shipconstructor and inventor

[Anonymous]

has anyone used shipconstructor and inventor together? do they work well?

[stevec781]

It sounds like we are at different stages of the design spiral and talking about different styles of boats.

[Anonymous]

We have only just started getting into this in detail.

From what I can tell so far the best approach has been 'Top Down' modelling where we create a base part (multi-solid) of the hull, deck, bhds etc. Then derive what is needed to create individual parts, stiffeners, bkts etc.

Modelling this way means any changes to hull form or layout seem to update the model reasonably well.

I find the biggest hold up are brackets!!! on a curved ship hull where nearly every bkt is slighlty different, to create an accurate model which can be used for cut parts requires every bkt to be modelled correctly which is extremely time consuming.

Also I have found that creating frame drawings for class is frustrating as a simple section does not show all the detail on a frame or bhd, bkts, stiffenining etc.

So I have to do a slice & project a distance and then go through and hide all the extra lines that are created that I dont want because of the curvature of the hull.

Two other problems I have, but believe can be solved with some iLogic are colouring the model based on plate thickness, and automated naming of cutparts.

We are currently designing a 10m and 45m steel vessel in Inventor.

[stevec781]

You will get it done, but I reckon your hours will be through the roof.

Using a multi body base part is not a good idea.  One change to anything in that file means everything related will update, even if not affected, which slows drawing regen, model regen and saves.  eg change the depth of 1 frame, all other frames, deck etc will all update because they all see a change in the file.

[stephengibson76]

here is something I did a while back for my draughtsmen

[Anonymous]

thanks Stephen that is really usefull.

So you stick with surfaces throughtout your entire 3D model.

Set up the 2D views in Inventor paper space then export to autocad for detailing?

Did you ever use this method all the way through to creating drawings for production?

Also you mentioned customizing Autocad and Inventor extensivly, what did you acheive doing this/what extra capability did you get? it would be great to know what is possible to acheive using iLogic and vba with regard to ship design.

[stephengibson76]

if we were producing models for drawings and analysis we used surfaces throughout the whole process, (femap and genie modellers were crap which was the driving force to model in inventor), if we wanted physical properties we would solid model but this was time consuming and rarely used.  We used ilogic on drawings to convert assemblies into layers, then quick select in autocad, (a very useful tool) to break them out for the drawings.  I created a number of scripts in autocad, just simple lists of commands run to automate as much as possible.  Once in Autocad we also used dynamic blocks extensivly to help speed up the process, especially for changes.  I must say there was a cutoff point where we went from inventor to autocad and could NOT return, this point was often calculated wrong with idiots wanting to see hard drawings before the process was ready...

I did a short Naval Architects course which gave me an insight but I am by no means a naval architect.  I produced a number of inventor models to spit out NA calculations such as waterplane areas, righting moments that could be used on any hull surface, second moment areas for different jackup legs etc

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I have been speaking to a contact recently who runs a small commercial boat building company. They currently use ShipConstructor and Inventor but want to integrate the design process to one workflow, instead of the disjointed way they currently work. They are thinking of ditching ShipConstructor and using Inventor for the entire 3D model, but from what some of the comments in this thread say, they might struggle with things like cutpart markings and shell expansion. Is there anyone out there who could recommend a workflow to integrate these two processes? I'm thinking NavisWorks might be the answer. 

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Hey Tim

Have done a few vessels now using Inventor. These ranged from a small 10m tug to a 45m bunker barge. Our workflow process goes Maxsurf>Inventor>AutoCad. For developing plates we do not use inventor. We use our naval architecture software, maxsurf to do this. Cut parts are not so bad, There are some addins you can download from autodesk exchange or write some macros yourself that can automate this process. I just ensure every bit of structure we want cut is a developable sheet metal part.

The biggest problem I have with inventor for ship design is that EVERY part of structure needs to be modelled which is very time consuming, cannot simply draw a triangle and label it a bracket. I have looked at Shipconstructor and I would say it is no more time consuming than this. If you do use Inventor you will have to implement strict control within your office on modelling techniques, tree structure and naming of parts etc. (which shipcon does automatically)

[JBEDsol]

Our company is telling me we're moving to ship constructor.  I really don't know what to expect.  My main concern is how are we gonna collaborate.

I've been using IV for ships for a while.  there's a TON special things we need to do different to get things to work.  The single biggest problem is the Hull.  IV doesn't want to play nice w/ nurbs and that leads to all manner of crap.  Building a Hull in IV, give up.  transporting a Hull, gonna have some issues but if you get it just right you can work w/ it. 

A lot of the other issues come from the subtle nuances.  So frame generator=nice.  Frame generator on a hull=crap.  Good luck w/ that.  there's also a ton of little things that apparently the rest of the world just doesn't do.  Like borders for drawings going up each sheet.  One of the biggest issues i've had to deal w/ is identifying a left/right speaker in the BOM, or separating items in the BOM based on system.  This seems minor but becomes a major headache when our customer has a specific way to ID things.  

I love IV, big fan.  But IV simply does not love us in the shipbuilding world.