Can revit be used in ship designing firms?

[aliya14]

Hello,
Can Revit building be used in designing /building ships?
Regards,
Aliya

[kpaxton]

Hello, Can Revit building be used in designing /building ships? Regards,
Aliya
Aliya,
A most interesting question. This is actually the inverse of what Frank O. Gehry said back in the 80's - "Can a ship building software design buildings?" Can you say Bilbao, Spain (http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Guggenheim_Bilbao.html)?

I think this all depends on what it is you're intending. Canoes or Cruise Liners? Certainly a feature of say, Levels, would be handy as there are many on a cruise ship. However, you must look at the overall picture.

My opinion is that yes, you could limp through using this program, but it's not made for doing that. You'd need something more along the lines of Catia (http://www.3ds.com/products-solutions/plm-solutions/catia/overview/)or Alias-Maya (http://www.alias.com/eng/index.shtml)for the power and smooth, NURB like surfaces.

Good luck!
Kyle

[Steve_Stafford]

The hull is just one part of the ship...everything inside the ship is what Revit is perfect for. The hull can be created as a mass and the steel skin applied to the face of the mass. If it is "hard" to make the hull as a mass in Revit, then another application can make the shape and then import it into Revit to build the mass. I don't see why it couldn't be done. It would be great to see it!

When I worked for a theater rigging company we supplied equipment for several cruise ship's theaters. Apparently ship building is a bit different, a steel plate gets welded in place to make a wall and then an opening is cut out for a door etc.

[Roger Evans]

I saw a few sketch drawings for a Modern Contemporary House Boat design which were very good ~ I think they used Sketch Up but I have lost the link sorry

So on that basis I would say it would be possible to model a boat / ship in Revit but whether its what Ship builders need is another matter ~ I would love to see the results though ~ very interesting

[hand471037]

I could see Revit working well for the interior of the ship, being able to produce interiors, shop drawings, and the like for the wood-work & steel.

However, two things make me think it wouldn't be your best bet:

1. It would be hard to make the Hull Shape within Revit itself.
2. Revit doesn't have any features to pull apart your model for automated fabrication.

If you were using, say, Inventor or SolidWorks or Pro-E, and you modeled your ship out as a bunch of parts, you could then pull out those parts to create fabrication models for shop drawings or direct CNC manufacturing. You could also 'script' the assembly, so that you can plan what goes in when on a part-by-part basis, if need be, so you can choreograph things like difficult seams, welds, etc. However, these programs aren't very good for whole buildings and don't understand typical relationships therein.

Now, Revit's very good at interiors & buildings. If you were doing something like a cruse ship I could very much see a combo of 'something else for the hull & structure' and 'Revit for the interiors' working very well. However, anything smaller and I have a hard time seeing Revit being the most efficient choice, even tho it could totally work.

[knurrebusk]

Depends on the type of ship, and what part of the ship Revit is suppose to cover.
I would think the conceptual design would work fine, then things get´s increasingly
more complicated with progress.

My best friend during 30 years is a Chief Engineer in the field of chemical tankers.
He´s very negative towards my suggestions concerning BIM/3d etc, tells me it´s not possible on the complex systems they have on board their tankers.

I think he´s wrong though, if Revit/Inventor improves their communication, things will change.

If they stagnate, there is lot´s of upcoming software developing as we speak.

Cheap software will dig into complex frontiers I think!
And that will push Revit/Inventor/Catia/Allplan to do more trikses.

[mmodernc]

I remember seeing somewhere that an Asian firm was using Revit to design a ship-probably a junk.

ship by someone using 3ds via autocad with some materials tweaking, floor by Revit

sHIPS NEED A LOT OF BLENDING-has anyone checked out the Blender website lately? www.blender.org

[MikeJarosz]

Rhino, which a lot of architecture firms are using, was originally created for boat building. visit:

http://www.rhino3d.com/marine.htm

And CATIA, which Gehry uses, was created by Dessault Systems in France for aircraft design.

These systems excel at curvilinear design which is what architectural designers want today. They call it "blobitecture"