Unless this already exists and I simply don't know it does, I think SharkCAD users could benefit from something such as the following:

— Create auxiliary control point spline while adding points to another line or spline. (This could also be done by projecting curves to a plane or to a surface, but the intersection control points might not be generated, I'm guessing.)

— Allow suggested or planned length/fraction subdivision of spline segment.

Take the sectional view of anything, but, in this case, a ship hull shaping curves. User needs to add more rows of splines or lines to a network of section curves.

(If 40 or even 20 curves exist, it could take 3 or 4 rows causing around 4 clicks per line, maybe 10 to 20 minutes, not counting mental fatigue or distractions pushing that work content out to 30 minutes or more. (Sure, an AI could do it in seconds, but, I'm looking from the position of someone who needs to intellectually honestly and factually claim having done more than 90% of drawn work claimed for copyright or patent or trademark protection.))

As the user adds a point, the Cursor calculates the segment length (between control points) and suggests, say, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, and then whether the user prefers one of those suggestions as a pattern through the duration of that row.

Optionally, SharkCAD could be made more endowed to ask if it should repeat the addition of control points for, say, 1, 2, or 3 more rows.

As the points get added manually, the newly dropped-in waterline splines would visually present so the user can readily know when the manual tedium is almost over.

That, or, say, SharkCAD magically or masterfully acquires its own Grasshopper-like and internal (branding indifferent) spreadsheet grid so users can do more, and do it faster.

This might be a good spot to say that yesterday, I imagined that a new and possibly profitable trajectory for SharkCAD is for it to become a gaming engine similar to Unreal Engine.


It would be a huge feat or win if users accustomed to building models in curves and surfaces and solids, and not interested in originating in meshes, could just export their models as a game-ready mesh(es)/(ing) that understands that two intersecting walls of a home or office can have their own edges be apparently coincident or collinear or parallel or offset to nearly 0.01mm without being a geometry issue. So, a knocked-down wall (whether wood, plastic, steel, etc) perpendicular to another wouldn't need to result in collapse or deformation of the perpendicular unless they are in advanced characterized as nailed or welded or glued together.

What do you think, fellow SharkCAD users? Do you think it could be a game changer if SharkCAD became a competitive gaming engine?

This could be a way to make the app itself less expensive, and potentially even nearly free, while the company could make good revenue from charging access and a percentage of player fees. However, the company would need to make the dev/designer UI/UX world-class, low-friction, and showcase some incredible examples that serve as starting points to increase onboarding.

Thanks, MP.

In general I get all that, appreciate it, and like the tidy summary.

I started to gradually process that workflow when around 2024 YouTube suggested I watch Starship Simulator, which has been around since ~ 2020, yet only in 2024 did YouTube put the channel before my eyes) created by or programmed by one Daniel Govier of Somerset, England. (Impressively, on his recent (June/July) Kickstarter campaign asking for some £67,000, his backers put in over £250k!! Super impressive, despite being beset by Unreal Engine nanite conversion flows, etc, and being like a year behind his earlier promises to backers.)

His workflow — despite some number of his followers on his various channels recommending Blender or Rhino — is (as I grasp):

— Design in SketchUp;

— Export as meshes;

— Import into Unreal Engine

— Attach properties, behaviors, and related coding.

I want to do similar but for naval ships. Not the stuff out there that looks like 3D medieval warfare that teleported into modern equipment. But, not as full-on as DCS World or similar.

But, I guess I'm leaning towards CAD like SharkCAD could be more of an adjacent as well as more capable tool to engines Unreal. But, that'd mean yet again rebuilding all the underlying code to create the necessary branches just for the stuff that might be sensible to pursue.

Though, that means SharkCAD would need to branch, hopefully resulting in the retention of current fairly fun/approachable/likeable GUI, while bringing about a different beast that might enter imposter syndrome until it is hopefully inevitably taken seriously.

But, that means board buy-in, massive external funding to fund an expansion team that would be unleashed and be quarantined to not be influenced or held back. Tho, that just means the devs would be under insurmountable pressure for ROI/asset-stripping exits reasons.

