Tuesday 6 October 2015

Lapstrake boat hull in Rhino with Grasshopper




Model and design lapstrake boat hulls like this viking ship with Rhino and Grasshopper scripts.
Modeling lapstrake hulls in 3D is actually quite challenging. When they are modeled by hand, it is very time consuming to edit the shape at a later time. In order to create more flexibility, a Grasshopper script makes it possible to easily edit the shape and also instantly see some hydrostatics and a linesplan.

Try out yourself by downloading the zip file which contains a Rhino file as well as three different scripts:
  1. lapstrake-no overlap is the script of the video. Strakes do not overlap.
  2. lapstrake-no overlap-GRP is a script that creates a hull with a smooth inner skin.
  3. lapstrake-overlap is a script that actually creates strakes that overlap. However this doesn't result in perfect solutions.





Demonstration movie of modeling lapstrake hulls with Grasshopper






Drawing of a Viking ship that is used as reference