I have been learning to use Google sketchup for drawing 3d optics for
work but it has occurred to me that it would be good for designing
boats as well. The basic version is free to download. It does have a
learning curve but after only 4 days using it I have mostly drawn the
types of 3d images I have long needed for my strange optics. It might
take another week for me to get proficient enough to start drawing
complicated objects like boats.

"Frogwatch" wrote in message
...
I have been learning to use Google sketchup for drawing 3d optics for
work but it has occurred to me that it would be good for designing
boats as well. The basic version is free to download. It does have a
learning curve but after only 4 days using it I have mostly drawn the
types of 3d images I have long needed for my strange optics. It might
take another week for me to get proficient enough to start drawing
complicated objects like boats.

It can be done. I used Sketchup professionally for some years but am out of
date now, not having done much with it for about five yrs. So bearing in
mind this advice applies to Sketchup v5, you can certainly draw boats in
sketchup. As a Design tool it is probably less useful, lacking in different
methods of drawing curves and without any of the technical/engineering
calculations. If you have a set of lines to start with it is a simple if
slightly laborious process to stretch them out into a hull shape. You then
need to give your hull thickness by copying and shrinking the whole thing
uniformly, which is obviously not a true offset or shelling operation but
will do the trick. Close up the gap on the sheerline, make a group and you
are already well on your way.

I don't think sketchup would be much use in drawing the set of lines in the
first place, and likewise you couldn't edit the hull shape much once you had
modelled it, and you couldn't do anything technical like calculate a
waterline, but it will make a handsome model with very little learning, no
question.

Tim w