Ship Hull Design with T-Splines for Rhino

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T-Splines modeling technology makes it possible to design ship hulls, yachts and free form superstructures in Rhino like never before. In the marine industry there's no comparable modeling tool as powerful as the T-Splines/Orca3d/ Rhino combination. Both high quality as fast results makes it possible to model fair ship hulls in little time. The tight integration with Orca3d offers even more functionality for analysis and modeling power. T-Splines can be applied in preliminary design as well as preparing ship hulls for production.
Ship hulls made with Rapid Hull Modeling can be used as input for T-Splines.

Modeling advantages:

• model every shape you can imagine
• very low amount of control points offer highest control;
• due to the low amount of control points it takes less time to model high quality fair hulls;
• existing hull shapes are easy editable with T-Splines to new types of ship hulls or apply design changes;
• add shape control only at local regions were it is needed;
• symmetry option automatically models the other side and takes care for continuity;
• ability to convert existing NURBS and IGES surfaces back and forth;
• add creases wherever you like.

T-Splines integration with Rhino:

• T-Splines surfaces behave like NURBS surfaces when it comes to trimming decks, bulkheads etc. to a T-Splines hull shape;
• T-Splines surfaces automatically switch to NURBS surfaces when T-Splines is not installed on a computer.

Orca3d functionality that works with T-Splines: 

• real time sections to analyze the 3d shape;
• automatic lines drawing generation;
• hydrostatics and stability calculations;
• speed and power analysis;
• export to PIAS.

All these advantages don't come for nothing. Although the price is very affordable and the T-Splines user interface is very friendly it takes a while to understand the inns and outs of working with T-Splines. Also understanding how to come to high quality surfaces containing low amount of control points takes some time, especially for the first time.

Some sixty hours were invested in the results you see in the video. Now several shapes have crystallized it takes less time to edit these or modify them to other ship hull types.
If you think T-Splines adds productivity and quality to your workflow it is worth investing in T-Splines training for marine industry now offered by RhinoCentre.

Resources:

• T-Splines ship hull modeling marine training
• Buy T-Splines at the Autodesk e-store
• T-Splines website
• Orca3d website
• Contact us for purchasing one of the ship hull 3d models
• Rapid Hull Modeling

Scan and Solve for Rhino, FEM stress analysis; FEA

Villo retractable roof deflection analysis

• Scan & Solve homepage
• Download free Scan and Solve 
• Read a discussion over here

Scan and Solve for Rhino3d is one missing link for concept designers who integrate all aspects of reality in their new product designs. This new plug-in is in development and therefore free to use and test out. The ideas behind this plug-in are brilliant and result in an easy to use strength analysis tool. You only need a closed solid in Rhino and no mesh anymore!
In a clear and simple Scan and Solve menu you can specify the material, restraints and one or more loads. Depending on the complexity of the geometry your solution is presented quite fast.

Adding material, constraints and loads

As we don't have to bother with meshes anymore it is easy to compare design variations or perform other design or engineering strength analysis fast. Furthermore it is inside Rhino so the interface is well known and no import and export time is lost.

Danger levels according to Von Mises

With visual representation of deflection

For the Villo project I tested Scan and Solve in order to analyze the retractable roof. In addition I tested out the differences between hollow and solid geometry. This resulted in some interesting considerations.