Egilman

Ok, first step in loading images into SW for modeling... Open SolidWorks, Go to: Start > Programs > SolidWorks, Open a new part with model units set to millimeters..... In the feature tree on the left side of the screen, select the three planes, right click and make them visible by clicking on the eyeball. (SW 2021) Select the Front Plane in the Feature Manager, right click and select the Sketch icon to make a new sketch... Then go to: Tools > Sketch Tools > Sketch Picture and select it... Browse to the location of your image files and select the front or bow view drawing, Click to open it.... As you can see in this image below the picture opens on the plane much larger than the initial plane.... On the left side of the screen you can see the sketch picture properties.... your going to change these to set up your image for modeling.... In the width and height section the bottom two shows the current dimensions of the image, prior to scaling, we are about to set the scale of the image.... A Predator 108 measures out to 32.92m OAL, 6.3m beam & 1.58m draft, we are not going to worry about the draft cause being a deep "V" hull the keel isn't parallel to the waterline anyway.... As long as we have a known dimension SW will scale the drawing for us.... (we are going to work in full scale) You notice the blue scale bar in the middle of the drawing, you take the left end of the bar (purple dot) and place it on the outermost line on the drawing.... (zoom in for accuracy) Then you click and drag the arrow on the right side of the line and move the dot to the opposite side of the drawing.... (again zooming in for accuracy) When you release the arrow to place the dot, an input box will appear and you enter the beam dimension 6.3m.... (Solidworks automatically translates units to the appropriate one for the unit settings of the model your working on so type 6.3m in the box and press enter) Check the image below, Solidworks scaled the image up to where the plane is no longer viewable.... Also, take a look at the image dimensions in bottom of the properties section, the image is now ...7.133m wide and 9.5m tall! Easy Peasy!! We now deal with the position of the image relative to the origin point in the sketch.... The second dimension from the top is the "Y" plane and represents the distance above or below the origin point so we change that to zero placing the lower edge of the image right on top of the origin point.... Next we change the top dimension which represents the "X" plane and we will shift the image so it is centered over the origin point as in the image below... (use the arrows to tell which way positive or negative numbers) Next we no longer need the scale tool so uncheck it to disable it in this drawing and leave the lock aspect ration selected... Under transparency, select full image, a slider and percentage box will appear and set your transparency to your liking... (I prefer .4 or 40%) this allows you to see thru the drawing to the other side.... Now you select the green check mark to record your sketch picture preferences and return to the sketch edit view.... In the sketch edit view select the Front Plane again and a box will appear around the outside of the plane your image is on and the balls are the handles to resize it, drag the balls to increase the Plane size so it matches the edges of the image as shown below..... At this point, close the sketch.... Last thing to do is rename the sketch and plane in the tree on the left to more appropriately describe what it is.... I use Bow Plane for the plane and Bow View Drawing for the sketch..... This is what you wind up with in the image below..... Notice that the plane your image in on in the window is now labeled Bow Plane and no longer Front Plane.... Next step, we do the side view....

A MK V would be nice, and period appropriate.... {chuckle}

BINGO! unless you become very very good at mesh (NURBS) surface modeling... Mesh modeling can be used to represent surfaces but that's all they are and as solid objects all the triangles or quads need to be on the same plane with the surface normals all facing the same direction... This isn't as important for a CGI model but is critical for a 3D print model... The resulting mesh exported into the STL file HAS to be manifold for resin printing, you can get away with some manifold errors on an FDM printer, but not on an SLA printer... At least that is what I learned from my test prints of downloaded models and discovery that some modelers uploading models to the various sites have learned that as well, and make models specifically designed for SLA resin printing.... Best practice is to stay manifold in your models... {chuckle} Both Solidworks and F360 insure it before it will allow you to make it a solid body Good point Kevin

