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Pick your FAQ list...NavigationInstallation, System Requirements, Maxsurf Suite Maxsurf Hydromax Workshop Seakeeper Hullspeed Prefit Span Maxsurf Suite
Formation Design Systems fully supports Windows 7, including both 32-bit and 64-bit versions from Maxsurf version 14 onwards, and Multiframe version 11 onwards. From version 16 of Maxsurf and version 13 of Multiframe onwards, native 64 bit versions are also available. Versions prior to those listed above are not designed to work with Windows 7, and are not guaranteed to work correctly if used. Currently there is a problem when installing on Windows Server 2003 machines. You may get an "Error 131. There is a problem with this Windows Inst...." message towards the end of the installation process. To get around this problem you must install the InstallShield update manager. Then install Maxsurf again.
I have a network installation. When I update my software from 12.09 to version 13, do I also need to update the server? Yes. With the release of version 13, dongle Maxsurf is a highly efficient program and does not require state of the art computers to run smoothly. Basically any computer that can run Windows XP can run Maxsurf. However, for some of the computationally intensive analyses calculations such as Seakeeping analyses, Hullspeed free wave surface calculations, plate development calculations in Workshop and some (batch) Hydromax analyses it is recommended to have at least 1Gb RAM and a 1.5 Ghz or faster computer. Installing all of the Maxsurf applications and documents requires a maximum of 200 Mb of disk space. Note that - as with any design program - the use of a large monitor is recommended and this may require a mid-range video card that supports Open GL 1.2 ( recommended - not required). This information can be found by from Sys Info from the Help | About Maxsurf in any of the Maxsurf application. If you want to really have fun, we recommend Windows 7 64 bit, multiple large monitors and 8Gb of RAM. Many of our users have this kind of configuration and the software performs very well on this hardware. Formation Design Systems fully supports Windows Vista, including both 32-bit and 64-bit versions from Maxsurf version 13 onwards, and Multiframe version 10 onwards. Automation (COM) is only available in the Pro versions of Maxsurf and
Hydromax. After installing Maxsurf Pro or Hydromax Pro the respective automation library should show up
in your list of available automation libraries. See the Maxsurf Automation manual for more information. Automation is also available in Hullspeed and Seakeeper as well as the demonstration versions of the applications mentioned above. In rare circumstances the rendered perspective view fails to print. Normally this issue relates to the printer driver not handling the large amount of data transferred when printing. Try changing the size of the paper to a smaller size in your printer settings. Alternatively you can export the view to a bitmap image using the File|Export|Export Bitmap Image... On very rare occasions the Zoom, Shrink and Pan commands stop working for the view windows (Perspective, Plan, etc). Restoring the default settings by holding down the shift key when starting the application will rectify this. This missing dll error may occur for users who are using Windows 2000. This dll is required for docking and customisable toolbars. Most systems will already have the dll, however if this is not the case you can download it by clicking here. Copy gdiplus.dll to C:\Program Files\Maxsurf and restart the application. Yes, as of Maxsurf version 13, and Multiframe version 10, our software will now install and run correctly on 64-bit versions of Windows, including Windows XP 64-bit and Windows Vista 64-bit. Versions of our software prior to those listed above do not support 64-bit Windows. For Maxsurf version 16 and later and Multiframe version 13 and later, 64 bit native versions of the software are available. They will run faster and allow you to access more memory (32 bit apps are limited to 2Gb of RAM) This can happen when you do a network installation on a machine that: What is happening is that the license manager is using the dongle driver and therefor the installer cannot overwrite it. Follow the following steps: 1) When your license manager has been installed as a service, you can stop it from the Windows Administrative Tools | Services (from your start menu). In the list of services you will find the Hasp Loader. Change the status to stop (right click menu). 2) If your license manager has been installed as an application, you will see an icon in your system tray like this: Right click on that icon and select stop. FormSys no longer develops or supports software running under the Macintosh OS or OS X however Maxsurf runs well under BootCamp or under Parallels. BootCamp is a tool provided by Apple which allows you to start up Windows on your Mac and to install and run Windows applications. While it doesn't provide the live switching between the two that Parallels does, (it requires a reboot to switch) it does give you very fast Windows performance on the same machine you use from day to day. More details on BootCamp can be found on Apple's web site. Parallels is a great utility that offers live switching between OSX and Windows apps without re-starting. Info on Parallels and how to purchase it can be found at www.parallels.com If you would like to cross-grade your old Mac versions of Maxsurf to Windows, please contact us for a quotation. Our patches include the fixes and enhancements from the previous patch as well, so you can simply install the latest patch to update your software. Please note though that you do need to have the same major version installed for the patches to work. ie. if you have version 13 installed you can install any patches for version 13 that might be available, (i.e. 13.01, 13.02, etc), but you will not be able to install a patch for version 14. Maxsurf FAQ list
