How to turn a table of offsets into a hull and Ship Workbench...

[jebrown215]

Hello!

TOTAL newbie here to 3D cad period, let alone FreeCAD. I've been messing with this program for probably a cumulative total of 40hrs at this point and I'm kind of getting pretty discouraged. I feel like there's an "Ah ha!" moment coming, but I never quite get there.

I am building a steel sailboat and have the hull completed. I need to design the interior and am hoping to use FreeCAD to do that so that I can get a realistic perspective/model of what my thoughts regarding design will translate to once I put the interior in the boat. I have the original plans for the boat (no interior plan was drawn) and the original Table of Offsets and am trying to just get the hull into FreeCAD. I have gone through most of the YouTube tutorials and done the part design exercises with success, but I still don't know how to get the table of offsets I have into FreeCAD in any kind of usable way.

Does anyone know how to do this?

I've tried to use the ship workbench, but despite reinstalling and resetting FreeCAD multiple times, I can't get any ship examples to load and keep getting errors. Does anyone know how to actually make a ship instance from scratch so I can even use the ship workbench?

This is really frustrating and any help AT ALL you guys could give me would be really appreciated. Does anyone know of any tutorials that I haven't found yet regarding boat design and FreeCAD? The Ship Workbench tutorial does't seem to apply, and even if it did, I can't get the examples to load to work through the tutorial.

To recap, my goal is to get the hull into FreeCAD accurately so that I can design the boat in 3D. I really hope someone knows how to do this!

[triplus]

Don't have a good general advice ATM. As i am not using Ship workbench and don't know its capabilities in full. Lately Ship workbench didn't have all that much development and user feedback going on. Hopefully that will improve in the future. Such projects i guess shows that it is possible:

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=27269

[hammax]

… I had only a short and disappointing encounter with ShipsWB. After that I made my own thing.
A good WB to do hull design is CurvesWB.
Not knowing what format your offset data plan has, you can also model your frames by numerical data.
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=22148

[wandererfan]

I have gone through most of the YouTube tutorials and done the part design exercises with success, but I still don't know how to get the table of offsets I have into FreeCAD in any kind of usable way.

Definitely not a naval architect (nor an FC power user), but is the "Table of Offsets" the positioning of the internal bulkheads? If so, you could put Datum planes at each bulkhead position and draw bulkhead sketches on the datum plane.

[jebrown215]

… I had only a short and disappointing encounter with ShipsWB. After that I made my own thing.
A good WB to do hull design is CurvesWB.
Not knowing what format your offset data plan has, you can also model your frames by numerical data.
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=22148

Thanks a ton for the tips! I just installed the CurvesWB add-on and will start messing with it. Regarding the link, that's the second time I've come across that. I'm sure I'm missing something, but how do I get the post into english?

[jebrown215]

I have gone through most of the YouTube tutorials and done the part design exercises with success, but I still don't know how to get the table of offsets I have into FreeCAD in any kind of usable way.

Definitely not a naval architect (nor an FC power user), but is the "Table of Offsets" the positioning of the internal bulkheads? If so, you could put Datum planes at each bulkhead position and draw bulkhead sketches on the datum plane.

That's a good idea, and from what I've read, it's a popular method regardless of what CAD program is being used. I just haven't figured out how to actually do that. I mean, I can draw on the planes, but I don't yet know how to create and space the planes yet. Also, will i be able to delete the plane and keep the frame once I do have it setup?

[hammax]

… for CurvesWB look also here
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=22675

[bejant]

how do I get the post into english?

Hi jebrown, and welcome! You can try google translate:
https://translate.google.com/

Copy the link of the page you want to translate and post it into the box on the left of the google translate web page. After it gives you a link in the right box, click it.

Or just click here:
https://translate.google.com/translate? ... t=&act=url

[wandererfan]

Also, will i be able to delete the plane and keep the frame once I do have it setup?

You would keep the planes, but set Visibility off.