Hull Plating?

[lancer525]

I've been looking around at several of the really magnificent ships out there, and I am intensely curious as to *how* the hull plating for a ship is designed... Given that the edges of the frames define the edges of the hull plating, how does one determine that shape?

[maurice]

Let me send you 3/4 of the way down
Card Modeling FAQ Appendix: Designing Paper Models
to the bit on rollation and the link given there.
I'm sure you can grasp from that the underlying principle of the geometry that is involved in finding the shapes of the developable (unfoldable) surfaces that must lie between adjoining frames of a ship's underwater hull.

The technique can still be used nowadays.

Many programs can generate those surfaces in 3D space but that's all they can do with them.
In the case of complex things like underwater ship hulls the ability to accurately and easily generate and develop (unfold) those surfaces onto a flat sheet of paper is almost unique to Rhino.
Pepakura can ofttimes develop surfaces generated in other programs with acceptable (but not always absolute) accuracy.
Some other programs can also do it (or perhaps I should say it can be done in some other programs) but usually it's a labor intensive struggle.

[lancer525]

Interesting that you should mention the single most expensive software package I've found...

I'm interested in learning how to do it, but I'm simply not able nor willing to purchase any software to do it. There must be freewares out there.

[maurice]

There must be? Tell me abowd it.
You'll be much older than you are now before you can exhaust Pepakura's possibilities.
Check out Barry's achievements with Meta and Pepa.

[lancer525]

Yes, there must be, but I'll be danged if I know what it is...

As for Pepakura and Metasequoia, neither of them do anything but lock up my computer so I haven't ever been able to use them at all.

[Retired_for_now]

For ships these days, it's CAD to design all the parts. In the past - Google some boatbuilding references. Key concepts are "spiling" (lining out the shapes of planks) and "lofting" (converting a drawing of the hull lines to actual shapes). Cut-and-fit was the old way - do one side, then use that part as template to make a mirror image for the other side.

Yogi

[Barry]

This should give you the general idea on doing hulls with Meta full version.The bottom plates have been doubled by Meta on request to get a better curve. Just join the dots using "Face"

Sorry had not read your comment on Meta not working

[lancer525]

Ah, Yogi... You have this great way of popping my bubble-du-jour.... LOL

I know there must be a fairly simple way to translate the edge points of the formers to a flat shape without an inversion of orthography.

I suppose I'm going to have to go dig up some naval architecture tomes.

I was hoping for something better...

Barry, I missed your reply until just now. I am positively green with envy that there are folks who can manipulate those programs. I think that if I can get past the hull plating problem I have, I'll be on to something.

[Gil]

Do a Google search on "Hull Lofting".

Be careful, this stuff can and will suck you in . . . ,

+Gil

[Gil]

Rhino is used a lot in marine design. Here's their blurb on Hull Modeling;

Hull Modeling and Naval Architecture with Rhinoceros

+Gil