheer line.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Welcome aboard, William!

I'm not familiar with the program you're referring to, but having used Freeship a little I have some idea of the process. Basically, you start with the known dimensions and then eyeball the rest. If you had the actual hull to measure that would help, but without it your final shape will have to be just good enough. Once you have the hull modeled in Freeship, and I assume your software too, it can then spit out a table of offsets or frame drawings for you.

If you want to post the information you have I can probably at least get a staqqrt on it in Freeship.

 

unfortunately, "3d boat design" is freeship packaged up by an opportunist for $.
For info how to use it, search for the many freeship threads.

 

Thanks to Mick Allen and cthippo for your replies to my post re: "3D Boat Design" Mick says that 3d boat design is freeship by another name, so will search out freeship threads and see what I can find.

 

Being new to the game, I paid $49.95 for "3Dboat design" which apparently is just freeship re named. I'm supposed to be able to get my money back if I don't like "3d" How do I go about getting freeship?
Back to my original post, I'm unsure of just how to "sculpt" the hull. I have tried moving points around etc, but can't quite figure out all of the drop down menu items and just how to finish up the sculpting. Any suggestions would be helpful. I have entered my dimensions and have the basic hull on the screen ready to be re worked.

 

You can download it from here:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Science-CAD/Freeship-Plus.shtml

As for finishing it, without the original hull to measure or a table of offsets to work from I'm not sure how you can do better than just eyeballing it.

The menus are mostly divided into two sorts. The first set works with the points, lines, and faces of the model, and the second set are tools for calculating the characteristics of the actual vessel.

What specific issues are you having?

 

cthippo:

It has been my understanding that with hull modeling software I can "sculpt" the hull to my "eyeball satisfaction" and when I am satisfied with the appearance I can produce a table of offsets from the model. If this is not the case, I am just as well off to make a scale model of the half plan and take my offsets directly from it. That's the old fashioned way, but it works if one is very careful
I am now trying to download freeship so that I can study it.

 

Exactly. Once you have the hull shape the way you want it you can do a couple of things. First, you can click file -> export -> offsets which will spit out a table of offsets and you can then loft the hull from that. You can also click project -> linesplan which will bring up a 4 view drawing of the model. If you then click the black triangle at the top of that window which will remove the color and give you just the station drawings. You can save this image as a .bmp file and then scale it to create full sized templates for your hull model.

I spent several hours last night lofting the stations for my kayak from the table of offsets I created from my Freeship model. It's a tedious process, but it works.

Something else you might be able to do is to create the model in Freeship with the Dimensions of your finished scale model rather than the actual boat and then I think it can export drawings directly in the correct scale, though I admit I have never tried it.

 

I have tried to download freeship, and the instruction manual (in four languages) downloads fine, but when I try to open the
program itself all I get is some scanning program that they want me to use. I have all of that stuff that I need and don't like, or necessarily trust various "cleanup programs etc". that I am not familiar with. You have been very helpful, and I am anxious to get freeship up and running. It does appear to be identical to the "3Dboat design program that I paid $49.95 for. They say that I can get my money back. We'll see!!
PS: I'm in the Seattle area. Where are you located?

 

I'm up in Bellingham so if worse comes to worse I can come down and give you a hand. The actual download link is kind of hidden, but if you want to PM me your email address I'll send you a copy of the program.

I'll warn you though, it's kind of addictive. I've spent the last 5 hours designing a Dutch Barge instead of doing anything useful.

 

I'm actually in Mount Vernon. I said Seattle because I thought you might be in Baltimore or somewhere and would at least know where Seattle.is. My email is wrtvjrv@earthlink.net.
It would be nice to get together and discuss freeship. I'm tied up until next week, going to E. Wash. to see if it rains all of the time over there too. Would be great if you emiail me more info.
Thanks,
Bill

 

cthippo:
Emailing me further freeship info as you suggested needs to be to: wtvjrv@earthlink.net. Previous email address was in error. Looking forward to more freeship info. Going to E. WA Friday, back Tuesday

 

OK. I tried to email it but it exceeded my attachment size limit. Fire me an email or PM when you get back and I'll bring you a Disc with the program. What's the old saying? Never underestimate the bandwidth of a stationwagon full of floppy disks? My email is cthippo@yahoo.com. Have fun on your travels.

 

free ship software

i recently purchased the 3d boat design software and after reading from the forum its basically free ships sorfware, so im hoping the money back gaurentee is gonna work, anyways now thanks to this forum i have downloaded freeships, but im new to this software, so how do i go about using this sorfware ? please advise me on this ..

 

I already replied to your thread http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/design-software/free-ships-software-42363.html
Start by working up a simple design and go from there.