Autoplate Manual

Autop
plate For Windows®

®
User’s Manual
Release 9.2
Autoship Systems Corporation

Suite 1451 - 409 Granville Street
Vancouver BC Canada V6C 1T2
Copyright  2008 Autoship Systems Corporation
®
Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation
®
AutoCAD is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc.
Information contained in this document is subject to change without further notice. No
part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means,
electronic of mechanical, for any purpose, without the express permission of Autoship
Systems Corporation.
Copyright  2008 Autoship Systems Corporation. All rights reserved.
Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. AutoCAD is a

registered trademark of Autodesk Inc. All other product names are trademarks,
registered trademarks, or service marks of their respective owners. Autoship
Systems Corporation cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. In addition,
terms suspected of being trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks
have been appropriately italicized. Use of a term in this book should not be
regarded as a validity of any trademark, registered trademarks, or service mark.

Suite 1451
409 Granville Street
Tel: (604) 254-4171

Fax: (604) 254-5171
www.autoship.com
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Getting Started 1
1.0 Introducing Autoplate 1
1.1 System Requirements 2
1.2 Installing Autoplate 2

1.2.1 System Initialization - Installation Wizard
1.2.2 ASC Program Authorization
1.2.3 Autoplate Setup Program
1.2.4 Lock Setting
1.3 Starting and Exiting Autoplate 4

1.3.1 Starting
1.3.2 Exiting
1.3.3 The Autoplate 9 Navigator
1.4 Online Help 5
Chapter 2 - Quick Overview 7
Chapter 3 - Reference 11
3.0 What is Plate Expansion?
3.1 Overview 12
3.2 The Autoplate User Interface 13

3.2.1 The Menus and Help system
3.2.2 New Control Bar Icons
3.3 Points and Curves in Autoplate 14
i
3.3.1 New Curve Options
3.4 Preparing an Autoship Project for Autoplate 15
3.5 Starting a New Autoplate Project 16
3.6 Stock 17
3.7 Setting Up a Classification 18
3.8 Plate Boundaries 19

3.8.1 Requirements for Plate Boundaries
3.8.2 Tips for Creating Plate Boundary Curves
3.9 Creating a Plate 21
3.10 Plate Selection 22
3.11 The Plate Viewer 23
3.12 Expansion 24
3.12.1 Directionality
3.12.2 Condition
3.12.3 Extra Stock
3.12.4 Mesh
3.12.5 Expansion Failure
3.13 Templates 27
3.14 Pin Jig 28
3.15 Reports 29
3.16 Panels 30
3.16.1 Creating a New Panel
3.16.2 Selecting Panels
3.16.3 Creating a Panel Pin Jig
3.17 Export 33
3.17.1 Plate DXF
3.17.2 Panel DXF
ii
3.17.3 Shell Expansion
3.18 Invalidation and Regeneration of Plates 37
3.19 Plate Deletion 38
3.20 Switching Between Autoship and Autoplate 38
3.21 References 38
Chapter 4 - Tutorial 39
4.0 Preliminary Considerations
4.1 Starting a New Autoplate Project 40
4.2 Defining Plate Stock 42
4.3 Plate Classification 43
4.4 Setting Up a Baseline 45
4.5 Laying Out Seams and Butts 47
4.6 Defining a Plate 52
4.7 Defining Templates 59
4.8 Defining Pin Jig Settings 61
4.9 Defining Plates on the Stern Bulb 62
4.10 Defining Plates on the Bow Flare 67

4.11 Defining a Panel and its Pin Jig 71
4.12 DXF Output 73

4.12.1 Plate Drawings
4.12.2 Panel Drawings
4.13 Generating Reports 74
iii
Contact Information
There are two main ways to contact Autoship Systems Corporation:
• Contact our technical support department for technical assistance.
• For other inquiries, contact our head office.
Technical Support:
Our technical support department is available for direct telephone inquiries on
weekdays from 08:00 to 17:00 Pacific Standard Time. You can also fax or
email questions at any time:
Tel: (+1) 604 254 4171 (Extension 104)

