3D Hull Design

You will notice that the initial stages of hull design tend more towards art than engineering. In all steps, remember that the canoe is made of concrete and must therefore be poured in some manner. This construction process will be in exact and will again emphasize artistic -> sculpting ability.

Basic Hull Design

Before beginning your model browse online to learn more about the geometry of a racing canoe. links below provide some basic information about concrete hulls. You May also want to review one of our existing designs before proceeding. See the progression in our understanding of Rhino's capablities.

Online Documentation	Canoe Designs
Hull Design 101	canoev1.3dm
Hemlock Pete's Canoe Corner	canoev4.3dm
The Shape of the Canoe	canoev6.3dm

Sample Racing Canoe - Note the bulge in the center, for propulsion effects from vortex shedding and to improve manueverability. Click here to veiw more pics with better resolution. (.doc)

Using Rhino 3D

Rhionceros is an excellent 3D drafting utility. The interface is very similar to AutoCAD, except that this program features three dimensional editing. A free fully functional demo is available at www.rhino3d.com. I strongly suggest working through all three tutorials.

Some drafting suggestions:

Working off a picture like the one seen above, trace the gunwales using the poly-line tool. Its only necessary to draw half the canoe, because you can mirror the othe side. Assume that the grid behind the canoe represents square feet. The trace can be made with only a few control points.
Select the line you've drawn and use the function Curve->Edit Tools->Rebuild to redraw the curve with as many control points as necessary. If you select the 3rd order interpolation, Rhino will compute a smooth polymetric curve. Edit the line my dragging the control points as you see fit.
Draw another datum line to represent the keel (bottom) of the boat for reference.
At this point you have a few options. You could copy the gunwale line in the z-direction and adjust the points to show the tapering of the canoe. Or you may wish to free-hand a cross-section using the technique described above. Then copy the cross section in the x direction and adjust as necessary. (Remember that you only need to draw half).
Mirror your canoe and use the Join tool to joing each cross-sectional line to its pair.
Use the Rail Revolve tool to create a surface between each cross-section.
Join each surface to create a poly surface.

2003 Canoe v5 wire frame