Hmmm:
"The text that you have entered is too long (11565 characters). Please shorten it to 10000 characters long." Hence, two-part posting for this one...
First,
Apologies for any frustration or stress I may have caused along the way with my drawing techniques and by pushing VCP and Shark to do things, which sometimes failed because I imported wonky curves and tried to build surfaces and thicken them when wonky curves were the underlying problem.
In 2011, while playing around with PolyCA, I learned a much easier way to create a very faired hull, but as I was jumping around between Freeship/Hydronship and PolyCAD and VCP/Shark, I set PolyCAD aside for a while, then failed to apply to VCP/Shark what I'd learned in PolyCAD because I kept thinking too hard/deeply about different features of each program.
The method I will explain below initially only requires control point splines and the Skin Surface tool, along with the translate tool
Obviously, the fewer number of control point splines involved in the whole of the bow and sonar dome area, the better. Doing this in VCP/Shark will be vastly easier than doing it in Freeship/Hydronship with one caveat: in Freeship/Hydronship, you explicitly control the number of control points involved in the entire model. Importing to FS/HS the VRML model from VCP's/Shark's skin will introduce THOUSANDS of control points, none of which you'll want to manually manipulate relative to fairing. At the very end, to compare between your model and a parent model the differences in efficiency, propulsion, acceleration, and other, you'll need to do the following:
-- orient your model bow-to-right so that Freeship/Hydronship (3.41 by now) can properly do the calcs
-- close off the transom by using the FS/HS Extrude tool
-- close/patch any "leaks" in the FS/HS model by using the "Face" ("Create a new control face from selected control points") tool
-- set the file's project parameters (length, beam, draft)
-- create, in the Intersections interface, stations and waterlines, and optionally, buttocks and diagonals
NOW....
For those wanting to design ships in Freeship/Hydronship (3.41 by now), but do so most expeditiously and with less stress, then, what I recently learned and which is not new information, and is easy to do would be:
1. Find a parent model that has reasonable hydrostatic properties as reported by Freeship/Hydronship
2. Turn on the interior edges and export that model as dxf 3D mesh (alternatively, export the 3D-polylines, too, but you may not need them depending on your near-term goals) as a half-breadth model, in Low resolution (to save on file space and loading time)
3. Into VCP or Shark, import the 3D mesh
4. Just as do real naval architects, modify the parent model sufficiently enough to not infringe on the copyright of the hull design (modify the length, beam, draft, freeboard, bow rake, hull flare, transom shape and rake, fins positions, keel/skeg angles, and other atttributes) by doing:
(((((((-- Interjection here: TURN ON THE CONTROL POINTS so you can see them. Save often, as in my case, there are times when, after the hull surface was created, random crashes would occur if I grabbed an errant/"troubled" control point -- the result being the Shark interface flashing once, then the dialogs going "outline" black and white, then restoring, then the entire crash of windows -- unless I managed to exit the "aborting" file before Shark internally moved into a collapse. Also, if this crash happens to start on you, avoid saving the file manuall as it might not open later, and if it does open, you'll be luck because Shark may have had a chance to create its own backup image with an odd suffix on the file's name. Save, and save often, as the mantra applies to ANY software. end interjection )))))))
IN PROFILE VIEW:
Use longitudinally-spaced, keel-up-and-outboard-to-the-top-deck direction control point splines to "trace" significant areas of hull curvature. Unless you plan to use the Guide Skin Surface Tool and unless you plan to early on create keel/skeg features, do not bother with creating the keel or the transom as these will be automatically "generated or inferred" in VCP/Shark, and later you can "link mirror" the hull and then just create a surface between them and not fiddle around with centerline-based cutting/trimming/creating)
(Note: be consistent about whether you draw the control point splines from keel up from from top deck down to keel -- it is handy latter when troubleshooting crossing curves in Bodyplan view; use color codes to avoid hair-pulling "de-crossing" of hull breadth stations)
4a. Create control point splines for the stem, but not the transom