Fax: (+1) 604 254 5171
Email: techsupport@autoship.com
Contacting Autoship's Head Office:

If you would like more information about Autoship Systems Corporation and our
products, please do not hesitate to contact us at:
Tel: (+1) 604 254 4171

Fax: (+1) 604 254 5171

Suite 1451 - 409 Granville Street
Getting Started
Chapter 1
Getting Started
1.0 Introducing Autoplate
Autoplate is a tool for creating hull plates for ships. It offers the following features:
• automates many of the processes involved in defining plate boundaries

• performs plate expansion and produces forming information
• generates templates and pin jig data
• allows assignment of stock type to plates
• provides 2D and 3D DXF output
• generates shell expansion DXF drawings
• provides a classification system for the organization of plate information
• creates pin jig data for panels made of adjacent plates
• calculates plate weights and areas
Autoplate is closely tied to the Autoship hull design program. It accepts Autoship
project files as input and has basically the same main screen, controls and
menus. In this manual it is assumed that the reader is familiar with Autoship and
with the Windows operating system. If any terms or features in this manual are
unfamiliar, please consult the Autoship manual.
The system incorporates security features which are designed to prevent

accidental modification of a ship design and the plating of trimmed-away portions
of surfaces. Autoplate reads but does not modify Autoship project files; the
Autoship operator designates what objects are to be plated.
1
Chapter 1
1.1 System Requirements
Autoplate is a 32 bit Windows program.The following table shows minimum

system requirements for running the program:
Operating System Windows® 2000 Sp4

Windows XP Professional Sp2 or later
Windows Vista® Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate
Windows Server 2003
Processor Pentium®
Memory 256 MB
Video 1024 X 768 with True Color*
A video card with 8MB or more of memory and
hardware acceleration for OpenGL is recommended.
Hard Disk 100 MB Free
* Operation is possible at 256 colors, but for rendering to function

correctly 32k colors or more are needed.
1.2 Installing Autoplate
1. Place the CD in your computer.
2. In most cases an "autorun" feature will start the installation program auto-
matically; if it doesn't, then access the disk via either Windows Explorer or
the Start/Run commands, and double-click the Setup32.exe file.
3. A screen will open, listing all the applications available on the disk and the
ASC Program authorization. Click the application you want to install. Note
that if you do not have a hardware lock pertaining to that application, you
will only be able to run the software in demo mode.
2
Getting Started
1.2.1 ASC Program Authorization
4. If you have not previously run the ASC Program Authorization from this CD
you will have to do so before the application will run with full feature.
The programs in the ASC CAD/CAM suite use an authorization system with a
hardware lock. A hardware lock is a small electronic device that attaches
either to the parallel or USB port of your computer. You need the hardware
lock in order for Autoplate to run in normal mode. Otherwise, the program will
run only in demo mode.
Keep the lock in a safe place when not in use. As outlined in the Licensing
Agreement, you are exclusively responsible for the hardware lock. You may be
required to purchase an additional software license if the hardware lock is lost
or stolen. An Authorization setup tailored for your installation was provided
with your shipment. You may also obtain the latest Authorization setup by
contacting Autoship Technical Support.
The Authorization setup will install the following components:
- the ASC authorization system files
- a Lock Settings utility application to allow you to configure the lock
- the lock drivers.
Before beginning the installation:
- remove the lock from the computer,
- close all running applications.
5. Accept the default installation location, or click Change to specify

another location.
Important Note: You must remove your USB lock key from the computer
before continuing with the installation
6. Follow the remaining instructions to complete the installation.
3
Chapter 1
1.2.2 Autoplate Setup Program
7. When the Autoplate Setup program starts an information message will appear
first. Ensure all other Windows programs are closed, and click Next.
8. Accept the default installation location, or click Change to specify

