History

In 1984 graduation was done on final thesis of usage of a stability program named Sikob, running on Fortran. The program made calculating on stability much easier then usage of bonjean curves and planimeters. Already in 1984, with experience on the ZX81 of Sinclair there was a vision that this might be THE tool for shipbuilders.
Doing away with the tricky job of making the design, emphasis could shift to the more interesting part: the process of building the vessel.

NethShip focusses on the building of the vessel.

It is tradition that the design focusses on balance of weight and bouyancy, cargo capacity versus deadweight and weight versus speed, etc. It is unusal to re-start the design process because a different design might be easier to build.
When the traditional design methods and issues are put into modern PC (giving constant view on GZ curves, various balances) and the 3D model of the vessel (using solids and object orientated designing) the focuss could be put at how to actualy build the vessel.

From viewpoint of construction, it is interesting to have influence in the design of the vessel for;
- the shell of the vessel. Ratio’s of the various surfaces, curvature and framing have influence on the producability of the shell, optimum subdivision into platefields, optimum handling of plates to be formed, optimum in arrangement of welds etc.
- the application of classification rules and the practical implications on the construction and way of build


Already in 1995, when AutoCad (first experienced in 1988) was exchanged with Microstation to have a better tool when comparing files which are related to each other (for example in 3D) developments of ‘projectbank’ etc where closely followed.
From 1997 onwards 3D design in Microstation was undertaken, where the splines and working with surfaces was difficult.

Great jump forward was the discovery of Rhino in 1999, which, after some help by a colleque at Feadship, opened up possibilities. Fairing and complex NURBS surfaces where now possible, making it possible to make 3D design in shipbuilding.

Also in 1999 the first experiences were with Catia V5, then coming out on the windows platform. Having become parametric and also being able to handle the surface complexity, it proved to be a very difficult program to learn.
At the start of NethShip, summer of 2002, with the help of Incat, the Catia was being introduced into NethShip, at that time run by three people, Fred, Casey and Bob.
Casey being the Catia V4 – piping expert quickly grassped the concept of V5, and all through the end of the benchmarking Catia (from R9 up to R14) kept being surprissed by the development in Catia and how smart piping routines were handled and improved.

Through circumstances by now NethShip was centered around Bob and Casey, as Fred saw his future somewhere else.

		For the construction and design side of Catia a complete small yacht was designed in the V5 version, mainly release 11 up to 13. The surface design proved to be very capable, to keep the hull parametric (so for example driven by the parameter of the bow angle, thumble home distance, height of the bulwark etc) proved to be very difficult because the hart of the program, vertex’s – can not directly be handled with available commands in the program. However, plenty tricks are available to work around this, and by the beginning of 2003 a proper functioning shell and superstructure design was working. (Fully parametric for length between 20 and 30 meters).
For a shipbuilder it would then be great to read certain dimensions, needed for classification calculations) from the surface model. These then would lead to dimensions of framing, and could be used – still keeping everything parametric, to construct the hull construction in Catia. With some external help and visual basic this was achieved, reading out the crucial dimensions (like for example hull length) into an excel file – which then calculated all construction dimensions according the SSC of Lloyd’s register.

End of 2003 various shows were visited, and with the help of De Valk yachtbrokers, many people in the shiping industry saw what we were doing with Catia, from Dusseldorf to Monaco and Fort Lauderdale boatshows, topped by our own stand on the Mets.

Unfortunatly at that time, the now extensive file structure of the small yacht, being fully parametric, put a large strain on the ram usage of Catia, and no signs were received from Dassault that this would be tackled to make it possible to use Catia for a complete parametric shipdesign. (remark; 32 bit was used on a 2.4 Ghz single processor)
So shipdesign with Catia is very well possible, being that some steps have to be undertaken in the same fashion as is now common, breaking the design in various stages which are one way related only.

NethShip wanted more. Beginning of 2004 a nice assignment was undertaken with Catia to re-design the construction of a refit sailing vessel. The vessel was build in Canada in imperial sizes. After having been measured and put into Catia in imperial sizes, the switch was flipped and metric drawings exported into autocad. This worked very nice!

By the end of 2004, when it was clear that the Catia line could not be followed, a next benchmark was opened with UGS for the NX3 software, which at time was promissing because of the news of german yachtbuilders starting to use this software.

