VMA - Marine Based Surface Modeling


listed in alphabetical order!

Aero-CADD	Actually this modeler is not marine but aerospace based. Aero-CADD is a 3-dimensional wireframe and surface modeling software specifically developed for airplane design. Aero-CADD is based on Spatial Technology ACIS and Ashlar Vellum Solids and has AeroPack, a collection of airplane specific design and drafting tools, which can be valuable for designing some kind of marine vehicles such as WIGs.

AutoShip	Autoship hull design/surface modeling program combines the graphical user interface of Windows with the dexterity of NURBS mathematics, the high-end CAD standard for surface modeling. Autoship enables you to create any hull shape from a racing yacht to a super tanker quickly and efficiently. Surface edges may be attached to a curve or another surface. Several methods are available to create a surface, such as by specifying dimensions, by rotating a curve about an axis, by extruding a curve along a vector, by sweeping one curve along another, by ruling between two curves or by multiconic development (developable surface) between two curves. Models may be exported and imported in 2D or 3D via industry-standard DXF and IGES file formats.

DfForm	DFform uses surfaces for defining vessel forms. It allows the definition of the vessel in a continuous three-dimensional way which has many advantages: Speed and easiness in modifications of the hull form. Fairing without errors. The surface is defined in a continue way instead of a discreet way. This fact implicates: More accuracy and less errors in later processes. The local modification of a zone is automatically transmitted to the surface, keeping the forms always faired. During the hull design process, the user can do naval architecture calculations in an interactive way with the purpose of checking the effect that the modifications in the forms have over the vessel fundamental parameters: displacement, centre of buoyancy, coefficients, curve of areas, etcç module of Defcar system.

Fairway	Fairway is a hull design and fairing tool for production purposes by the Scheepsbouwkundig Advies en RekenCentrum SARC BV. Fairway is the core of the PIAS design system (Program for the Integral Approach of Shipdesign) is used by prominent companies like the Royal Dutch Navy, Nedlloyd, Damen Shipyards and Conoship International. SARC is continuously investing in research and development to be able to assist the maritime and shipping industry in anticipating the latest design developments, IMO directives and classification demands.

FastShip	FastShip is a program for designing hulls, superstructures, appendages,and other marine structures, with the ability to design fair surfaces quickly and accurately. FastShip is used in the design of all types of vessels, and can automatically produce new hulls from a set of parameters, such as ship type, overall dimensions, displacement, LCB, and form coefficients from parent hulls included with the system, or customer-created parent hulls. FastShip can analyze the hull form for fairness, by computing and displaying the curvature of any section or 3D curve. Surface curvature can also be displayed as a color map, including minimum, maximum, average, and Gaussian curvature.

FreeShip	The FreeShip modelling kernel is purely based on subdivision surfaces. It uses a mixture of loop subdivision and Catmull Clark subdivision surfaces called quad-triangle subdivision. This enables the user to design the most complex surfaces with only one surface. Controlpoints can be added in areas only where they are needed. Holes and knuckle-lines are easily incorporated. The number of controlpoints may be drastically reduced compared to classical NURB surface modelling. Intersectionlines such as stations, buttocks and waterlines may be added to the model and are updated realtime when a controlpoint is being dragged. Adjustable precision by controlling the subdivision level. An Integrated shading engine provides stable software rendering without the need for 3rd party software or dll’s. As the name imply this software is a free and open source one!

Hullform	Hullform is a surface design software with fairing, NACA foil design, hydrostatics analysis, drag estimate tools. A number of schemes for finding out how fast it will go, internal tanks - analysing, damaged stability, or the effects of a partially-full fuel tank on your design's stability. Plate Development for building a hull out of flat sheets of wood or metal and stringer calculations for locating exactly where stringers must be placed is possible with the program. From a technical point of view, the program uses natural cubic splines in fairing longitudinal lines. A fast, non-iterative algorithm makes the fairing process close to instantaneous on even the slowest computer. Transverse section curves use a piecewise quadratic Bezier.

Loftsman	Loftsman/P is a lofting program for wings, fuselages, and hulls. It provides complex body shapes, normal and canted sections, wing-body, body-body and wing-wing intersections, contour maps, wetted areas, volumes, hydrostatics, wireframes, contour smoothing, full and partial fuel capacities, and facilities for designing flap and control surface sections. It includes an extensible library of more than 200 NACA, Wortmann, and other airfoils. Available output formats include DXF and HPGL, as well as fully formatted surface patches for Cmarc and VSAERO. Automatic meshing includes wing roots, deflected plain and slotted flaps, and submerged portions of hulls.

MasterShip	Mastership operates in combination with Autocad. The Mastership CAD/CAM software package has been specifically developed to address the automation between CAD and CAM. Working methods to produce made-to-measure frames, floors, shell plates and superstructure parts still require a lot of time and skill.

