"Ed Jackson" wrote in message
7.136...
I have a table of offsets for a hull design I would like to build. Does
anyone know of any softawre that I can use to plot these with? No big deal
if I have to do it by hand, but thought software might be interesting.

You can do it with any cad program. Just enter the points of offset for
every station on a different z-plane, spaced apart by the amount stated in
the offset table or building description. Most cad programs offer a single
point entity, which can often be set to appear as a little cross. Then, as a
simulation of a batten used on a real lofting floor, you can use a spline or
bezier curve to try to fit a smooth line between the points of a single
station. I found splines to be the easiest. After a while you get the right
feeling for the number of control points to start with. Mostly you can do it
with tree control points for a round-bilge design, but in keel or transom
areas you might need 4 or even 5.

After you entered the curves for every station, you'll have a nice 3d wire
model of your boat. Then rotate it and start drawing the buttock points and
draw their splines. Then you'll often notice that in order to the the
buttocks smooth, you'll have to modify the station curves again. Kind of an
iterative process. And at last, you can do the same procedure for the
diagonals as well.

Meindert