Beginning of 2005 NethShip joined the NX. Various designs have been made in NX, which by end of 2006 has become NX4, and allthough NX is not as powerfull in some aspects as the parametric aspects of Catia (true/false options) it proves to be a good instrument, having no problems handling large assemblies like ships and yachts.

One of the advantages of NX we see is the relative ease of the interface. It looks more simple then Catia, and is simpler to use. This also means that some modelling is limited (for example cone gears – which can be modelled easily in Catia)
Drafting routines in NX are good, allthough unfortunatly the dwg out routines are not without problems. There is progress, and between the NX 4.0.0 and the 4.0.1 there is already great improvement. This is an important element, as the majority of shipbuilding still works with the AutoCad format. It will proabably still take some years before the dwg export will result into one line only.

At time of writing (2005-2006) NethShip has several projects running where NX is not a requirement, but is used for its capability of showing sections, inside in the structure, ease of adaption (changes) and some more aspects, which make it earn its costs back.

Unfortunate is that the group of users in Netherlands (and around) is rather small and seems not to expand.

In 2006 we developed a new type of pasarelle, of which one design was partly used and even fabricated (alu construction) by nethShip!

Then a modular design was made in NX to show various possibilities of modular design by sofisticated 3D software.   Please refer to the ‘objects’ projects for more details.

Unfortunate, it seems that all well running things in the commercial world do tend to suffer from commercial principles, and by the end of 2006 the support for NX started to deteriate. The ships wizard did not deliver what was expected, and the main problem started to be the lack of users (size of market).

One of last projects in NX – shape plane with adaption to FPSO for Bluewater on a supertanker.







In 2007 NethShip developed into the international direction by trying to establish a connection with the users group of Catia around Yantai in China.
Some projects were run, which proved to be difficult and especially were the result needs to be exact since it involves direct cutting of plates etc.

 

		For reference see projects like 25-EC-07 and 30-EC-07

Because of these contacts in China, focus shifted back to Catia, now release 17.
Through contacts of Catia users and from the producer it appeared that the problems in the past had been taken away, and further improvements had been made to make Catia even more suitable for yacht design, shipbuilding etc.
The for us famous program of MAAT and CIRCE had been integrated into Catia, making it one of the best naval architect designer tools available!!


Beginning of 2008 a license was purchased and tests were run on the software.

	This is a small cat speedboat, developed with Max from Volgograd. The renderings are straight from Catia – easy!
6 meters long shallow draft low resistance for fast rivers grp vaccuum construction

A test on catia with respect to some more difficult surface;

In here, the first geometrical set describes diameter and the centre piece of the prop (having an exhaust like an outboard in this case.
Then the second geo set determines pitch, skew, number of blades and profile section of the blade at a certain distance to center line.

Simple, and needing no safety extra lines or other elements which make modelling such difficult shape instable.

So prop makers and engine/prop designers – here is the tool, a simple GSD and Part design license of Catia (here version 18 running on 64 bit) will do the job!!

A test on the ram usage (problem untill 2005) – we designed a 60 feet ketch for a russian client, and according our own PDM structure, build up a linked system in publications (publication is the method in Catia to link surface design)
Here is the result of loading the full construction with the surface model linked to it;

As you can see, the ram usage shows up and going down again, and is quit good (even a little better then NX) for such large model. Of course you can also work in parts, so loading the whole model is only needed to generate overview renderings or drawings.

Quit an improvement to the Catia of 4 years ago!

We tried even further and designed the interior lining inside the construction (so that it will fit one time!!;

NethShip has designed a new fully automatic rollerpress for large ship plating. A fully 3D virtual model was designed in Catia, and with the new 3D rapid prototyping printer, models and part models were printed and tested. The stl output of Catia is very good, without any error or even error report.

See the news page for the rapid prototyping!!


At curent – time of writing 2009 – NethShip is starting a collaboration with a Dassault PLM partner in running a full project.
The intention is to complete the approach of software on al aspects.
A NethShip yard code will be used to organise the PLM, and set up a managing structure in Smart Team. Then all data will be linked and further explored and completed to give a complete line – first for the construction from surface design tot cutting files and production data.

Keep looking at this website for update’s !!