Welcome aboard Kevin... Good point, except the tools one decides to use is what works best for him/her.... My experience over the years is one is no better than the other, they all do the same things just one does it differently than the other... and we are talking about general 3D modeling software here... Rhino 3D as mentioned by Richard above is a professional production grade 3D application and yes is used in many industries, it is the top of the pyramid in terms of capability, The rest like Inventor and Autocad 3D are a slight step behind it in terms of capability... (especially for curvy surface modeling) Solidworks is also almost as capable as Rhino, but it is a solid modeling program as is Fusion 360 and their surface tools are not quite as capable as Rhino's... There are other lesser well known 3D softwares out there too many to list them all... Basically, find one you like and learn to use it.... I'm not going to tell anyone which software they should be using, I'm a general newbe to this so I have no opinion that is worth anything... Just trying to show the process of modeling a ships hull in software.... It's not as difficult as some make it out to be, but you are also right, it's not as easy as someone with several years with a specific software package experience makes it look... Just like any skill, practice makes perfect... The more you use your chosen package the better you will get at it and eventually you will become an expert breezing right through a model that today makes your head spin.... Me, I'm still working out the 3D modeling workflow as it would pertain to 3D printing, (solid models) But ship hulls are created easiest by lofting surfaces, hence the need for software that does both.... Particularly one that can directly create solid objects from lofts.... I don't know yet if Rhino has that capability, but for what we are doing, it is essential, that means Solidworks and Fusion 360 and possibly Inventor, because I know for a fact that Autocad 3D does not.... (it can be done but it doesn't do it directly like SW & F360) Anyway welcome to the thread, and please bring forth anything you wish to bring up and we will try to figure it out together... EG

Ok I"m going to start with the Sunseeker Predator 108 in Solidworks by loading the documents, then loading them in Fusion 360.... You can get the drawings here..... And you might want to check out Jan's site, (Learnsolidworks.com Jan Zuderdyn) his courses are pricey, but they will get you familiar with working in Solidworks fairly quickly..... Now those drawings are nice, and I built the hull using them, but they are not accurate, it's like they were drawn to facilitate the course which is ok we are here to learn how to use drawings to build a hull in software, not design a hull for a customer.... So I first load them one by one in the free Gimp image processing software to accurize them..... Typical stuff, using the keel line as a baseline I make sure it is horizontal, using the Guides, Crop Tool, Canvas size function I center it in the image making sure it is an easy to remember round number size at 300 dpi... It is then exported as a PNG file under the same name appending Modified to the name so I don't mix up the source with my edited files.... The image above is at 5450x1600 a bit fuzzy in places but not bad for a raster image..... When I have accomplished this I'm ready to set up the drawings in Solidworks.... This is a good habit to get into the practice of, it is much easier to model when you have drawings that are all in synch with each other before you start modeling... The main deck.... (at 5450x1200) Remember, if you do download the drawings from the link above, they are not the same as these I've modified.... (I did quite a bit to them to match the pictures of the real ship)

Nice drawings Richard, yep the setup is much the same for airplanes.... Anyone that has built a balsa wood airplane knows the keel and bulkhead method of construction.... Ship hulls can be built the same way.... 80 meters 240 ft, 5 decks, a touch larger than the 35 meter 2 deck Predator..... The Sunseeker 108 Predator's claim to fame? is was in the movie Casino Royal, James Bond... Revell didn't miss the boat.... Thanks for the link....

Welcome aboard Wayne, I have several other cad programs loaded as well, Free Cad, Auto Cad, Revit and a couple of other lesser lights as well... Too many to do them all.... But the basic process should be the same for all of them....

Welcome aboard Mark! I hope we all can...