another location.
9.Follow the remaining instructions to complete the installation
1.2.3 Lock Settings
After installing the Authorization, you may wish to configure the lock using the
Lock Settings utility. The Lock Settings utility is installed with the authorization
system, you will find a shortcut to it on the Start Menu. You are not required to
make any changes to the settings, but if you want to optimize the time required
for the application to find your lock key, it is recommended that you enter the
following values:
- On the Servers tab, enter the name of the computer on which the lock is
attached next to each of the applications you have purchased.
- On the Lock Search Order tab, move the type of lock you have purchased
over to the Selected list.
Note that these settings hardwire where the lock system finds the lock, if the lock
moves to another computer these settings must be updated. If you clear the
settings the lock system attempts to find the lock key by searching all computers.
1.3 Starting and Exiting Autoplate
1.3.1 Starting
Click Autoship/Autoplate start menu.
The Autoplate splash screen will appear. After the program has finished loading
the main screen will appear.
1.3.2 Exiting
There are two ways to exit Autoplate:
4
Getting Started
1. Using the File menu:
Select the Exit option from the File menu. You will be prompted to save
your current work.
2. Using the Windows close box:
Double-click the close box at the top left of the main screen. You will be
prompted to save your current work.
1.3.3 The Autoplate 9 Navigator

Many Autoplate operations are accessible through the Autoplate Navigator. You
many find tis approach more easy and direct than using items in the Autoplate
menu. (See the online documentation.)
1.4 Online Help

Online help is available through the main menu Help item, via Help buttons in
individual dialogues and by clicking the F1 button with the mouse over some
feature of the user interface.
Under the Help menu item there are three submenu items which access Autoship
help, Autoplate help and the Autoplate about dialogue. Autoship help documents
elements of the user interface and functionality which are common to the two
programs. Explanation of matters pertaining only to Autoplate is confined to the
help system of that name.
Clicking on a Help button in any of the Autoplate-specific dialogues will bring up

Autoplate help opened to the topic for that dialogue.
5
Chapter 1
6
Quick Overview
Chapter 2
Quick Overview
This chapter provides a quick, step-by-step approach to producing plates. The

numbers in parenthesis indicate later sections of the manual which provide
detailed information.
At the highest level, the plate production process can be summarized as follows:
Steps to Create and Expand a Plate:
1. The surfaces to be plated are created in Autoship and the project is saved
as a PR3 file.
2. Curves are created on the surfaces either in Autoship or Autoplate.
3. In Autoplate, curves meant to be the seams (boundaries) of a plate
are highlighted and the plate is created by clicking between them on
the surface.
4. The plate is expanded and other output data are generated.
In more detail:
1. In Autoship, prepare the project for plating (3.4):

• Ensure that all objects (surfaces and polyobjects) to be plated have their
normal vectors pointing outward.
• Gather these objects into one or more groups.
• Optionally establish a baseline containing frame locations.
• Save the PR3 file.
2. In Autoplate, start a new plating project (3.5):

• Start Autoplate, select File - New and select the PR3 file.
• Use Plate - Group to select the group to be plated.
• Use File - Save As to create the new PLA file in the desired directory.
7
Chapter 2
3. Optionally define available stock and set up a classification. If you leave out
this step, plates will be assigned a default stock, which may be changed later.
• Use Plate - Stock to bring up the Stock dialogue (3.6).

• Edit existing stocks or add new ones to correspond to the stock available
for plate production.
• Use Plate - Classification to bring up the Plate Classification
dialogue (3.7).
• Modify the example in the tutorial (4.3) to set up your desired plate
class system.
4. Lay out the Plate Boundaries:

• Plate boundaries are embedded and projected curves, chines or surface/
polyobject edges (3.8.1).
• Click the Show Plate Group button (3.2.2).
• In create mode, create the curves which are needed to form plate
boundaries (3.8.2).
5. Create plates, one at a time (3.9):

• In select mode, select those curves which form the boundary of one plate.
• Switch to create mode and click the create plate icon .
• Accept the name provided by the program or enter a new one.
• If plates are to be generated with the same properties at the same
location on both port and starboard, check the Twin across centre plane
box. If the plate should be bounded by a chine, check the Chines as
boundaries box. If you have set up a classification, select the desired leaf
node in the Class tree.
• Click OK to close the dialogue.
• Move the mouse pointer to lie over any point on the interior of the plate
and left click.
8
Quick Overview
6. Once a plate is created, you can view its properties at any time:
• Use Plate - Select to bring up the Plate Select dialogue (3.10).
• Select just one plate.
• Use Plate - View to bring up the Plate Viewer dialogue (3.11).
7. Expand plates (3.12):

