Introduction > About Orca3D

Orca3D makes designing any type of vessel a pleasure. All the tools you need are at your fingertips in a single intuitive environment. Instead of wasting countless hours moving your model from one program to another, you can focus all your energy on the creative aspects of your design, so that all your working time is productive time.

If you want to get started with Orca3D right away go to the Quick Start Tutorials.

Intuitive working environment

Orca3D runs as a plug-in to the Rhino program, so you don't need to learn another user interface and set of terminology. Is it an incredibly powerful 3D modeling system that includes true naval architectural tools, or a marine design program with amazing 3D modeling and rendering capabilities? Think of it either way, but the bottom line is that it will be easier to learn, more productive, and more fun!

Single program, without the need for file transfers

When you design process includes using multiple programs, an amazing amount of your day can be spent trying to accurately move your model from one program to another. This time is totally non-productive, and steals from the creative process. If you still need to import or export data, Rhino and Orca3D support a broad range of file formats, making the process as quick and painless as possible.

Easily cut stations, buttocks, waterlines, and other sections through your model

Orca3D adds the capability to Rhino to easily define a table of stations, buttocks, waterlines, cant frames, inclines, and diagonals, and immediately see the curves on the surface(s). Watch the curves update in real time as you modify a surface, or choose to update them manually, with a single button click, after you have made a series of changes to your model.

Intact Hydrostatics & Stability

In order to design a meaningful hull, you must be able to compute the intact hydrostatics, to ensure that you are meeting the basic requirements for displacement and LCB, as well as the less obvious, but still important, objectives for block coefficient, prismatic coefficient, initial stability, and many other parameters. With Orca3D, a single button click will compute and display a complete table of intact hydrostatics and stability information, with output to the screen, as well as optionally to other formats such as Microsoft Excel® and Adobe Acrobat®.

Orca3D uses the surface model to compute hydrostatics, and can handle complex models with arbitrary shapes. There are no limits to the types of shapes that can be analyzed; monohulls, multihulls, submersibles, drilling rigs, etc.

Create hull surfaces quickly with Hull Assistants

Hull design in Orca3D is done using NURBS surfaces (see the Rhino Help file for a complete discussion of NURBS surfaces). Usually the most difficult step in designing a hull with NURBS is creating the initial 3D shape; after you have that, modifying and fairing the shape is straightforward. To speed up this process, Orca3D contains a number of Hull Assistants that allow you to specify a number of basic parameters, and instantly create a 3D NURBS surface, which can then be modified and faired to reach your final hull shape. As you modify the parameters, you can see the hull shape change in real time, as well as seeing the influence on basic hydrostatics properties.

Fair hulls easily and produce lines drawings

Create, modify, and fair hull surfaces with Orca3D. Orca3D takes the mathematical power of Rhino's NURBS surfaces, and adds the tools necessary to create your hull shape, while analyzing it for fairness and hydrostatic properties. See the effects of your modifications in real time, analyze curvature, tweak curvature, and finally, produce a lines plan drawing, all the while working in the familiar and intuitive Rhino environment.