What's Up with DelftShip's Web site

I haven't been able to get into Delftship's web site for over a week. I get this message:

"We're very sorry but the DELFTship website is currently down for maintenance.
We'll be up and running again shortly so please check back again soon...."

Anyone know what's going on?

 

It is back up today, but there are fewer pages than before. Maybe they are doing a total
make-over and they'll restore the forums and other pages later.

 

Thanks. I checked it out. New Look. I honestly don't understand why web masters do that. I have been running a web site since the mid nineties and never has it been down for more than an hour and that was when it got seriously hacked. A makeover can be done completely off line and then posted in a few minutes. Taking down a website for weeks is totally unnecessary.

 

I don't know what is going on with their web site.
A few days ago they had a small panel allowing users to login, but
it didn't work, and now it has disappeared from their front page.
The latest "news" dates back to 1 July 2013.
The forums have disappeared, and the latest version seems to be
5.x, not 6.x which I already have.
I've sent them an email asking what happened, and I'll pass on any
information I get back. If I don't hear back I'll try to phone them.

 

Yes, I saw that too. and their page to buy software doesn't work. I think they got complaints so they put something up, an old version.

 

After many attempts I finally got a reply from Delftship to my question as to whether they were still in business...

Nice to hear from you again. Yes, we're still in business and busier then ever.
Generally we try to respond to emails as soon as possible and it's very
unfortunate to hear that apparently someone has slipped through the mazes.
At the moment we are busy finishing the last details for the release of version 7
which is scheduled for the end of October and which is our biggest update so
far.

 

It seems the elves at Delftship have been working on a new version.
Version 7.1 was released today. See:
http://www.delftship.net/delftship/

 

The new interface sucks donkey balls, and the rendering is now about half the quality it used to be (and it wasn't great anyway).

Apart from that, it's probably fabulous.

 

The new professional version of it will be released next week as far as i know. i hope mostly the updates will come regarding technical capability like exporting Tank arrangement to CAD was a **** before, the format of report from load cases.

anyway i liked the new interface.

 

Version 6.27 was good. I loved the interface. The new version 7 is some kind of Windows 8.1 abomination. Unusable. I have gone back to the previous version and urge anyone who doesn't like the the "Donkey Balls" version to complain about it.

Okay bad initial reaction. I still don't like the new interface as much as the old one which is a major overhaul along with the website receiving a major overhaul. There area lot of new very usefull features in this new version and Delftship is by far the best value for money out there for a dedicated hull drafting package.

 

Interface stuff is highly subjective. Any time you change something you can pretty much guarantee that some people will rave about it and some people will hate it.

 

Forum Back Online and New V7 D'ship

I've just downloaded and begun to work in D'ship ProV7.(whatever) and have to say this upgrade is major.

New features all over the place, primarily the new display resolution of lines- at least on my system? In the past, I felt somewhat compromised by the line/curve display resolution. Even on a decent graphics card with 'good' resolution and screen quality the pixelation was somewhat prevalent, but now? What a difference in display- just viewing past models is recreational.

Another new feature, in Pro at least, is the Coordinates Display, I find this interface extremely pleasing to use visualizing small hulls- especially in Perspective- as the foreshortening of the screen image is now referenced to the 3D grid allowing, IMO, a much faster recognition of the proportions of the lines I'm drawing/inputting.

If you're considering design software but have not made the purchase decision, this version of Delftship Pro is definitely a big step upward in application interface in my view - therefore the cost benefits of D'ship have improved significantly.

Highly recommended.

Cheers,
Kevin Morin
Kenai, AK USA

 

The forums came back up again today.

 

I've given v7 another go. I could get used to the new interface, although I am still not exactly in love with it. Given a good enough reason, I can use just about any interface.

However, v7 does not seem to deal with crease edges at all well if the various forms of shading or curvature plotting used. Non-crease edges seem fine, but crease edges suffer badly from white artifacts, and are sometimes barely visible against shading. Version 6 did not have these problems, even though it had coarser resolution.

So, if using crease edges a lot, v7 is not that wonderful in terms of gfx. The artifacts all over the place have to be traded off against the greater resolution, meaning it may or may not give better visualisation of the model. It's less pixellated, but not nearly as clean as v6.

If a way could be found to keep the resolution of v7 but improve the rendering of crease edges, the result would be pretty damned good in terms of gfx.

However, yes, some of the new functionality is good to have.

 

For some obscure reason, the graphics problems with v7.11 on my box have now resolved themselves. The graphics are currently brilliant.

However, I have noticed that Michlet has begun behaving oddly, which Leo mentioned was a problem with W8.

What I suspect has happened is that a recent Windows update I installed on my W7 box has simultaneously introduced the problems with Michlet (previously only found on W8), while fixing the problems I had with Delftship v7.11 graphics.

The reason I suspect it's a Windows update that is responsible is because there have been no changes to gfx drivers on my box. This, if correct, may mean that future Windows updates could create other problems. Gotta love OS updates.

Anyway, for whatever reason, the Delftship graphics currently rock.