• In the Plate Select dialogue choose one or more plates to be
expanded with the same set of options.
• Use Plate - Expand to bring up the Expand dialogue.
• Select the options: Directionality (3.12.1), Condition (3.12.2), Extra
Stock (3.12.3) and Mesh Edge Tolerance (3.12.4).
• Click OK. As each selected plate is being expanded, its name is
displayed in the bottom left corner of the dialogue.
8. Create templates and/or pin jigs. These are optional aids to plate fabrication:
• In the Plate Select dialogue choose one or more plates.
• Use Plate - Templates (3.13) or Plate - Pin Jig (3.14) to bring up
the relevant dialogue.
• Choose options and click OK.
• The program calculates templates/jigs for all selected plates using
the same options.
9. Create DXF output files (3.17):

• Select the plate(s) you want to output.
• Use File - Export - Plate DXF to bring up the Plate Output to DXF
dialogue (3.17.1).
• Check the boxes for each item you want included in the DXF drawing.
2D and 3D are output to separate files for each selected plate.
• Each item is on a separate layer. To set a layer colour, click the box to
left of its check box. Clickclick the desired colour in the colour dialogue.
• Choose output units.
9
Chapter 2
10. Create shell expansion (3.17.3):

• If you wish to have any plates shown on the drawing, select them.
• Use File - Export - Shell Expansion to bring up the Shell Expansion
DXF dialogue.
• Select items and set colours as above.
• If you wish the drawing to be produced to some tolerance, check the Do
Refinement box and enter a value for the tolerance.
11. Create and output panels (3.16). If plates are to be assembled into panels
Autoplate will produce data for setting up a pin jig to position them:
• Use Panel - New to bring up the New Panel Dialogue (3.16.1).
• Accept the default name or enter a new one.
• In the All Plates list select those to be in the new panel.
• Click Add Selected.
• In the case that some plate is included which should not be, select it in the
In Panel list and click Remove Selected.
• Optionally, enter a comment. Click OK.
• Having created a panel, use Panel - Select to bring up a dialogue where
it may be selected (3.16.2).
• Use Panel - Pin Jig to bring up the Panel Pin Jig dialogue (3.16.3).
• Select the appropriate options and use the Align controls to adjust the jig
pin locations to the panel. Click OK.
• Select panels for export and select File - Export - Panel to bring up the
Panel DXF dialogue. Choose options (3.17.2) and click OK.
10
Reference
Chapter 3
Reference
3.0 What is Plate Expansion?
When a surface has compound curvature (nonzero Gaussian curvature) and flat
material is to be made to conform to a patch of that surface, the material must be
stretched or shrunk. The resulting relative change in distance between
neighbouring points is called strain. The process of calculating the required strain
is called expansion, and performing this calculation is one of Autoplate's principal
functions. Note that if the surface patch is developable, the strain will be zero over
that patch. Once strain has been calculated, the program can map plate
boundaries and internal features, such as embedded curves, from the curved
surface onto the flat.
This process closely resembles geographical mapping in which a flat

