Hull Design & Surface
Modelling
The Autoship hull design/surface modelling
program combines the graphical user interface of Windows with the dexterity of NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline)
mathematics, the high-end CAD standard for surface modelling,
to give you the tools to quickly and efficiently create
any hull shape from a racing yacht to a super tanker,
including the superstructure and appendages.

Click to Read a Client's Testimonial on Autoship
Autoship Key Features
- Windows® 10 Compatible
- Metric or imperial units
- Choice of several main screen layouts
- 4 simultaneous views or single view
- Multiple Zoom and Pan
- US, European & customizable coordinates
- Ten levels of Undo and Redo
- OpenGL rendering with walk through
- Translucency in rendering
- Extensive use of context menus to speed
operations
- Navigator pane provides tree-view control of model
- Export & Import DXF and IGES
- Edit planes: create a list of 3D views in which vertices are constrained to move only in the plane of that view
- Surfaces can be coloured, making it easy to pick
out one surface in a complex design
- Developable surface generation plus the ability
to export the flattened surface
- Curvature displays for curves and surfaces, including
rendering of Gaussian and other curvatures
- Curve and surface knot redistribution
- Surface to surface intersection with trimming
- On-screen measurement tools
- Curve and surface fairing operations
- Extensive offset table generation
- Tools for matching existing hull forms
- Built-in foil shape library
- Quick hydrostatics, including sectional area curves
- Export geometry files to Autohydro
- Single button operation to create station contours
from baseline data.
- Optional display compression in the X direction
aids fairing
- Newly-enhanced Shell Expansion output
3D Viewing - The user-friendly interface enables
the designer to work either in four views simultaneously
(profile, plan, body and rotatable 3-D) or else one
of the views singly by merely a click of a button. The
four views may be dynamically resized at any time and
may be individually zoomed and panned. There are ten
levels of zoom/unzoom. Also featured are ten levels
of undo/redo to trace and retrace design steps. You
can specify multiple light sources and generate realistic,
Z-buffered, smooth shaded, full colour renderings with
walk through and printer-resolution export
Object Based Hierarchy - Autoship's building
blocks consist of Points, Curves, Surfaces, Polyobjects
and Groups. Groups are collections of objects, including
other groups, which may be scaled, rotated, mirrored,
offset, and instanced to allow very complex structures
to be created from a minimal number of objects. Changes
to an object are propagated through the groups that
contain it. Autoship's Navigator window allows
you to navigate through the model with minimal effort,
control the attributes of the model's objects and create
and delete objects.
Objects - Points may be free in space or embedded
on a curve or surface. Curves may be free, embedded
on another curve or surface or projected onto a surface,
and the curves ends may be attached to points. There
are several methods available to create a curve, such
as specifying endpoints, sketching, as arc or rectangle,
by projection onto a surface, by lofting through points
and by offset from an existing curve. Autoship
also includes a library of NACA foil section curves.
Surface edges may be attached to (or matched to) a curve
or another surface. Several methods are available to
create a surface, including specifying dimensions, rotating
a curve about an axis, extruding a curve along a vector,
sweeping pattern curves along one or two guide curves,
ruling or developing between two curves, skinning through
multiple curves and blending between two surfaces. During
editing, the dynamic display feature allows you to see
both the original and the edited version of curves and
surfaces on the screen.
Feature Patches - A
system for introducing local shape control on a surface
without dealing with unwanted control points. The feature
patch blends at its edges to the shape of the parent
surface. When the parent surface shape is changed the patch moves with
the change, retaining its own shape. Read
more...
Edge Mate
- Allows all or part of the edge of one surface
to be matched exactly to all or part of another surface's
edge. The user can choose positional, tangent or curvature
continuity from one surface to the other.
Project Integration and Export - Surfaces which
incorporate Feature Patches and/or Edge Mate are fully
integrated into the Autoship project. The surfaces
are contoured, intersected, trimmed, meshed and rendered
- just like any other Autoship surface. The surfaces
export exactly via IGES, making transfer of designs
from Autoship to other programs simple and accurate.
Scaling and Parametric Variation- An existing
design can be changed to create a new design by application
of piecewize lscaling or by varying specified parameter
values. Both apply to single surfaces or groups. Longitudinal,
transverse and vertical scaling can be specified separately
and applied to the whole hull or a limited part of it.
User-specified changes of parameter values (LCB, Cp,
displacement, etc.) are achieved by an automatic iterative
process.
Curvature Displays - To help in fairing, Autoship
features many different types of curvature display.
Curve surface and contour curvature may be displayed
as porcupine quills in each view, or as a curve of curvature
in a separate window. Additionally, surface curvature
may be portrayed as a colour map of mean, Gaussian or
absolute curvature, or as a coloured rendering with
shading.
Engineering Accuracy - The user can specify
a tolerance to be used for DXF output. Curves and surfaces
are then automatically refined to meet or exceed that
tolerance. The user can specify high accuracy for NC
cutting or set a larger tolerance value to save on computation
time. Models may be exported and imported in 2D or 3D
via industry-standard DXF and IGES file formats. Autoship
can also output a complete lines plan as a three-view,
2-D DXF as well as in tables.
Shell Expansion - A new algorithm results in much smoother and more accurate results; a new dialogue provides control of stations and output entities such as contours, layers, colours and even curves; a new Preview mode helps get to the desired final output faster.
Hydrostatics/Resistance - Autoship comes
with built-in Quick Hydrostatics plus fast links to
Autohydro for full hydrostatic analyses and to
Autopower
for resistance and powering prediction.
Operating System Requirements: Windows® Vista (business), Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 Professional (32 or 64 bit), .NET Framework 4.5 with a Pentium Processor. Minimum resolution: 1280 x 800 (WXGA). OpenGL: recommended v3.2 or higher, minimum v2.1.
|
Autoship Pro
|
Autoship Std
|
Max length |
Unlimited
|
Unlimited
|
Max # surfaces |
Unlimited
|
40
|
Developable surfaces |
✔
|
✔
|
IGES import/export |
✔
|
|
Surface Match |
✔
|
|
Feature Patch |
✔
|
|
Edge Mate |
✔
|
|
Viewer walk through |
✔
|
|
Pricing - For product pricing please contact
your Autoship System's Dealer
or email autoship@autoship.com
to request a quote.
|