I have a copy of Rhino, but haven't installed it yet.... And, I am completely unfamiliar with it.... Although I am familiar with Solidworks and have a working knowledge of Fusion 360... Inventor I have just started getting around in... One thing I'm learning is they all have similar workflows for similar subjects... Just different ways of implementing it in the software... My Ideal for this is not absolute engineering accuracy.... Simply using the best images one can acquire without a large outlay for plans, usually lower grade online images... I don't intend for absolute perfection, we are simply modelers so the natural compromises that need to be made for modeling will take it's effect here... My expertise comes from the Boeing model shop and I feel very comfortable imaging airplanes rather than ship hulls, but the process is, in general, similar.... The Predator 108 drawings are simple 5 view drawings... Port Side, Bow, Stern, Weather Deck and Hull Bottom, I also have a cache of photos I've collected from the net... I've had to take them into Gimp to correct them as well so they match each other and the pictures as close as I can make out.... The result of my first attempt in Solidworks I posted in the opening post above..... The USS Nitro is a complete Booklet of General Plans I downloaded from Nara and that is all I have for it... The SS United States I have more documentation, a low grade BoGP from Nara and several dozen drawings from various websites around the web.... Some basic hull lines as well... (and a cache of pictures) I also have the five month series of articles from Popular Mechanics from '52-'53 on building a 36" solid hull model of her.... I learned a long time ago, the accuracy needed for industrial design or production of the real thing is impossible in a practical scale modeling world also, I remember reading my ship modelers assistant and several books on modeling ship hulls where the opinion is that a fair hull can be engineered, but the best judge of fairness is the human eye... (I know, hearsay in the ship design industry, chuckle, hearsay in the aircraft industry as well) Thanks for joining in, any and all tips tricks and advice is greatly appreciated..... I may just load up Rhino and give it a shot as well.... But you've sussed it out, I'm looking towards the process how to get from a mishmash of half-assed online images to a halfway decent representation of a ships hull.... The software really doesn't matter, the process is the same....

Welcome Richard, Any and all expertise is welcome.... Thanks for the link, I've downloaded it thru my Scribd account and will review it... but yes the first one from what I reviewed tends to follow the basic procedures used to make the Predator hull.... It's a fairly simple procedure.....

Welcome aboard Alan....

Welcome aboard Craig, hopefully we both learn something... {chuckle}

Hi all, I've been familiarizing myself with three different software packages.... Inventor, Fusion 360 and Solidworks.... I do general modeling on almost any subject that strikes my fancy, ships being one of them.... and since I just acquired a 3D printer I thought is would be nice if I really learned how to use it.... So what I'm going to do is attempt to build several ship hulls using different software packages.... The first will be a Yacht, a Sunseeker Predator 108 in Solidworks... a 108 foot luxury yacht which has already had a plastic model produced commercially.... (Revell Germany) and a 3D model released... I do not have either one of those models and will be attempting to design it using nothing but drawings.... (I've already done it, just going to show the process) I haven't decided on the second yet, but I'm thinking about the USS Nitro AE-2 a WWII ammunition ship using nothing but it's official US Navy BoGP dated 1945.... (poor condition but complete) This one hasn't been done in either plastic nor 3D yet.... (but you can buy it commercially from SD modelmakers) The third is going to be the SS United States, This ship exists as both a plastic model by several companies, (Revell & Glenco) has been scratchbuilt innumerable times both static and RC, and has been 3D modeled.... but I am going to try my own interpretation from nothing but a low quality BoGP and online images..... This will probably be a long term exercise cause I'm still learning the software, so plan on enduring my mistakes and all advice and experience will be welcome... The point of this thread is to open up the subject of hull building in common solid modeling 3-D design software... (and to sharpen my skills and hopefully everyone elses) So a few examples of the images I will be working with.... Sunseeker Predator 108.... AE-2 USS Nitro.... The SS United States.... The Predator is a simple Deep "V" hull design, the USS Nitro is a typical turn of the century commercial hull design, the SS United States is a mid century large, (990 foot) fast hull design.... If I can design any one of these hulls and produce a workable set of plans for them, then it makes it easier for the modeler to do the same.... Thanks for looking..... EG

My understanding was that the black dividing line was painted by hand in the field to delineate them from the American tanks which used the same pattern as delivered to them.... The tri-color camo was painted at the factory... Looks good to me.... Well done

