<blockquote id=“quote”><font size=“1” face=“Verdana, Arial, Helvetica” id=“quote”>quote:<hr height=“1” noshade id=“quote”>Originally posted by skifffy
dick -
is lightsurf basically a cad program? does it do the isometric rendering from your station measurement inputs? can it be reproduced to form templates for station and strip plank building?
is this program freeware?
any and all info is appreciated…
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I guess I am not sure I would call the program CAD - but it sort of falls into that category. Wis noted that Maxsurf has an academic version, and the company also has some free demo downloads. One can always make a simple change to allow a longer demo period, as the software is easy to use and learn - but also gets very difficult. Not sure a 15 day or 30 day trial period is long enough - but it is easy to learn the basics.
Skiffy - you basically start out with four “windows” - a side view, top view and end view. Using these three you get a software generated 3D view. It “seems” to be able to generate specific cross section templates - but sometimes having a cross section every 2 inches on a 40 foot boat is a bit overkill. When using the end view - you can select your cross section points. I kept getting a “deck lip” and then it went away - not sure what I did - so there is a learning curve. Once I figure out how to select and generate the cross sections, I can then do only the minimum needed for a model boat - somewhere like 10 stations or less depending on design. It will calculate a table of off-sets, and it also has a bunch of hydro calcs to give you buoyancy, displacement, etc. Another area giving me fits, is that it really prefers to have full size boat sizes. Reducing to 48 inches overall was not too easy - so best is to maybe do a full scale boat and use output scale of 1 foot equals on inch - thus even though you are drawing a 39 foot boat, you are building to 39 inches. Again - a bit more time with the program, and a <u>LOT</u> more time with the instruction manual will probably clear up a lot of things discovered - or guessed at. Yes - it has both metric and US measurement - inches, feet and inches, decimal, and also the metric side of measurement. Can also be save/output as DXF or jpeg.
As I discover more things that would pertain to us as model boat builders, I will post.
You can use the Carlson/Laiene software, and while it is for hard chines… you can visually round off the flat sides to give a more rounded hull. It is freeware.
Too bad there isn’t a priced package to allow for model home builders - but i guess if you can design/build a 30 inch boat - it is only a good photocopier away from being able to make a 30 footer… so that is why the high cost. Too easy to use commercially.
Email me off-line with questions and I’ll see if I can answer them during my learning process.