representation of the doubly-curved earth's surface is generated. As everyone
knows, there are many such mappings: Mercator's, polar stereographic, Cassini,
etc. The distinction among these is not that any one is more correct than another,
but that one may be particularly useful for a given purpose. For example,
Mercator's is useful for mapping the whole globe without any cuts except at the
poles while the equal-area mappings are useful for seeing relative land area.
For any one hull plate many strain distributions are possible. This is reflected in
the industry where each commercial program uses a different method (Lamb,
1994), some of which are computer implementations of old manual methods. As
in geographical mapping, there is no one correct method. The choice is based on
degree of usefulness for plate fabrication. The method selected should also be
fast enough to expand many plates in a reasonable time, and capable of correctly
completing its calculations for almost any input shape.
Autoplate, which was designed with these objectives in mind, uses a new,
reasonably fast algorithm which produces very smooth mappings. The resulting
strain is well distributed over the plate and will result in easy manufacture.
11
Chapter 3
3.1 Overview
Overview
Autoplate accepts surface shape information only in the form of Autoship PR3
files. Plate boundaries (seams and butts) are curves which are embedded in or
projected onto Autoship surfaces. These curves may be created either in Autoship
or Autoplate, or both. Autoplate does not modify PR3 files; it has its own binary file
type (extension PLA) in which it can save, among other entities, points and curves
added to the project contained in the PR3 file.
Having suitably prepared a project in Autoship, you read it into Autoplate, set up a
classification tree (if desired) and assign stock to the classes. You are then ready
to create any boundary curves which are not already in the project and then to
define plates. Curve generation proceeds exactly as in Autoship.
A plate is defined by selecting those curves which form its boundary and then
clicking in the plate interior. The program searches for a closed boundary path,
formed from sections of the selected curves and surface/polyobject edges. If such
a path is found, a triangular mesh is generated over the plate.
Having defined and selected a plate you then generate its expansion. This
involves choosing among several options and specifying what if any extra stock
you want on the plate boundaries. Once the expansion is performed you can use
the Autoplate viewer to evaluate the result.
Templates, plate pin jig data and panel pin jig data are generated in
separate operations.
You may choose to export the results in DXF format and/or generate reports for
each plate individually and for all plates. A shell expansion view may also be
output as DXF.
12
The Autoplate User Interface
3.2 The Autoplate User Interface

The Autoplate User Interface
The Autoplate main screen is almost identical to that of Autoship, however

Autoplate has some different main menu items as well as additional buttons on
the control bar.
Autoplate does not support the creation or editing of surfaces and polyobjects, so
the select, edit and create mode tool icons specific to them are absent.
The alternative main screen layouts introduced in Autoship 9 are available

in Autoplate.
3.2.1 The Menus and Help system

Most of the Autoship menus are present in Autoplate. The Files menu has no
import item and export is limited to plate, panel and shell expansion DXF. The Edit
menu is simpler in Autoplate. Two new top menu items, Plate and Panel, bring up
menus unique to Autoplate. The items in these menus will be discussed individu-
ally in later sections.
Most of the dialogue boxes unique to Autoplate contain a Help button. Clicking
this will bring up a help topic in which the use of the dialogue is described.
3.2.2 New Control Bar Icons

The Show Plate Group button has no correspondence in Autoship. Like other
buttons on the tool bar it has two states, up and down . When this button is
down, only the objects in the plate group, plus any curves hosted by these
objects, are visible. Autoplate searches all curves in the project to find any which
are embedded in or projected onto surfaces in the group, or surfaces which are
the origin for polyobjects in the group. Only curves which are visible will be
displayed. Visibility may be set in the attributes dialogue. This button must be in
its down state to define plates.
The Show Plates button is an addition to the group of "Show" buttons. When it
is in the down state plates are drawn on the screen. How a plate is shown
depends on the setting of the Plates - Show Names menu item. If it is checked,
the plate outline is drawn and the plate name is drawn at the plate centre. The
name colour indicates the plate status: green is valid expanded and red is
13
Chapter 3
anything else. If Show Names is not checked, the plates' triangular meshes are
drawn. Selected plates are drawn in a highlight colour. The Show Plate Group
button must be up for plates to show.
3.3 Points and Curves in Autoplate
All of the Autoship facilities for creating and editing points and curves are
available in Autoplate. No object created in Autoship can be edited or deleted in
Autoplate, but any new objects are fully editable. There is one change in curve
creation: on the embedded and projected tabs of the Create Curve dialogue box,
you may specify the host as a polyobject, in addition to curve or surface. This
choice is necessary for plate boundary creation. It signifies that the actual host will
be the surface from which the polyobject was created.
3.3.1 New Curve Options
In order to facilitate plate layout, several new curve creation options have been
added to Autoship and Autoplate.
• Type 2 Projected Curve: The Projected tab in the new curve dialogue
provides the option of Type 1 or Type 2 projected curves. The former is the
original, unchanged, Autoship projected curve. Type 2 projected curves
differ in that they are derived from a process equivalent to making an
extruded surface from the source curve and intersecting it with the host
surface. This may produce more than one projected curve and such curves
may encircle the host surface. Type 2 curves are embedded and editable. It
is strongly recommended that you use Type 2 rather than Type 1 projected
curves when designing plate boundaries.
• Geodesic Offset Curve: This is a new tab in the new curve dialogue. Given
a source curve, side and offset distance, the program creates a new curve
offset a constant geodesic distance (i.e. measured along the surface) from
the source curve. This is useful for laying out plates of constant, given,
width. Note that if the plate forming involves shrinking, the starting width of
the plate on flat stock may be larger than the specified offset distance. The
resulting curve is embedded and editable.
• Curve from surface row/col: This curve may now be either embedded or
free. This facilitates the placement of plate boundaries on knuckle lines.
14
Preparing an Autoship Project for Autoplate
• Curve Match: When the source curve is embedded (including planar-

