I have a large set of 1=20 (32’x40" sheet) design drawings. What would be the best way to end up with the same design in Freeship. The best way I can think of so far is to scan the drawing and trace it in AutoCad and then doucment the coordinates of each point and enter those into Freeship. Does anyone else have any easier ideas? Thanks for the help.
could you just try scanning it and then importing it to freeship? thus skipping the middle step. [i don’t know if can do that, i usually work the other way 'round - i.e. taking the plans oof the computer and turning them into paper…!
A workable thought:
Open an new model in Freeship using as few points as possible.
Scan the existing linesplans.
Import the scanned impages into Freeship as background images.
Resize the background images to appropriate lengths.
Repostion existing points so lines match background images.
Only add more points if absolutely necessary.
In doing so you do bypass the need to use a third program …
I tried that using just cross sections for a multihull and it was a disaster. Of course, my sections were rounded/radiused - not flat planes for hard chines. Maybe that was why I had trouble.
I too have been looking for ways to convert and enter major cross section points without scaling from a physical object (boat) or drawings - have also tried half-sections to no avial either.
Everytime I try to reduce number of points and stations, the lines go out of desired shape very quickly. Seems easy to do a 3D, then generate bulkheads from the rendering - but then a problem trying to print our specific and individual bulkheads to use as a station during a build.
I admit that I may missed something within the 'Help" files.
It just makes me wonder why you can export to a certain file format, but not import that same file. Anyway, I will let you guys know what I find.
Does Freeship allow you to import offsets as a txt file? I don’t use it so don’t know. I use both “Hulls” (a great package for hard-chine designs) and HullForm - both of which allow you to import a table of offsets.
I draw my boats the good old fashioned way, by hand, because the packages above start with “default” hull and I don’t want to have my “vision” blurred by the package default.
Once I’ve got something on paper that is close to what I think I want, I take off the offsets, set up a txt file, and upload to the package for further work. It is a long and laborious process - but it works well.
That might be a possibility. In my case I could draw it in AutoCAD and get the offsets then, or take them from the drawings I was given and scale them to what I need, then I can play with the factors I need to to get it to float correctly. I guess.
This is alot harder than I expected. I think I could get the same idea as the drawings I have by starting from scratch rather than trying to trace these background images. It’s getting very frustrating.
This is the biggest problem with the various hull design software…getting a previous design into the programme.
This article may help explain http://www.newavesys.com/secrets.htm
My approach would be to simply use the basic dimensions of the boat in question and create a “new” design as close to the orginal lines as you can.
If you know most of the hydrostatic data (you can claculate everything you need from the original drawing) then you can get very close to the orginals lines.
Its gets quicker and easier in time:)