Alternatively, I suppose add-on or extensions (esp using spreadsheets and BOMs to drive edits, make reports; reorg layers; tidy up ragged or poor fairing efforts; do lical scaling/transposition more like Rhino's Gumball (draft/extend), etc) like in Rhino and Blender could be less ambitious, but still provide more power than currently present. I read the Rhino3D users forum every few months, and over there, they have their own asks, gripes, frustrations, too. But, like here, the issues I have don't seem to be experienced or reported by others. Issues that even within year 1 don't see fixes.


I fantasize that my drawings will induce people to check out SharkCAD, and that a non-insignificant numer would actually buy. But, I'd want that buy-in to cause earned revenue to go RIGHT BACK INTO SharkCAD and nothing else. I really want SharkCAD to remain a core part of my workflows.

Blender is nice and powerful, but to me feels untameable last I gave it a spin. The orbit/pan operations are immersion-breaking, given that I'm so SharkCAD fixated.

Rhino is powerful, too, and, I'm sure that people would say that since I design naval ships, I should do Rhino with Grasshopper, or Rhino + Orca/Nemo/Swordfish/etc. Some of the add-ons are free. Orca can hit as high as $10k per licensed user. I'm not a commercial or professional nautical engineer, and can't justify that price. So, I make do manually in SharkCAD from the perspective of showing people there's value in doing manual CAD if one is a hobbyist (espe one who needs to be in a position to maximally claim IP rights w/o AI encumbrances like "Prove the AI didn't do your work; prove the tool you used makes you do more than 80% of the work you're trying to register for IP protection", etc., beyond the usual stuff of needing to be first, novel, or sufficiently differentiating.)

Thanks again, MP, for you time spent researching and presenting the differences between gaming engines and CAD apps.


Best!

Posting the following today because YouTube just minutes ago put in front of me this years-old thing called Doriax Engine.

This could be Tim's opportunity to expand SharkCAD into Linux, to hedge the company's bets on its desktop future across platforms.

3D physics engine, and the code is Open Source. Could save the company @$$/oad$ of money on graphics kernel licensing.

I would like to think that this could help SharkCAD leap a few steps ahead.

Of course, integrating this and SharkCAD would be like Corel trying to fold Bkrland Paradox into Corel Office back in the day. Not likely to be visually like Lotus Development Corporation folding Approach Corporation's Approach relational database app into Lotus SmartSuite, or Ami Pro being recast as Lotus Word Pro. Could be as jarring as Lotus Notes with the drawer GUI changing over to lines and browser-page-like or maybe, like an IDE GUI

"It's very much like Unity and Godot had a lovechild", says the presenter of the channel.

Look at the way those 3D character models work.

I don't know how big the app infrastructure is. Hopefully, it would fit on an installation DVD.

If the company HAD a gaming engine, people like me who design naval ships for fun (I'm a former USN sailor, 1984-1988) but who want to go into the gaming space, our models (or at least min) theoretically could be already "right at home" (assuming I or others don't get presented adversarial IP terms).

The SharkCAD story shouldn't be one of waning days. Tim's roots go way back. I wouldn't be surprised if he secretly withheld dreams of making live 3D richly animated models for clients to help sell their projects from within his own CU, VC, SC.

In 2010 or 2011, when I worked at a naval architecture firm (2007-2012) (commercial ships, not military, so, per one of my terms of agreement to intern and potentially be hired, the company never take any legal or IP interest in my naval ship design hobby, and the president said ~"We don't do warships — your hobby is yours. Just don't mix any of our client IP into your hobby or anything else."), I tried to introduce Punch ViaCAD but the company said that virtually none of our clients will pay for 3D models, so, nice idea (at that time), but, not going there.

If I had in 2010/2011 known what I eventually learned at home mostly drawing in isolation in VC and Shark FX without being very sharing about what I doing, I might have created for myself a nice role before Rhino and internal tools may have gotten in.

If anything, the Tim could probably find investors (ideally in terms good to the existing employees and to us customers/fans of Tim) who'd enable the Company to at least spin out or spin off or create and fill roles without being a huge distraction.

Just my 1/2 cent.



"Doriax Engine - Shockingly Powerful C++ & Lua 2D/3D Game Engine"

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FJKy-iHXtl0&