embedded and geodesic offset) in or projected onto a surface, the match
curve may be specified as embedded. If a Type 1 projected curve does not
meet a surface edge or has some extraneous shape, you can match it with
an embedded curve and edit the latter to the desired shape.
Preparing an Autoship Project for Autoplate
3.4 Preparing an Autoship Project for Autoplate
The surfaces and polyobjects to be plated must be incorporated into one or more
groups in Autoship. Although you may create some or all of the plate boundary
curves in Autoship, there is no need to include these in the group. Polyobjects
which were imported or generated as text or primitives cannot be plated. If a
polyobject is to be plated, the surface from which it was generated must still be
present in the project and must not have been changed since the polyobject was
created. This surface should not be included explicitly in the plating group.
All surfaces in the group should have their normal vectors pointing outward. The
same is true of the surfaces from which polyobjects are derived. In fact, the latter
should be correctly oriented before generating the polyobject.
The full generality of Autoship groups is available for this purpose, including
cloning and transforms.
You may create more than one group to be plated, however, objects to be plated
should exist only in one group. In Autoplate each group is handled separately;
there is no facility for making a plate cross group boundaries.
You may establish frame locations (Settings - Preferences - Baseline) in

Autoship or Autoplate. If a baseline is defined in Autoship, it cannot be changed
in Autoplate.
15
Chapter 3
3.5 Starting a New Autoplate Project
The File - New menu item in Autoplate brings up a dialogue for choosing an
Autoship PR3 file. There is no way to do any work in Autoplate until a PR3 file has
been loaded. When you save an Autoplate (PLA) file, it contains a reference to the
originating PR3 file. The latter file must be available to Autoplate every time the
plate project is loaded. If it is not in its original path you will be prompted to enter a
location for it.
Once an Autoship project is loaded, you must indicate which group is to be plated.
This is done through the Plate - Group menu item, which brings up a dialogue
with a list of all groups in the project. When you have chosen a group from this list,
the operations of defining and expanding plates may begin.
The next two sections describe Autoplate's facilities for specifying stock and
setting up a classification tree. Both of these are optional. You can define and
expand plates using the default stock and root classification. At a later time you
can set up a classification and change stock assignments. However, because the
expansion calculations depend on plate thickness, changing the stock assigned to
a plate invalidates its expansion. For this reason it is advisable to enter the
various stock materials before calculating any expansions.
16
Stock
Stock
3.6 Stock
Autoplate maintains a library of stock material. This is accessible through the