Maat	Maat is an integrated naval arcitecture software. Surface modeling can be applied to hulls, appendages, superstructures, structures, accommodation, fittings. Surface modelling can be done from any media (hard copy or digital), import/export of all 2D or 3D files, import/export with velocity prediction and finite element analysis software, editing of plans, files for cutting or digital milling, images and computer-generated videos. Some capabilities are; Lines fairing, Surface fairing, Creation of surfaces including breaks in continuity of form, Automatic creation of a lines plan, Creation of variable radius fillets, Surface expansion, Geodesic lines, Main curvature lines, Calculation of multiple stability, Stability study including multiple waterplanes...

MaxSurf	Maxsurf provides fast, flexible and intuitive modelling of all types of hulls, superstructures and appendages. An unlimited number of trimmed NURB surfaces can be used to model any vessel from yachts to workboats to the largest ships. Any number of NURB surfaces can be joined, trimmed and manipulated to create a complete model ready for hydrostatic analysis or construction detailing. Maxsurf provides automated transformation of the hull form to match desired dimensions and hydrostatic properties. Maxsurf provides a range of flexible tools for evaluating curvature of the entire surface as well as curvature along a particular surface contour such as a waterline or diagonal.

MultiSurf	MultiSurf is a rich and versatile system for parametric design of 3D geometric objects, particularly complex objects involving freeform curves and surfaces. Precise control of complex shapes. MultiSurf updates the entire model when you change underlying objects. 29 surface types let you use the right surface for every aspect of yourdesign (NOT limited to NURBS like other applications). General calculations are; Weight schedule, mass properties, angles, clearance, distance of points, upright hydrostatics.

Naval Designer	Naval Designer is a CAD software dedicated to naval architecture. You can design all types of hulls, monohulls or multihulls, sailing or motor boats. Naval Designer can do; the design of the ships in 3D, hydrostatic and stability calculations with trim correction and estimate of weights, calculation of the aerofoil center. The goal of Naval Designer is not to offer all the functionalities of the great professional softwares, but to propose the functionalities used 80 % of time by 80% of the users.

PolyCAD	PolyCAD is a geometry editing tool developed with a lean towards Naval Architecture and Ship Design. It was designed to provide a range of extensive, simple and straight forward editing features across all entites and to allow level physical conversion between entities. PolyCAD is used extensivly at the Safety at Sea (SaS) and the SSRC which forms the basis of it testing ground. It is used in many applications from Preliminary Hull Definition (especially useful when using offset table data), compartmentation for simulation programs and preprocessing for animation work using 3D Studio MAX.

Prolines	Prolines works as NURB based hull surface modeler. Allows unlimited hull shape capability. From simple flat plate chined hulls to complex hulls. Combine vertical and horizontal chines with curved surfaces. Enter less than 10 basic hull shape parameters such as length and beam at the waterline and deck and Prolines will create a generic round, chined or round + chined hull on screen. PROLINES produces over 20 calculations ranging from initial stability and coefficients to displacement, wetted surface, total surface, centers of buoyancy and many more. PROLINES provides curvature curve fairing of all primary curves.

ProSurf	A major new version of ProSurf hull design and fairing software, is released! It is a full capability trimmed NURB surface modeling package. It even includes capabilities not found in any program at any price such as dynamic trimming. You can also grab any point on the underlying NURB surface and edit its shape. No un-trim and re-trim is necessary. Add rendering, extrusions, skinning, shelling, reverse engineering, 3D bonded, editable solids and you will see the direction we are heading. All of this on top of our unique use of edit points ON the NURB curves and surfaces and all of our detailed shaping and fairing tools! ProSurf also includes more calculations such as hull resistance (Holtrop, Transom Hull Displacement Mode, Delft3 Series, and Kaper).

SeaSolution	The SeaSolution is comfortable tool for geometric design especially for fairing lines and shell plates development. There are two modules; surface and shell. The module is able to define hull surfaces for any type of ships, surfaces of superstructures, decks, platforms and bulkheads. The shell uses the surface module results and able to create mathematical model of hull structure. Using the module you can define decks, longitudinal and transversal bulkheads, trusters, anchor pockets, platforms. Then you can create and develop shell plates.

ShipShape	ShipShape is a program for creating, fairing, and interpolating a set of ship’s lines. It has been configured to interface with the existing Wolfson Unit hydrostatics and stability suite of programs. ShipShape is highly flexible and can be used to create many different hull forms, including merchant and fishing vessels, chine craft, yachts and multi-hulls. It employs a fairing method which is intuitive for the user and produces the exact shapes the designer wishes to achieve. Parametric cubic splines are used to create the curves that define the hull form. This method of curve definition is both versatile and easy to understand, as the cubic spline models a flexible batten held down by spline weights.