Problem: Sometimes a model - imported from Rhino as .3dm - can not be trimmed in Maxsurf because there are trimming curves in the model that lie exactly on an edge or intersection curve. This causes problems when Maxsurf tries to calculate the trimming regions. Symptom: After you select "Trim Surface##" nothing happens; you don't see any highlighting. Solution: There are 2 workarounds: Yes you can. All you have to do is add the .msd at the end of the Macintosh design filename. For example: "fishingboat" is renamed to "fishingboat.msd" and then opened in the latest Windows version of Maxsurf. Maxsurf allows you to export DXF files from any view window in a "what you see is what you get" kind of way. This means that if you want to create a linesplan in AutoCAD for example, you: See the Maxsurf manual on DXF export options: http://www.formsys.com/extras/FDS/webhelp/maxsurf/exporting_ http://www.formsys.com/extras/FDS/webhelp/maxsurf/2d_drafting In general it is recommended to switch to highest precision before exporting. This increases the number of line segments that are used to draw the curves on the surface. You can calculate the offset points at intersections with trimming off only. It is currently not possible to calculate the offsets with trimming gray or trimming invisible. Make sure you have Display | Contours | Bonded edges and / or | Feature lines switched on. This is an issue relating to customizable toolbars. If you have added the following commands to a toolbar "Contours..." or "Smooth Interior Controls", the add control point command will stop working. If you remove all these listed commands from the custom toolbar control point adding will work correctly. This issue only relates to 12.0 to 12.03 versions of Maxsurf. There are a number of different versions of Maxsurf, which vary in price and capabilities, giving you a product to suit your needs and budget. We explain the difference between the different versions to help enable you decide which version matches your requirements. * Maxsurf Pro allows an unlimited number of surfaces to be used and also contains a parametric transformation function that automatically modifies the surface model to match required hull coefficients. * Maxsurf Plus is an affordable, limited surface version of Maxsurf, featuring most of Maxsurf Pro’s capabilities with a limit of six surfaces available for use in any one design. The parametric transformation function from Maxsurf Pro is not included. * Maxsurf/T is an affordable, limited surface version of Maxsurf, featuring most of Maxsurf Pro’s capabilities with a limit of three surfaces available for use in any one design. The parametric transformation function from Maxsurf Pro is not included. Prefit can be used as a standalone or as a plug-in inside Maxsurf.
Before it can be used as a plug-in in Maxsurf you will have to activate
Prefit from the Edit menu and restart Maxsurf. This will give you
access to special Genetic Algorithm surface fitting functions that will
help you do highly accurate surface fitting tasks whilst maintaining
the fairness of the control point net and surface. Prefit as a plug-in
inside Maxsurf can also be very useful to help calculate the internal
shape of a developable surface. For more information on Prefit see: You can simply copy and paste your offsets into the Maxsurf Markers window from for example a table / spreadsheet program like MS Excel. Tips: Related information: Related information can be found in the Maxsurf manual Hydromax FAQ list
In Maxsurf set the Surface Use to "Internal Structure" in case you want to use it as an tank boundary. Tip: if you want to display your internal structure
surfaces in Hydromax, you can switch on the Internal edges in the
Visibility dialog from the Display menu.
I am getting different hydrostatic results for Hydromax and Maxsurf with the same draft. Why is that? The Hydrostatic calculations in Maxsurf and Hydromax can be different due to the following reasons: 1) Hydromax includes skin thickness where Maxsurf does not. 4) If you have used non-buoyant volumes or are analysing a damaged case, your hydrostatics will be different. See Tips & Tricks on modelling non-buoyant volumes (login required) and the Hydromax manual, section "Forming Compartments" to troubleshoot this issue. What can be the case is that the tank is actually formed correctly, but in some situations the display of tank edges may not give a complete display of the shape of the tank. To check whether your tank is formed correctly, ensure you check the shape of your tanks by turning on the display of tank sections. Make sure you read the Hydromax manual on modelling tanks and compartments. It is also important to understand what Hydromax does in the background when it is forming tanks. Skin thickness applied to internal structure surfaces is not taken into account when calculating the volume of Tanks and Compartments that use internal structure surfaces as boundaries. If you want to include the effect of the tank boundary surface's skin thickness, you have to model the surface to the inside of the tank. Holding down the shift key while firing up the criteria dialog, will resize the dialog to its original settings. You can then resize the dialog and change the division of the individual areas as described in Resizing the criteria dialog in the Hydromax manual (best viewed in Internet Explorer). Check your sounding pipes in the sounding pipes table. When your sounding pipes are set to User Defined and you move your tanks, the sounding pipe can become located outside of your tank. This will produce incorrect tank calibration results. Also see the Hydromax manual: The following criteria analysis errors can occur: Make
sure your heeling range starts at -20 degrees or less. The roll back
angle to windward often requires the heeling range to start at a
negative angle. Make
sure your upper limit of your heeling arm is set to > 90 degrees,
and check whether your MaxGZ value does not occur at an angle <30
degrees (the lower range bound). There is no direct method of bonjean calculation in Hydromax.
