(Part 1 is here)
Delftship is a professional boat design package that offers a powerful free version for the amateur. There are no time limits but a few features are locked in the free version. The usability is excellent and even fun, so you might find yourself playing with hypothetical designs just because you can.
Getting Started:
Download and install the free version from here:
http://www.delftship.net/
The help document is long but worth working through. Don't skip it.
You'll need to understand the basic modelling functions as well as layers, curves, hydrostatics and plate development.
Importing a Carlson Hulls design
If you used Carlson Hulls to to your initial design as described in Part 1, you can import it into Delftship easily. On the File menu there is an explicit option for importing from a Carlson .hul file and it works. This gives a nice model with each strake put in a separate layer and curves added to each chine.
Fairing the lines
First hide the control net and show the control curves.
Now when you select a curve you get a great view of the rate of change of curvature. Smoothing this graph results in a really fair curve. The full version can do this automatically but doing it manually in the free version is satisfying.
See what happens when a point is moved 3/8" up and across. Still looks reasonably fair to the eye but this view shows where it isn't perfect.
Plate developments
At one click you can view the plate developments ready to build:
Printing or exporting the developments is one of the features disabled in the free version. But nothing stopping you marking the offsets directly on to ply from the screen:
Thats the workaround for getting the developments of the hull panels. But it doesn't get you the dimensions for the sections. We'll look at that in Part 3.
Exporting to CAD
Delftship supports exporting to dxf file for use in various CAD programs. On the export menu you can export the 3D mesh or polylines as dxf. To get the sections you can also view the linesplan and then it gives the option export the lines plan as 2D dxf.
Limitations
The free version doesn't support pitch and heel analysis. The full version gives pitch hydrostatics. But to do inclined hydrostatics there's and extra module to pay for. You did do all the pitch and heel analysis in Hulls as per Part 1 didn't you? As a workaround for pitch analysis you can use the modify menu to rotate the entire design and then adjust the waterline. Bit fiddly though.
On to Part 3.
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