You’re welcome! Your build pictures make me very happy
I hope I can use the pictures you’ve taken (for documentation or on a website or …), I’ll certainly refer to you then.
If anyone has any feature request, feel free to post them! I won’t implement them all, but I will consider them for sure! And since this project is open source, you’re always free to implement them yourself
For future releases I’m working on:
3D view. I already rendered fins in 3D using my code, but the code is not ready for a release and it is a bit complex to get the right libraries on windows (since I have no windows at home, I can’t spend to much time getting this to work).
In program fin editor. But this is no priority for me since the svg method (with inkscape) does the job just as good.
Modelling the fin as a NURBS surface. This is a major modification which will take a while
open usage of the images, brother. i always figure if i put something up here, i’ve lost control of it anyway, so i might as well free it officially. open source, commons licensing-- it all appeals to my personality. look up “individualist anarchism” sometime.
my real wish with regard to any use of the imagery is that credit be given to robin mair and hanalei fin systems, as a pic of their hammer quad was my seed crystal. it was like the 105% test case for your program. anyway, he’s a professional designer and fabricator, and i’m just an eccentric experimenter. if that fin outline turns you on, buy some from them.
i snuck out of work early yesterday for a bit of spring gardening and epoxy work. the stepped ledges got mudded with some filled RR in advance of another round of fairing. i took a few more pics, and i’ll probably snap a couple more when i drive up to the shop later today. you will have to patiently wait for me to get my act together, pull the pics off the cam, and post.
New to this forum, but saw this post and downloaded the program. Man!?!?! try as I might it just won’t run. Any suggestions?. Is there a download version that generates a startup icon on your desktop for computer numbskulls like me??
Click the start button -> all programs -> finFoil_0.4 -> finFoil_0.4
This is just like any other program you installed on your computer.
You can also find the exe file here:
C:\Program Files\finFoil_0.4\finFoil.exe
or if you are on a 64 bit OS:
C:\Program Files (x86)\finFoil_0.4\finFoil.exe
If you want to have a desktop icon, you should create a shortcut yourself (right-click on the exe and select “create shortcut”, then copy the shortcut to your desktop). I won’t make an installer that does that automatically, making installers is not something that I like spending more of my free time on.
I hope this helps and that you enjoy the application.
it’s been a long time without any more pics for your program documentaion. these aren’t up-to-date either, but more so. since this time, i’ve mudded them twice more with differently pigmented RR bog. these do show how nicely the initial foil developed even before the mud. i know they’re almost comically thick, but it’s a good test case regardless.
one more up to date as of this afternoon. it’s been mudded and faired twice. you can see the white and pearl in the first and the transparent red in the second. minor tweaks to finish.
Just a totally random request, but if you get into making Export files would you consider the option to add on an FCS or Futures base to the fin model?
I was wanting to play with 3D printing a surfboard fin and remembered about your FinFoil program so I dug it up from the archives.
It would be cool to have the option to add on a fin base, so if you decided to export a file for CNC or 3D printing it’d have the fin base on there and you could manufacture a finished ready-to-use fin.
I assume STL would work? Since it is created for a form of 3D printing (stereolithography).
I will not implement this in finFoil v0.x
I’m working on finFoil v1.x which will be way easier to use, and will probably run on mobile devices too. (tablets and maybe smartphones).
finFoil v1.x will calculate the surface (contour lines) in real time while editing the fin contour. There will be more profiles to choose from and you will be able to define custom profiles.
Exporting to various file formats will follow later. But feel free to implement it yourself for v0.x
Progress is quite slow, but I’ll get there eventually. (You can follow the progress on https://github.com/hrobeers/finFoil if you are somewhat familiar with programming)
Totally understandable, it was just a total random request to add to your v2 list of something to play with if you wanted to add features. Being able to design fins, add a base, then have them 3D printed would be really cool. Imagine sharing fin files with other Swaylocks guys how we currently share AKUShaper files.
Actually you can run the source code on a Mac, but since I don’t have access to a Mac, I’m not able to make a package for it.
But since v1.x will be programmed in C++/Qt, it will be extremely easy for you to compile it on a Mac (without any programming knowledge). It will even target the mobile platforms.
v0.x is more difficult to compile/run from source since it contains a mix of Python and Fortran source code.
Version 1 sounds great Hans, thanks for all of the efforts to get it done.
Would it be possible to output the contours as some sort of 2D CAD or machine code? The end user could import that into their software of choice and add a fin base and postprocess for their milling machine.
I’ll try to build it from source tonight. I’m pretty clueless on compiling from source though, but I’m curious to play with it.
Worked on some really thick wood fins a while ago but never glassed them. I’d like to take the same outline and play with foil thickness. Your program may be a cool way to do that empirically. Especially if I could get them 3D printed to take out any human-induced variation
even though I like the possibilities of editing and seeing the results directly I would love to see some numbers with that… and still be able to import a svg or a regular background image (probably harder). But all in all it´s great!!!
Oh, how difficult would it be for me as a noob to make it run on my Mac? I don´t mind installing any development environment or other stuff needed for that…
Is there a way to export the information generated in Fin Foil into any format? Like an STL so I can 3D print my fins? It’s really important to me that I have any way of exporting from the program?