4b. Create a second control point spline a few centimeters parallelt to and abaft the stem rake line
4c. Create between the .10 and .20 distance from the bow two to 4 forward-raked control point splines to control the bow flare and, later, the beam transition, spaced as desired,
4d. Create along the .25 to .50 distance two to 5 vertical, mid-body control point splines to control the top deck and keel "levelness" (since if not done with precision, VCP/Shark will introduce an almost imperceptible bulge below the baseline of the hull where you begin the keel's "cut-up" or "upturn")
4e. Create along the .60-.70 range two aft-raked control point splines
4f. Create along the remaining or .80 to .90 distance three control point splines running vertically, being careful to not introduct tight or overly-spaced curvature, to avoid unwanted gondolas longitudinally or convexes transversely
4g. Create at the desired location the transom, raked or vertical as desired, to terminate the hull's length overall (LOA)
4h. Save for later any skeg treatement unless you actually want to start trying to crease the skeg curves or mix-match control point splines, interpolated splines, and curves
[edit: corrected para 5]
5. Create three "waterlines"-based control point splines that run longitudinally from the stem spline to the transom spline just above the model's waterline and about 3/4 the way up to the top deck, and one for the top deck so you can control "fairness" along the top deck terminating control points. (If your hull has any hard "stepping" aft or amidships, this may complicate your modeling since there probably will be stress points in the splines in the transition from horizontal to vertical.)
6. As much as possible, hand-fair (but do not yet use Sharks auto fair tool on) the splines in the profile view, introducing typical nautical hull curving/dipping around 1/4 to 3/4 the way, or as desired
[Added note here: Later, if desired, use the Shark "Smooth Curve" tool to fair the curve, but note that it will detach the connection of any control points you paired up for hand-fariing/shape-making purposes.]
Remember that you are using the control point splines to mimic the body shape of the hull, the translate tool to make points overlap, and selecting relevant pairs of control points (only two points at a time) to affect the shape of the hull.
IN PLAN VIEW:
7. Adjust the beam position of the outboard control points to influence the shape of the hull. If a parallel midbody is needed or desired, then accordingly set the points along the relevant length of the parallel midbody. Even if one is not required for the waterline area, it may make modeling much easier to initially make the top deck control point splines relatively parallel to the centerline and then make minute adjustments in fairing later
8. Create control point splines that intersect with the shell-making splines and the two waterline-shaping splines, influencing the beam of the hull for each curve's elevation
9. Zoom in and select each sideshell/frame control point spline's control points and translate them to the control point of the waterline spline, taking care to not have too wide a stem nor too fat or narrow a transom, by translating or moving the corresponding waterline control point "station" control point as a pair
BODY PLAN VIEW
10. As above, move control points in pairs
11. Using color codes you should have set up earlier, visualize your fairing process in three groups:
A. Forward area of highly-raked/flared curves
B. Midbody area of relatively similarly shaped curves
C. Aft body of currves converging toward, but not meeting the centerline (unless your model has a sharp, canoe-like stern, or is double-ended as such)
Within each group, colors still should be distinct so you can flip around between forward and aft views of the model and maintain your orientation as you zoom and pan and move spline control points
12. Move the waterline/station control point splines as necessary to effect a well-shaped sonar dome or bulbous bow. No need to separately model and then attach or join multiple surfaces
12a. DO NOT join the bow stem and the near-bow-stem splines. If. You do, you might get a long "sword" shape flying off 300 meters into model space, excruciatingly slowing down zooming, panning, or other modeling activities
12b. Do not terminate the near-bow-stem curve too high above the termination point of the bow stem/rake spline, otherwise you'll have an upward-curving surface that might initially confuse your troubleshooting efforts
12c. Do not terminate the near-bow-stem spline too far AFT of the bow spline as it may introduce unwanted shaping of the bulb/dome
