Hey guys,
Anyone know of a designing program that you can input your outline curves by measurements instead of bending like aps3000. It would be nice to put in measurements for like every 6 inches or 3 or something. Anyone got any ideas?
Austin S.
Shape3d is what your after.
L
i downloaded the free trial version and cant get it to work anyone have that problem? thanks
Austin
I highly recomend Shape3d. You can key in dimensions and/or morph curves using several Bezier tools. I’ve been going back-and-forth with Emmanuel about the latest tweaks to v.7. This might be why the free download is not
up and running as his focus is on smoothing out the operation of it right now…
I found an old version of TurboCad for $20 in the bargain bin of local software store - does a great job
I use Autocad2000.
You place points where you want, then join them using a polyline and it’s done.
Also the inverted process: draw an outline or rocker, and extrac the measurements of it.
Try to find any copy of AutoCad2000 or newer, a lot on the net. If you can’t, e-mail me at .
I have been searching for a suitable programme for a while, but all the ones I have seen uses splines, it’s just splines, splines, and more splines, and the nasty thing about splines is that they can’t produce the most perfect of all curves. . . . the circular arc.
In order to produce a circular arc tail planshape curve or rocker curve the programme must be able to make a circular arc which a) intersects at right angles with a line, and b) intersects with a predetermined point not on the line. The line is drawn between the widepoints ( in the case of the planshape ) and the point is the point of the tail.
My other favourite curve is the ellipse. For the programme to draw a fitting quarter ellipse it has to intersect with the first line as before, and then it must intersect at right angles with a predetermined point on another line, this second line being at right angles to the first.
Which is why I still use a giant compass made of welding wire. Some of the tail rocker curves, when lofted full size, use a wire compass with a radius of 60 feet or more ( a guess, lets just say that we use a large portion of a football field. The trick is not to do it on windy days because then the wire sways around.
Anyone else use circular arcs and a giant compass ??
Or possibly a computer gizmo ??
Here’s my latest craze though, 3D pictures from Anim8or:
…hey T bloke, why you dont use the simple DRAW by Corel…? it have ellipses, perfect curves etc; ok, its not 3D but youll got excellents outlines…
ok…(btw I use autocad 2000-2006)
whats wrong with splines ( 
)?
OK, so I still dont know what splines are exactly… in some ways they are annoying as hell! but is some ways ( when converting to “lines and arcs” in CAM they are useful … but still I dont know exactly what the **ll splines are except they have something to do with math in a difficult way…
I used to draw with a combination of “three point arcs” and/or lines/or ellipses (overlaying some some suitable scaled image ) which was more or less understandable and easy ( for me ) but unfortunately this way the CAM program came up with more lines of program than the hardware could handle… lucky for me the software had a nifty " explode splines to arcs and lines" application after I imported the original autocad dwg to the cam program… ( good for me) still dont know what it does and how but it looks close enough for me. … SO I began to draw the planshapes in splines…(which I still avoid if I can) the way I get splines to work is … still draw in polylines and /or arcs (over the scaled images)and ellipses and then convert them to splines( which at this point smooths out the bumps and corners between the joins of the lines, arcs and polylines)… and then once more convert the darn splines to back to… arcs and lines (which will for the most part retain the smoothness of the joins - in the cam software)! our cam software is ancient AlphaCam with a Morbidelli author 506(CNC unit) -in case anyone is interested its over 10 years old. I dont know how accurate this convert and reconvert AND reconvert procedure is…BUT when comparing with with original “line and arc draw” with the final CNC program the difference between geometries is in the 1/100th of mm so… not much? a very labour intensive thing and Im sure ther e is a n easier way to do this out there, but this is the way I’ve figured out to do it…! anyone else?
Over all as long as one has to draw things in 2D , autocad is plenty… BUT IF one needs to draw in 3D… THen I think Autocad is not enough (especially when surfboards are concerned!) instead solid works or inventor might be the choice… however these two are pretty “PRO” and thus pretty EXpensive! Anyone with fair drafting and/or engineering knowledge the 2D is enough… the 3D is … well nice to have around but not a necessity, IMO. however in advanced urfboard design a good 3D program could be useful when one starts to begin to play around with all those " fluid thingies" and how the darn thing behaves in water… But that I guess concerns those who work with these things for a real living…? eh?
To answer T Bloke…: naw, I play around with the cnc as long as it works. Then when it goes “Kaputt” I will have to go play with the “giant compass” and its of string and eyeballing it…
BTW T bloke: when drawing ellipse 1:1 planshapes do you play around with the “two nails and a bit of string” ?
thats me for now… NOw must pass out in an orderly fashion for the moment. catch you all in a later ! Cheers !
My 2 european cents worth
Thanks for that link Reverb,
I had a look, the gadget will do ellipses but won’t do circular arcs (it uses a 3 point curve tool , kind of a spline).
Jouhou, I’m still using two nails and string for ellipses !
One of the great things about Shape3d, is that you can put in guide points where ever you want and then use the bezier tools to match the curve to fit to the points.
kenz,
yep, and the Beziers are selectable by types and lockable/adjustable, as are the guidelines.
Also numerical info can be used in conjunction for outline, rocker, thickness bottom contour, etc.
Once the sequence of creating a board is figured out, it becomes like shaping on-screen.
Also produces a solid model and an articulated light source to read contours.
Pretty inuitive as well…