Ok an FM-1 Wildcat, mid war, off an escort carrier in the Atlantic.... you would be hit or miss on the interior painting.... Prewar, the bulkheads were white or very light grey and the hangar deck was dark deck grey.... They remained that way up to late '42 when the orders came down to remove all flammable materials below decks not consistent with operational needs... And another thing to note, that order was specifically directed to the Pacific fleet, not the Atlantic fleet, (at least not initially) Admiral King didn't make it a fleet wide order till the middle of '43... so if you were building a plane on a Pac. Flt ship I would say yes, bare metal would be appropriate, but your markings indicate an Atlantic fleet squadron flying from an escort carrier on convoy duty.... (late '42 early '43 based upon the aircraft markings) Deck grey would be appropriate and the most likely scenario.... Your images show both believe it or not... and the color shot shows a deck grey floor, light grey bulkheads, light grey overhead.... The aircraft is also in the same color scheme, (pattern) as yours is with similar markings... Prewar aircraft grey period, ('38-'41) it would in general be a typical hanger deck prewar.... (and for the Atlantic Fleet throughout the early war period) Just my opinion brother.... she's looking beautiful....

Well, I imagine your going to put it on a deck grey hanger deck undergoing some sort of maintenance.... When they had those covers off, they were usually placed on the deck, face up, behind the gear under the fuselage...... Nice to see you working on her again my friend....

The Redcoats are coming! The Redcoats are coming!.... Mean lookin dudes as well! Nicely done brother....

Nice work....

Thank you, being a newbe myself I was afraid I would get it wrong.... Agreed, scans of blueprints/drawings are notoriously distorted.... Working with scanned or microfilmed BoGP's I soon realize they are only as good as the skills of the original photographer.... Then there is the automatic issue of lens distortion, then age deterioration... Lots of issues to deal with to convert them into useable drawings... Back when I started out with 3D in Maya then Blender, there was a tutorial I found on prepping drawings for use in 3D design software... There is a lot of issues to fix especially in scanned naval drawings, given their size they are difficult to scan accurately.... But that is how I was introduced to Gimp and how to fix and correct drawings which is a huge rabbit hole itself... (no time for that here, too big a subject) Most of the time coming up with perpendicular or parallel lines is impossible.... The most accurate line we have is the keel line.... My method of getting a straight scale loa measurement in fusion 360's calibrate function is to use the edit canvas feature to move my first point I want to measure from to the origin, then close and move the canvass to match the vertical origin line to the left side of the screen... Then I activate the calibration function and measure horizontally from the point I want to calibrate to, to the edge of the screen... you can get awful close to horizontal this way.. (within a very small window of deviation) Once calibrated to size/length, you then open the edit routine again and move the calibrated drawing to where ever you want it... It even works for drawings where the stern is inches higher than the stem..... Use the edge of the screen for your base ruler and move the point you want to measure from to it.... Then you can make the first calibration point anywhere along that line vertically.... it's like drawing a vertical baseline except it's a virtual one... Or you can add a vertical line to the drawing in PS or Gimp to use as a base line... There are several different ways to do it my friend...

Yeah I'm kinda wrapping my head around this as well... The order of features you add can have a dramatic effect on workflow for just a single component... And the more complex the component the the more complicated it becomes.... As far as a note feature for sketching? there is none, and there is a request in their support forums to add it... But it's not getting a lot of traction....

That's the thing that made it stand out for me, a Pz III could be easily disassembled with a simple derrick or boom truck, it didn't need a Strabo Crane to do any lifts.... I wish I had captured it.... It was easily repairable in the field with common hand tools.... I can't conceive why they would be lifting one end of it...

You need one of these to go with it..... BR-52

And they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks..... Nice addition to the tool box.....

You only need to remove it from the rolling surface and inner flange, the rest of the black should make a good primer for the very dark oxidized rust coloring.... My suggestion would be to use a sharp blade and cut it off along the rolling surface edges then use a rubber eraser to remove it from them, it should peel right off

Gun lifts and Turret lifts are always nice, you don't see too many of them and the images are mostly Panther turrets with a few Tiger's thrown in.... Engine lifts are good as well but they generally didn't use a Strabo for an engine lift.... There was one shot I saw a decade or so ago where a strabo was lifting the whole front end of a Pz. III but for the life of me I can't find it again...