However it is possible to get sectional area data at selected draughts:
Tip: There are two different versions of Hydromax, which vary in price and capabilities, allowing you to select a product that suits your needs and budget. Also see the Hydromax webpage for more information. Yes you can. When you save a loadcase you can specify the name of the loadcase. After you have saved the loadcase, you will see that the name of the loadcase appears at the top of the loadcase window as well as on the tab at the bottom of the loadcase window. You have switched on the "Show Single Hull Section in Body Plan" from the Display menu. This command overrides the display sections on/off command. The command can be switched off when you have the Body Plan window front most.
After a longitudinal strength analysis I get a graph, but my results table is empty. How do I get the results data?
The longitudinal strength analysis values in the results table are calculated at the design sections. Make sure you have defined sections in your model in Maxsurf. Without this, the longitudinal strength table will
be empty. Note: you can also get the graph data values by double clicking on the curve and then copying and pasting the tabular data that appears into Excel. This can be done from any graph in the Maxsurf suite. Remember that for Hydromax to work it must be able to form sections through the model. Any extra surfaces (or missing surfaces) that cause ambiguity will give Hydromax problems and may lead to Hydromax interpreting the model incorrectly.
Hydromax can be used to analyse submarines. However, some analyses
require that the centre of buoyancy (CoB) and centre of gravity (CoG)
be balanced (Equilibrium and Stability analyses plus other analyses
that use these as a basis: Longitudinal strength, Cross curves and
Limiting KG). For these analyses Hydromax can be used provided that the
submarine is not fully submerged. These analyses require a waterplane
so that the CoB/CoG balance can be performed. As soon as the waterplane
area becomes very small or zero, Hydromax (and any other Hydrostatic analysis program that works on this principle) may have difficulty in
converging and the trim and heel cannot be determined. Upright
hydrostatics and some Specified condition analyses can be performed for
the fully submerged submarine.
In order to model the submarine, any volumes that are
free-flooding should be modelled as non-buoyant volumes, whilst ballast
tanks should be modelled as normal tanks. Classification societies do not certify software that is used for design, analysis and production of stability booklets. In a design office you can use Hydromax without certification. It is the produced stability book that gets certified. See our Launchings pages for some examples of projects that have been successfully completed using Hydromax. This cannot be done directly in Hydromax, but attached is a spreadsheet
which will extract the data from a LAS analysis once completed using
the Hydromax COM interface. Have a look at the macro to get similar results from other analyses or for additional data. See Maxsurf Automation and the Version 11 newsletter for information about automation. It is possible to analyse certain hydrostatic properties of submarines using Hydromax. This is described in the Tips&Tricks section of this knowledge base which is accessible to Maxsurf users with current subscription. The negative linked compartments are created by Hydromax automatically at the intersecting volumes of tanks and compartments. You do not need to worry about them at all; they are displayed for reference purposes only because in older versions users had to define these linked negative compartments manually. The linked negative compartments are used by Hydromax internally to deduct tank volumes from a compartments' volume when flooded, but again: you do not need to worry about them. The demonstration version of Hydromax only allows analysis on the one sample design that is opened automatically when you select the File |Open command. This model already contains a number of tanks and compartment as well as predefined damage cases, but feel free to add more and run some analyses. Additionally, the demonstration version of Hydromax does not allow saving of reports or copying graph or table objects.
What Quality Assurance Processes are used to ensure that Hydromax produces reliable and accurate results.
