Posting a design, CAD, file formats...need advice!

[Bruce Taylor]

As promised, I'm drawing up some plans for Blackfly and am in the process of posting them to a website:

http://www.comnet.ca/~btmo/Design.htm

I've redrawn the boat in TurboCAD (many thanks to the generous forumite who sent me his licensed copy). Unlike the JPEGs I've posted above, the CAD printouts are marvellously clear and smooth, and dimensionally accurate.

I'd like to make plans easily accessible to anyone who wants them. With the drawings, I'll include offsets, dimensions, scantlings and some text commentary.

My question is: what's the best format to put the files in? I can save the drawings in various formats...DXF, autocad, etc. So what's the most useful format? And what's the most convenient way to package them? I suppose I could bundle them all up into a ZIP, along with text files etc...but if there's a better way, I'd be glad to try it.

For instance, the Stevensons' Minicup is available as a long PDF file. As I recall, the layout is nice, but the drawings are none too clear.

I'd also welcome advice & comments on the drawings and website.

[Venchka]

File formats-at last a topic I know more about than boatbuilding. Not saying too much, but some.

.DXF files are useful to folks with various CAD programs. AutoCAD .DWG files are more convenient if the person is going directly to AutoCAD. Like me, when I get my copy of the plans! :D By all means, package them in a .ZIP file, the self-extracting .EXE type of .ZIP file is most useful. .PDF files are kinda useless for anything other than study plans.

My advice: One .EXE file with the .DXF file version and another .EXE file with the AutoCAD file version.

[Jonas]

Bruce, seeing that you are posting the drawings, I presume that you have been pleased with Blackfly's sailing performance. I'd be interested to hear your description of her characteristics in the water. Cheers!

[mike from Boston]

You can try saving them as a PDF file. They can be read easily and not altered by the recient. You will beed Adobe software to convert the file however. Programs like Visio and Powerpoint can open DWG format files too.

Mike

[Bruce Taylor]

Wayne, thanks...I'll do just that.

Jonas, I've been very pleased, so far. She's quick and responsive, and easy on the helm. Light and bouyant as she is, she really takes off in a gust. The hull carries its sail well, heeling smoothly, then coming off heel with sufficient gentleness. All the same, I think I'll cut the rig down from ~90 sq. ft to 75 or so. Light and slender as she is, she doesn't need much power to move.

She points high enough for my purposes, I think, although I haven't been too scientific about it (most of my tests have been done in the river, and the strong current makes it difficult to tell exactly what's going on). The existing sail, which I made from polytarp and carpet tape in a leisurely hour and a half, is far from optimal. In particular, it has far too much draft just behind the luff. I'll have a proper sail made once I know more about the boat.

I haven't had a chance to really load her down, though. If the weather cooperates in the next couple of weeks I'll put a few hundred pounds in her and see how she behaves.

[Dave R]

Bruce, I downloaded a freeware CAD viewer from http://www.fastcad.com to use for viewing various CAD formats.

It will let you print CAD drawings and will also convert them to BMPs which might be useful to some. I have a really old CAD program that I like but the file format isn't able to be imported by other CAD software. I use the DXF Out application with my CAD program, then open the DXF in the viewer, save it as a BMP and finally convert it to GIF with PhotoDeluxe. A long way to go but I didn't have to spend any money.

[Bruce Hooke]

I think it largely depends on who you think your audience is, and ultimately it may make sense to post the drawings in a number of formats.

For people with CAD or other similar software on their computer, formats such as the ones Waynes suggests seem like a good way to go.

On the other hand, for someone who is basically a technophobe, who doesn't have any drawing software and isn't up to figuring out how to download such software, these formats will be pretty useless. In that case, PDF format might have a lot going for it. PDF will support large sheet sizes and it should produce a high-quality image that someone could have printed by someplace that has a large format printer. PDF is also readable on just about any computer. My one concern is how big the files may be. Another option would be one of the picture formats such as a GIF. For a line drawing a GIF should produce a smaller file than a JPEG for the same image quality.

[TimH]

I would make them into a .gif or .jpg and place them on a web page. That way everyone can see them without cad programs or viewers.

[Venchka]

OR, if you can get hold of Acrobat Distiller (the output software that creates .PDF files), you can "plot" to scale to a .PDF file from TurboCAD. I think. That's how AutoCAD works. The files are tiny. Typicically my 5-10Mb 3-D models plot to .PDF's in the range of 200-300Kb and 2-D files are under a 100Kb. I suppose if the .PDF files are created to scale then they would be useful. I'm very fortunate to have all this stuff here so I can work with the originals and plot to scale on film. :D

However, since I am at work, I would never do that. Nope. Not me. Not ever. :D

SMACKS HIS HEAD HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DUHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When the CAD files are ready, e-mail them to me and I'll return the .pdf files plotted to any scale and paper size you like.

[ 09-18-2003, 02:27 PM: Message edited by: Venchka ]

[Bruce Taylor]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Tim, I've already posted a number of JPEGs on the website (see above), and I do intend to dump all the data to the website itself, for casual browsing. But, of course, a JPEG that's small enough to view on a webpage will have pretty low resolution.

I'll look at .PDF, then. TurboCAD doesn't save directly to that format, but I imagine I can do something with one of my word processors.

I've made each drawing as a separate file, with the thought that this might make it easier to print each view (body plan, profile, etc.) on ordinary 8 1/2 X 11" paper (printing at 3/4"=1' scale for the larger images, and 1 1/2"=1' for the smaller ones).

Jus' muddling along, as usual.

Wayne, thanks for the offer. I might take you up on it, when the time comes.

[Aramas]

Whatever you do, don't make the files .exe's. Most computer literate people that don't know you from the forum will dump them right there. The spam/hack/bot threat seems to be escalating exponentially, and opening downloaded .exe's is a thing of the past for a lot of people.
The raw .dxf and .dwg files won't be very big anyway. Just make sure you purge the .dwg before you export it.
I'd also suggest linking to a simple freeware viewer/plotter for those unfamiliar with CAD.

[Bruce Hooke]

To make PDF's you will need the full version of Adobe Acrobat or equivalent software such as PDF Creator. Since any of these cost money (at least I don't know of a freeware program that does this), you may want to take Wayne up on his offer of creating the PDF's for you.

[Venchka]

Originally posted by Aramas:
...The spam/hack/bot threat seems to be escalating exponentially, and opening downloaded .exe's is a thing of the past for a lot of people.
Aye, I'm still a trusting soul. I forget that there are .EXE files that should be treated as nuclear weapons. Shame on me!

I have AutoCAD and Acrobat Creator sitting here waiting for a worthy cause. What I don't have is TurboCad.

I hope everyone in Isabel's path is safe and sound if a bit soggy. I did notice two boats made of that other stuff sitting on the bank next to a road on TV this morning. Pity.

[NormMessinger]

Bruce, Roger Stouff was doing ezakly what you want to do. I don't remember how he said he was doing it but I bet he'd tell you.

[Bruce Taylor]

Bruce, evidently my version of WordPerfect publishes .PDF files (HTML, too). I posted a couple of test files on the website, under "Plans":

http://www.comnet.ca/~btmo/Index.htm

Some JPEGs in the Lines and Offsets section are up and viewable, but I have a number of changes to make to the CAD originals.

NOrm, I wondered what had come of Roger's work. Maybe I'll e-mail him.