Plate - Stock menu item. The Plate Stock dialogue allows you to view the
properties of stock already in the library and to add new stock.
Stock has a name, material, specific gravity, thickness, length and width. Other
properties, such as grade of material, may be incorporated into the name.
To create a new stock specification, start by entering its name. Then select a
material. If the list of materials does not contain an appropriate entry, create one
by entering its name and specific gravity. Enter the desired plate thickness and
maximum dimensions, then click Save.
If you wish to delete a stock from the library, you must first ensure that no plate
has that stock assigned to it.
17
Chapter 3
3.7 Setting Up a Classification
Autoplate helps you to keep an orderly account of the numerous plates in a

project by providing a hierarchical classification system. You set up and change
the classification, and edit stock assignment, using the dialogue which is brought
up by the Plate - Class menu item.
The plate classification scheme is very similar to how multiple, hierarchical,

directories are used to organize your computer files. The main difference is that a
disk directory may contain files or directories or both, whereas nodes of the
Autoplate classification can contain only other nodes or plates, not both. Each
node which can contain plates has a stock material assigned to it.
This dialogue also allows you to change the classification of any plate. Note that
information from the stock is used in the expansion calculation, so changing a
plate's class, or changing the stock assigned to its class, requires re-expanding it.
For this reason it is advisable to take the time to set up a good classification
before commencing plate expansion.
18
Plate Boundaries
Plate Boundaries
3.8 Plate Boundaries
3.8.1 Requirements for Plate Boundaries
Autoplate will create and expand plates of three or more sides. The curves that
you select, plus any intersected surface or polyobject edges, plus (optionally)
chines, must form a closed boundary having at least three corners. The following
count as corners (consider chines to be curves):
• Knuckles on the boundary curves.

• The mutual end point of a closed curve.
• The point where a curve meets a boundary of the surface or polyobject.
• The point where two curves cross or join, and
• The point where one curve terminates on another curve.
Only selected curves will be part of the boundary definition. Any other curves,
even if they cross the plate, will not be considered.
Autoplate will not create plates which have concave boundaries. A boundary is
concave if the polygon made of straight lines joining corners has any edge which,
if extended as a straight line, penetrates the polygon interior. For instance,
imagine a four sided polygon where the inside angle between two adjacent legs is
more than 180 degrees. Autoplate will handle some boundaries which have
concave curved edges between corners.
When a curve and surface edge are intended as plate boundaries, and the curve
does not meet the edge, one possible error message is "Boundary Is Concave". If
you get this message, and the boundary is not concave in the sense described in
the last paragraph, check the ends of relevant curves.
19
Chapter 3
3.8.2 Tips for Creating Plate Boundary Curves
One way to lay out plate boundaries is by making straight space curves and
projecting them onto the surface. If you use Type 1 projected curves this does not
work well when the surface is tangent to the projection direction anywhere along
the curve. When such tangency exists, the projection operation is not properly
defined and the resulting projected curve may be wiggly and may even turn back
on itself or may not contact the surface edge. This is likely to happen with a side-
projected curve at the bow or stern. If a projected curve seems to meet a surface
edge but you get an error message when trying to create a plate from it, suspect
this as a cause.
There are several ways to avoid this problem.
1. Use Type 2 projected curves.
2. Make a planar-embedded curve running over the whole region of interest.

Although these curves can be hard to edit, this solution is preferred over 3.
3. Project two Type 1 curves in different views. An example is one source

curve at constant y and z (horizontal, parallel to the centre plane), projected
from the side and another curve at constant x and the same z, projected in
body plan. Then the two projected curves together cover the whole region of
interest. For any given plate, use the curve which is valid on that part of the
surface as a boundary.
4. Once you have one good curve established, create others as geodesic
offset curves.
20
Creating a Plate
Creating a Plate
3.9 Creating a Plate
1. Ensure that a plate group has been selected and that the Show Plate
Group button is down.
2. In select mode, select the curves which will form the plate boundary.
3. Switch to create mode.
4. Click the Create Plate button .

