|
A
must have tool for any Naval Architect/Design Office...
Orca3D is certainly the perfect companion for Rhinoceros, adding new
commands and features that allow you to properly and efficiently deal
with virtually any waterborne project.
Hydrostatics & Stability (H&S) built-in code is very robust, accurate
and fast. You can analyze virtually any type of hull geometry, no matter
whether it is a monohull or multihull of any kind, with a full degree of
confidence on the results obtained.
Orca3D's different approach for processing Hydrostatic & Stability
calculations makes it quite versatile
and immune to usual 3Dmodel flaws,
i.e. when you finish with naked edges below waterline, or singular
points (singularities) and so, allowing you to override this problem and
get H&S calculations for your model, even when the hull is not perfectly
modeled.
Moreover (a detail that it is usually paid not enough attention) H&S
reports are very well designed and the information dumped in them very
well organized. Making them very easy to read and follow, to let you
quickly find the information you're looking for.
Another interesting new feature in Orca3D is the Real Time Hydrostatics,
that let you keep track of main hydrostatic parameters (and its
evolution) while editing hull's affected surfaces.
But with Orca3D you're not only limited to Hydrostatics & Stability
calculations. There are more modules/features available in Orca3D, each
of them specifically designed to assist you with the usual tasks at
different stages of the project.
For example: If you don't consider yourself a true expert in 3D
modeling, but you need to come up with a hull model... don't worry!, the
built-in Hull Assistants will let you overtake this handicap, allowing
you to quickly come up with a well shaped hull (ship, planing and
sailing) and with just the input of some of
|
...very robust, accurate and fast. |
its main generic geometrical
parameters. You can also pre-visualize hull hydrostatics while defining
the main parameters in order to be sure that when the hull geometry is
created, it will comply with the desired characteristics
Real time Sections is perhaps one of the best/more useful tools
available today, to assist you with the modeling process of any Rhino
complex free form shape. This is certainly one of my favorite modeling
tools, since you can define in a fast, clear and easy manner, as many
sections as you want on the surfaces that you want to edit/modify; and
grouped according to its normal vector's orientation, which can be
virtually oriented in any direction: Sections, Waterlines, Buttocks and
more... The ability to assign different colors to the sections, greatly
enhance its visualization/identification.
This is certainly a very useful tool, not only to assist you with the 3D
Modeling process of any form, because it provides you with a drastic
enhancement on surface's visualization in the way that Naval Architects
want/like to see and analyze them, but also if you also have to produce
accurate NC patterns out of your 3D model for moulds/parts
manufacturing, or if you have to deal with a (usually difficult and time
consuming) reverse engineering project, that is, to produce/input a 3D
Model of a hull starting from just a poorly printed "lines drawing", or
an "offsets table" of any - questionable - source.
Another tool worth to mention is Orca3D's Weight and Cost Calculator.
This tool lets you overtake current Rhino's missing "mass" calculations,
allowing you to either define "Mass and/or Cost Densities" on current
Rhino entities (points, lines, surfaces/polysurfaces and volumes) or
assign a specific weight/cost directly on them. You can also let Orca3D
compute entity's CG from its own geometry, same way as Rhino does with
its surfaces and volumes, or otherwise assign it to a pre-defined point
in World Coordinates.
This is certainly another very interesting and flexible tool when you
have to work with weight/cost computations, either at an early design
stage, when there are more things not yet defined than the ones already
established, or when already at vessel's construction stage, to keep
track on the weights that are being added or deleted.
Remember, Weight engineering is a good/proper & highly recommended
practice that sometimes, and more often when dealing with small projects
(either in size or budget), it is not paid enough attention or simply
neglected. Failure to achieve a good weight estimation & control can
finish in a complete project failure, and with drastic consequences to
all parties involved in it. Orca3D provides you with an excellent, yet
simple, tool/resource to properly deal with this important aspect of any
project.
To finish, a good software for Naval Architecture wouldn't be complete
without a resource for Powering calculations. Orca3D already includes
two of the most popular and well proven Resistance/Powering Prediction
methods. The Holtrop method for displacement hulls/ship forms and the
Savitsky method (long form) for planing hull forms.
Of course, if you need to perform a resistance analysis with a
prediction method not yet implemented here, Orca3D & Rhinoceros tools
will greatly help you to ease the - sometimes cumbersome & time
consuming - process to come up with all those, usually "intricate" or
hard to compute, hull parameters (wetted surface, entrance angles,
wetted girth, weight/displacement for any condition, CB or CG position,
etc., etc.) that you need to deal with any other prediction method.
Of course, there are some more good features and functions available in
Orca3D, but given the limited space for this review (which has already
gone longer than I expected...), I invite you to explore for yourself.
Do not hesitate to download the software and try it.
Last, but not least... and you can truly prove this for yourself.
Perhaps the best thing behind Orca3D it is not only the code, its
robustness and features described above..., but its people. You will
find/meet a highly qualified group of experts, Naval Architects that
speak the same "language" as you, willing to properly assist you when
you need support.
Martin Monteverde
Naval Architect, Buenos Aires |
Visit
the Orca3D blog
