Interior Design Software

[atavist]

Any chance anyone knows of a good boat interior design software? There are lots of good boat design programs out there that focus on the boat hull form, etc but I've never seen one that lets you play with the interior using known boat demension... There are a lot of good home interior design programs... It would be fun to be able to similarly play with different boat interiors...

I kill a lot of spare time doing this with a pencil and graph paper but it would be much nicer to have a 3d model to work with.

thanks,

[redbopeep]

Originally Posted by atavist

Any chance anyone knows of a good boat interior design software? There are lots of good boat design programs out there that focus on the boat hull form, etc but I've never seen one that lets you play with the interior using known boat demension... There are a lot of good home interior design programs... It would be fun to be able to similarly play with different boat interiors...

I kill a lot of spare time doing this with a pencil and graph paper but it would be much nicer to have a 3d model to work with.

thanks,

The next time I see a friend of mine who is a naval architect I'll ask. I doubt that there is any inexpensive software available because of the 3D nature of boat interiors. Having said that, you could likely just build a nice solid model if you have access to a 3D program--Solidworks, Rhino3D, even 3D Autocad....all cost money to use though...

[magwas]

I would use FreeShip to do it as well.

Actually I plan to do 3d visualization of some plans I have in mind on my cubicwalled home with freeship. It is just the most easily useable cad program I know which can do 3d.

[atavist]

I have freeship... again it's good for playing with hulls but unless there's a version of it I don't know of there's no capability to actually build an interior.... although I guess using the half model mode would help figure out interior space figure out bilge tankage space and such...

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by atavist

I have freeship... again it's good for playing with hulls but unless there's a version of it I don't know of there's no capability to actually build an interior.... although I guess using the half model mode would help figure out interior space figure out bilge tankage space and such...

If you have any sort of basic plans/dimensions for the boat you could scan them and work in one of the free CAD packages out there.

[atavist]

I think I've somehow been misunderstoond...

I"m talking about a program like Professional Home Design.. but for boats... where yes designing the structure is part of it but the biggest part is just doing the interior decorating... so that you can play with different colors and spaces and walk through it in first person 3d to see how the space feels...

more of a boat decorating software than a design software... to tell if there's room for a wrap around sitting area or a reorganized kitchen... the "girly" (no offense ladies) stuff not the hull design...

[IslandHopper]

This may be a better place to search....

http://www.boatdesign.net/

[mico]

I"m talking about a program like Professional Home Design.. but for boats... where yes designing the structure is part of it but the biggest part is just doing the interior decorating... so that you can play with different colors and spaces and walk through it in first person 3d to see how the space feels...

more of a boat decorating software than a design software... to tell if there's room for a wrap around sitting area or a reorganized kitchen... the "girly" (no offense ladies) stuff not the hull design...

[/quote]

For us, nothing beats the tactile. After gutting our first sloop including all bulkheads, we spent a month fitting her out with cardboard cabinetry. From fridges, bulkhead, bunks, stove, sink, shower, heads and engine compartment we built it all in cardboard. Having a full size mockup we could walk around our little yacht and get an exact sense of how we could maximise available space and what worked and what didn't. Sure it was initially time consuming but we were then able to use the cardboard as templates for the actual build. Everything went together perfectly.

As far as decor, we take wide angle internal pics and run them through photoshop where with a few simple layer masks you can view every colour and finish under the sun before you so much as open a paint tin.

Fair winds

[Menny]

Hi atavist,

You might wanna chack out this adress here : http://www.boatdesign.net/Directory/Software/ They give you quite some options an a good list of boat related software. (As Island Hopper has already suggested). They offer 3d Hull Design software solutions which might be exactly what you are looking for. Its actually a great Idea since I prefer pen and paper for designs - but a change is welcome!

Good luck