Simple CAD?

Purely a hobbyist, making radio controlled boats both electric and yachts, I
have been trying to find a simple CAD system which does not cost the earth
(even free!!!!).

The main use would be to develope hull lines so that I could have a "Look
See" before construction.

Any advice or hints?

JB

 

Cheap? IntelliCAD
Simple.......how simple is simple?

MichaelB
www.michaelbulatovich.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "JB" <postmaster@[127.0.0.1]>
Newsgroups: alt.cad.autocad
Sent: Monday, August 09, 2004 6:56 AM
Subject: Simple CAD?

 

HiHo;
You might take a look at "Rhino" from www.mcneel.com
It's a great program for hull design.

 

Intellicad would probably be your best bet. It's not free... but it can be
had for about a tenth of price of Autocad. The one I would suggest is from
Bricscad. You can down load a free 30 day trial copy from them at...

http://www.bricscad.com/home.jsp?site=1

.... I don't know of any free cad packages.

Take care,
TimB

 

Simple enough to let me perform the functions of hull design.
I am computer literate and a retired engineer so some degree of difficulty
is not a problem as long as there is not too much gobble de gook
Any input welcome

JB

 

$895 is not buttons - will have to stick to my drawing board and cardboard
mock-ups
at that price.
Pensioners can't splash cash even though the product looks good
I may try the trial version if they have one.
Thanks

JB

 

I'm not trying to confuse things for you, but there are applications out
there that will model shapes like boat hulls much better than AutoCAD. I
draw (usually) orthogonal buildings so I have zero experience in this. You
have been directed to one such application, but as you point out, it's not
to be had for pocket change.

I'm not sure what you hope to get by drafting your designs with CAD. If you
can draw on paper, I'd stick with that for your purposes. Any CAD package is
going to take some time to learn. Why spend all that time learning CAD when
you could be building models, which I take it you like to do. (I thought old
boat designers built physical models, and developed sections from them.)
--


MichaelB
www.michaelbulatovich.com

 

Very true, on occasions I have built 3 or 4 hulls before I was satisfied.
This can be costly on time and sometimes on materials.

Many thanks for your help

JB

 

Perhaps not a bad idea. Rhino's cheap as CAD goes. One of Rhino's
features is stripping: laying out the planks for a hull (or other)
shape. (This IS the alt.cad.autocad group, and Autocad's ~$3k ) That
said, there's a lot of other CAD that is cheaper and still functions
well. Intellicad is one popular package, Turbocad's another.

Very few pieces of software do a decent job of hull modeling. Even
then the user has to know what they're doing and how the software
works. Rhino does have a trial version, so you can get a feel to see
if this is *really* the way you want to go. <grin>

 

I used to do that . Now I build the whole thing in 3d before I ever start
on the physical model. Virtually eliminates those "now that I look at it, I
sould have done things a bit differently" moments.

 

--
Phil Davis
247PalmBeachRE.com

I don't know about how simple it is when it come to hull
design or CAD but here is a link to some free and
interesting hull design software:

http://www.carlsondesign.com/#Fun_Shareware

And a page with several links on boatbuilding:

http://home.clara.net/gmatkin/softwr.htm

Have fun!

Phil

 

I have had a look at this option but it would probably mean wiping my hard
drive and restarting to do the conversion properly.
As it may or may not be suitable, I will not endeavour to attempt
installation
Many thanks
JB

 

Hi JB,

I don't have an experiance in this area either.
Just for fun try playing around with SILO.
http://nevercenter.com/index.php/Downloads/504
I've found that it is the most intuitive modeling program around and
it is very cheap. The shapes that it makes just seem to be naturaly
flowing and beautiful.

Best of luck
Zac.

 

I have come to the conclusion, that other than spending an inappropriate
amount of money for after all is a hobby, there are no suitable simple
programmes for evolving and designing hull lines.

Unless of course someone can prove me completely wrong

JB

 

What do you call an inappropriate amount of money? $5.00? $500.00?
$5000.00? If you want a freeform NURBS programs for under $100.00 that is
easy to use, forget it. If you want a 2D program for zero cash that you
could design a supertanker with, that is available. Turbocad Pro V4 is the
first program that comes to mind. Up until recently, a free download from
IMSI. They dropped it simply because it took a little attention to detail to
install it on XP and they got tired of answering questions. You could
probably convince me to send you a copy. If you want to join the AutoCAD
crowd without depleting your savings, Intellicad LT, at $60.00 is a very
good program that is so much like AutoCAD that if you can run one you can
run the other. There are more. Deltacad, at $30.00, is less sophisticated
than the previous two mentioned but is relatively easy to use and will do
the job. Silo has been suggested. It looks like it may well do the job, and
in 3D, but it is going to take some learning. With a price tag of just over
$100.00, it is not at all expensive.

 

I have downloaded the trial version of DeltaCad and I will you know how I
get on with the program.
If it can do gears it should manage hull line curves etc.

JB