If this a stitch and glue type boat...

Rhino would work for this but I'd use the offsets as reference points
only. If you limit the number of control points of a curve to 3-5, Rhino
will produce a fair surface from those curves. There are limts to that
of course. When you make a curve or surface in Rhino (and similar
applications) the fewer amount of control points you use, the fairing
the curve/surface will be.

Set up the offsets and then redraw the curves and re-position the
control points so you get close, but don't force them to match
perfectly. Rhino does a nice job forming "natural" curves.

--
Matt Langenfeld
JEM Watercraft
http://www.jemwatercraft.com


Stephen Baker wrote:
James says:


try the free download of Rhino. (Google for Rhino 3d)


snip

... but
I Would never work without Rhino


I use Rhino every day, but would never try it for this purpose. The shpaes
produced are just not fair. For a quickie guestimate of numbers, it may be
fine, but that is it.
Here's an example, kinda...
I found this old lines plan in a book by Phillips-Birt:

http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/sh...ize/big/sort/1
/cat/500

After 2 hours with Rhino and a tracing program, I had something that looked
right in profile, but had a surface so unfair that you could see the "planks"
where Rhino had tried to fit a surface.

Two more hours in AutoShip, woring "off-surface", it had faired into this:

http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/sh...ort/1/size/big
/cat/500/page/

I'm not going ot kid you that those lines are exact, but they are extremely
close.

Eventually, my imagination got the better of me and I stuck on a deck and rig:
http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/sh...ort/1/cat/500/
page/1

With just Rhino, it would be another "failed project" on the back-burner.

Steve
Stephen C. Baker - Yacht Designer
http://members.aol.com/SailDesign/pr...cbweb/home.htm