⚓️NOMAD - Simple boat models Part 1 

That’s good to hear. Check out the first few episodes of my Bouchie Dory series. It walks you through some basic lofting procedures. It should help you understand the lines drawings a little easier.

Interesting. I would have thought that such software was already out there. I’m always contemplating what the mechanical process would be for doing that on the drafting board. Single axis conical expansions are pretty straight forward but when you add twist and non conical forms it gets harder to visualize. One quickly decides its easier to just pattern for it iff a mould.

@@Nomadboatbuilding There is software, the one I found was $6500 and had a two day evaluation period. A bit steep for a hobby project, though my time probably cost me more by now ;) The method it's done in software is a process called "relaxation", which simply means that you create a rough flattened version and then shuffle the parts of the flattened version around, trying to match the same distances in the 2D version that you had in the 3D version. For certain shapes, like a split cone or cylinder, you can reach 0% error, but for other shapes, like half a sphere, the errors may become quite large, indicating that you should add cuts/darts or use smaller planks. I know, sounds easy enough, but the devil is in the details ;)

I find most of that software is unreasonably expensive for the hobbyist. Even something like Sketchup which seems to be tailored to occasional users is too expensive. At one time a full version was about $250 which is fine but now it has climbed up to the point where you pretty much have to be earning a living from it. I certainly can’t justify it or any other software of the sort.

@@Nomadboatbuilding Well, Fusion 360 is free for the hobbyist, but as you'd be using it professionally, that might not fly. But yes, a nice open source free to use 3d software package would be awesome...

@@mattiasfagerlund It's free for a while but not forever. My copy timed out and the price tag to re-activate it was pretty steep.

Glad it helped!

Thank you.