Many Hydromax users ask us how we know that Hydromax produces
the correct results. The following
explains how FORMSYS has verified that Hydromax gives accurate
results and what steps we take to make sure that each version of the software
we ship is as reliable as possible. Quality Principles Structured
Programming Verification of
Algorithms Reference Designs Testing of
Implementation Testing of Upgrades Beta Testing Version Control But we're not
Perfect To get accurate results from Hydromax, it is necessary for
you to model the problem correctly and to correctly interpret the results
produced. It is the users' responsibility to correctly model the structure and
assume responsibility for the results. Workshop FAQ list
Yes, however at the moment this functionality is limited to adding surface plates. If a plate is added by selecting boundary contours the trimmed regions will be ignored. In this case, you can do one of two things: Workshop can only develop plates descirbed by 3 or 4 boundary contours. It is strongly recommended to read the working with plates section of the Workshop user manual. These section may be of interest in particular: If you open a workshop file and receive a message saying "Workshop has detected a plate precision inconsistency", the listed plates will need to be recalculated. This recalculation is required for back compatibly issues relating to older Workshop design files created in version 12.04. There
are two different versions of Workshop, which vary in price and
capabilities, giving you a product that suits your needs and budget. Before conducting a shell expansion there are a few simple steps you must carry out to ensure the model is correctly prepared: 1) Turn trimming invisible on. 2) Turn off all surfaces that are not hull surfaces. 3) Step through each of the sections in the body plan view and ensure that there is only 4) Make visible only the parts you wish to be included in the shell expansion drawing.
I am getting "All four contours must lie on the same surface" error message when I try to add a plate to a surface. Problem: A common problem when trying to create plates on a surface is when you try to select an edge that is bonded to another surface as your plate boundary. A bonded edge belongs to both surfaces and thus you may get the error message: Solution: Try hiding all surfaces except the one you are trying to create plates on. Problem: You have not set the direction of the outside arrows correctly in Maxsurf. Concept: The outside arrow is used to indicate which side of the surface is the OUTSIDE of the ship. Since stringers are by default always on the inside of the ship, they will be placed on the opposite side as to where the outside arrow is pointing. Simply use the File | Export | ShipConstructor menu to export all visible parts to ShipConstructor. You can export individual parts from Workshop from the parts window. File |Export and then select "Current Part Only". Any lines that you display while in the parts window (eg intersection lines, contour lines) will be included in the export. Make sure you have assigned a shape to the stringer. Without a shape
assigned to it, the stringer will not display in rendered mode. Seakeeper FAQ list
The demonstration version of Seakeeper allows you to open only the Seakeeper Sample.msd file. Copy and save is not available for seakeeping analysis results. Q) Could you please explain the 12 parameter mapping function. I
understand the three-parameter standard Lewis stuff, but what is this
(a Frank's close fit panel method). Can you suggest a reference? A) The 12 parameter mapping is just like the 3 parameter mapping. Its
still a conformal mapping, but uses more parameters. Its not a Frank Close fit.
With a 3 (or even 5) param mapping, you can calculate the mapping
parameters directly (the 5 one can use the area centroids to make
more equations to solve -- though we dont do this in Seakeeper) For
the higher order ones, you need to use an iterative method to find the solution.
There are quite a few papers. See Bishop and Price and also Westlake,
Wilson "New conformal mapping techniques for ship sections" ISP
number 449, vol 47, April 2000. (though this deals with asymmetrical
mappings, but we just do symmetrical ones at the moment, same principle though). Q) What is the roll decrement calculation doing with cats? Having
run the monohull and catamaran, the roll amplitudes are clearly
different but it is difficult to see where the centre of roll is for
the cat. A)
The only modification we do for cats is work out the metacentric
height correctly -- i.e. taking into account the separation of the
demihulls. You still only put in a monohull on the centreline, but if
you say its a cat the transverse waterplane inertia takes into
Seakeeper uses strip theory to predict the coupled vertical plane
motions of heave and pitch. The added mass, added inertia and damping
terms are calculated from the 2D sectional added mass and damping which
are computed using Lewis conformal mapping methods. The way you model a catamaran in Seakeeper is by modelling one demihull on the centreline, like a monohull. Dr Patrick Couser, Naval architect and Seakeeper senior software developer, has found in his model testing studies that
you can get reasonable approximations to the heave and pitch motions of
catamarans with symmetrical demihulls by simply modelling one demihull
and assuming that there is no interaction between the hulls. In
practice there is some interaction between the hulls but if you try to
model this numerically in a 2D sense, the interactions are greatly
overestimated and the results less accurate than if you modelled just
one hull. Once the Fn starts to increase (around Fn=0.5 for a catamaran
with a spacing/length ratio of about 0.3) the interactions are almost
insignificant and disappear as the Fn increases further. I would
recommend that you study the first part of Appendix B in the Seakeeper
manual - this gives comparisons of predicted motions of a wide range of
catamarans with experimental results. For
roll motions Seakeeper uses a simplified model of a damped, mass-spring
system. It is able to treat catamarans by using a single demihull
Maxsurf model and then specifying the demihull centreline spacing in a dialog in Seakeeper. Tip: If you want the animation videos to show a catamaran hullshape: Step 1: Define a copy of one demihull on the centre line, like monohull and make these surfaces "Hullsurfaces.Step Step 2: Make the
transparency of the hull surfaces 100%. Step 3: Then complete the rest of the design with all the
surfaces of type "Structure" -- you can include the demihulls in their
proper positions including all the superstructure surfaces etcetera.
