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From: Tom MacNaughton
Date: 08 Mar 2008
Time: 14:49:18 -0500
Remote Name: 66.252.35.213
We teach quite a variety of methods of developing hulls using Rhino in the “CAD Course”. The closest thing to “traditional” methods is a method using “curve networks”. If you want you can exactly duplicate the traditional lines development process, although with a tremendously greater accuracy, but it isn’t necessary. One thing we don’t do is start with a “primitive” shape and push and pull it. That could be done but simply wouldn’t be efficient. I guess you could even start with a “solid block” and “carve” it by cutting off pieces just as Capt. Nat did but it would be a slow and inefficient way to do it. I’m not sure what you are saying about another forum. The great thing about Rhino is that it is an inherently 3D package with extremely versatile underlying math. I cannot stress enough that trying to describe the power of Rhino in a sentence or two is just not possible. People design boats, aircraft, automobiles, running shoes, bicycles, houses and just about anything else you can imagine. Basically with proper training you can select groups of Rhino tools and design essentially anything. Different types of professionals will choose different tools. By the way remember that Rhino has had naval architects involved in its development from the first and is inherently suitable for yacht and small craft design. It does NOT need third party “marine” plug-ins to be a complete set of tools for the naval architectural office. There are very useful plug-ins available. Our favorites are McNeel’s own “Flamingo” photorealistic renderer, the “Penguin” illustrative renderer, and the “Bongo” animation package. Virtually every rendering you see these days in a boating magazine was probably done with “Flamingo”. “Rhino” itself has a pretty darn good rendering engine, but the “Flamingo and “Penguin” are definitely worth it. If you design a lot of plywood or metal boats “RhinoNest” is a good plug-in for getting the most efficient use of given sheets of material by “nesting” parts together to minimize waste. Although we normally do all our stability calculations right in Rhino, you can also link Rhino directly to the GHS program if you need to do really complex stability studies for commercial or military craft. I really could go on for hours and nowhere near touch all the abilities of this software. It is the first package which really does the whole job for a naval architect. At the time we started switching to using it, we could replace about $9,300 worth of software with Rhino and do a far better job. Since then the capabilities of Rhino have grown immensely. Yes, we use Rhino essentially exclusively these days. Manual drafting is limited to doing updates or very minor modifications on older designs done before we got into on screen design.