Seakeeper may be able to give approximate results for a
vessel at zero speed. However, Seakeeper is first order, linear strip theory
for a monohull vessel, so it will not account for the following: Hull interactions -- these can be significant for a
catamaran at zero speed. Seakeeper can give reasonable results for a catamaran
with demihulls that are symmetrical about their local centrelines operating
with sufficient forward speed that the interactions are negligible. This also
depends on the demihull separation. In the Seakeeper manual, there are some
comparisons for Seakeeper and some tank-test results for catamarans. Second order drift forces can be important at zero speed --
especially if the vessel is moored - this will not be accounted for by
Seakeeper. Hullspeed FAQ list
The demonstration version of Hullspeed only allows to calculate the
resistance of vessels that are within +/- 10% of the Hullspeed Sample
model. This sample model can be found in the C:\Program Files\Maxsurf\Sample Designs directory on your computer after installing the demo.
The demonstration version also has the analytical slender body method disabled. As well as the regression method for resistance prediction,
Hullspeed also has a theoretical based, slender-body method. This can
be applied to multihulls and other vessels that fall outside the
parameter range of the regression methods (provided that the individual
hulls are symmetrical and reasonably slender).
Using the slender-body method, Hullspeed is also able to predict the
far-field wave pattern which can be useful for assessing the wake
generated by the vessel. Version 12 of Hydromax is compatible with visual
basic for applications (VBA) -- this means that you can use a VBA macro in
Microsoft Excel (or similar) to modify a model in Maxsurf, then test the vessel
in Hullspeed automatically and very quickly compare the resistance curves of a parametric
series of hullforms. The methods that Hullspeed uses to calculate planing resistance don't predict the trim angle of the design.
This
does not mean that the resistance prediction is not correct. The
regression tables where the resistance coefficients were extracted from
are based on the upright hull parameters. Hullspeed is a resistance prediction program which
principally uses a number of standard regression methods to estimate the
resistance of the vessel. In addition, Hullspeed is able to use a slender-body
theoretical method to estimate wave-resistance. It is not possible to give a percentage uncertainty for
Hullspeed because the accuracy depends on the vessel type and the regression
method(s) used. If your vessel is very similar to the parent hullform of the
regression method, then you will get results that are within the uncertainty
margins of the regression. If however, you have a hullform that is further from
the parent, the uncertainty in the accuracy of the results is increased. Having said that, it can be expected that regression methods
will correctly classify design alternatives – i.e. vessel A will have a lower
resistance than vessel B. So although there may be 10-15% uncertainty in the
absolute value, you can generally correctly rank the design alternatives. No, Hullspeed does not calculate propeller efficiency. We recommend using NAVCAD for this purpose. The propeller efficiency can be fed back into Hullspeed for powering predictions. Hullspeed simply calculates the resistance of the hull. In case you wish to determine how much power in [kW] is needed to overcome that resistance the following formula applies: The Solve Resistance Analysis menu command is only enabled when you
have selected an analytical resistance analysis method like the Slender
Body method. To solve an analytical resistance prediction method: Step 1: Select the method in the Analysis | Methods dialog Step 2: Select Solve Resistance Analysis from the Analysis menu. Prefit FAQ list
In Yes, Prefit can be activated from the Edit menu in all versions of Maxsurf. See the maxsurf manual on Surface fitting with Genetic Algorithms for a comparison between Prefit as plug-in inside Maxsurf and Prefit as a standalone application. Span FAQ list
Span will not predict the sailing performance very accurately for a vessel that small. There are all sorts of empirical equations that assume a full size vessel and extrapolation to a model yacht is not recommended. The upright resistance would probably be reasonably accurate, but the sail forces etc would not. Yes you can save your rigging data from File | Save Measurement Data as.. This saves a .spd (Span Design) file. This allows you to open up different rigging sets with different hull models. You can, for example, use the parametric transformation in Maxsurf Pro to develop a series of hulls and then compare the results in Span. Span will not work for catamarans, though you should be able to get a resistance curve for your catamaran from Hullspeed using the slender body method. |
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one unambiguous continuous section (this is the same procedure as setting up a model for hydrostatic calculations in Hydromax). If multiple closed sections occur, or there is a "spike" in the section, Workshop will not know which path to take when calculating the girth at a particular longitudinal section.