5. Click over any point on the desired plate interior.
6. When the new plate dialogue appears enter a name for the plate (or choose
the default) and select a class.
7. If the ship is symmetric about a centre plane, you may create plates for both
sides by checking the Twin across centre plane box.
8. If you want chines to be considered as boundary curves, check the Chines
as boundaries box.
9. If you are creating a plate which has one edge on the centre plane, you can
choose to have port and starboard as one plate.
10. Click OK.
21
Chapter 3
3.10 Plate Selection
The Plates - Select menu item provides access to the Plate Select dialogue.
Using this you may select one or more plates. The Plates - View menu item is
enabled only if just one plate is selected.
Several program operations apply to one or more selected plates at once:

expansion, template specification, pin jig specification, DXF export, appearance
on shell expansion.
The list box in this dialogue also provides an indication of the plate state. See the
help item and the section "Invalidation and Regeneration of Plates", 3.18 below,
for details.
You can also select plates in the Autoplate Navigator.
22
The Plate Viewer
The Plate Viewer
3.11 The Plate Viewer
If one and only one plate is selected, the menu item Plates - View is enabled and
selecting it brings up the plate viewer dialogue. This dialogue may also be access
from the Autoplate Navigator. This provides you with detailed information about
the selected plate. Please see the Help item for more information.
The dialogue has 3 tabs:
Image This tab contains several option buttons by which you choose what
image to view. Several require that the plate has been expanded,
and Templates and Template Layout require that templates have
been specified.
Data This provides several pieces of quantitative information about the

plate, although most are available only for expanded plates. Any
comments you enter in the text box are saved with the project file
and will appear the next time you view the plate's data.
Metrics This shows information about plate shape, both graphically and as
text. The purpose of this information is to enable you to judge
whether a plate is so curved that it should be subdivided. This
information is available before and after expansion.
In the viewer, drawings are as seen from the outside of the hull.
23
Chapter 3
3.12 Expansion
Expansion
The Plates - Expand menu item brings up the Expand dialogue. It is also
accessed through the Autoplate Navigator. After you have made the various
choices presented on it, Autoplate loops over all the selected plates and performs
the specified expansion operation.
If any plate already has a valid expansion, you will be prompted with a choice to
re-expand or skip that plate.
The time required to expand a plate depends on its shape; long, thin plates take
more time than short, broad ones. It can take many minutes to expand plates with
a very high length to width ratio.
3.12.1 Directionality
The first choice, Directionality, will be determined by the fabrication

technique which will be used to form the plate. Isotropic (equal in all
directions) is appropriate to peening and spherical die pressing. If line heating
or roller planishing is to be used, the expansion should be directional. In this
case there are three choices of direction. Longitudinal or Transverse might
be chosen for convenience with some equipment. Roll Line causes the
expansion to be locally along the direction of greatest curvature. In other
words, it is at right angles to the roll marks which indicate direction of least
24
Expansion
curvature. This is probably a good choice for line heating, because the
operator can use the roll marks to indicate the direction of torch motion.
If you choose any of the unidirectional expansions, you must specify a strain ratio.
This is the ratio of strain in the direction of least strain to that in the direction of
greatest strain. Autoplate will accept values in the interval 0.1 to 1.0.
Unidirectional expansion is mathematically different from isotropic. Autoplate

sometimes has trouble calculating unidirectional expansion with low (near
0.1) strain ratios. The program produces best results when the direction is
across roll lines.
3.12.2 Condition
Autoplate can generate different expansions, depending on the choice of

condition. Preserve Perimeter does just that - the flat and curved plates have
equal perimeters. Shrink Only is appropriate if the fabrication method induces
only negative strain (i.e. line heating). Expand Only is appropriate for peening,
spherical die press and roller planishing. A fourth choice, Minimum Strain, is
provided in case both shrinking and expanding equipment can be applied and the
goal is to minimize the maximum absolute strain.
3.12.3 Extra Stock
Autoplate can calculate and output extra stock (green) on plate boundaries. In the
case of four-sided plates you may specify a different width for each side. Other
plates are limited to having the same width on all sides.
3.12.4 Mesh
The mathematical operations of plate expansion require that a triangular mesh be

generated over the plate. This becomes the internal representation of the plate,
both in-place and flat. In order to have smooth and accurate edges, you may
specify an edge tolerance for the mesh. What this means is that the straight line
joining any two adjacent vertices on the plate edge will not deviate by more than
the specified distance from the defining curve. Autoplate will subdivide edge
25
Chapter 3
triangles until this condition is satisfied. Choosing a very small tolerance will slow
calculations and consume memory. Also, Autoplate has a limit to edge subdivision
and if the specified tolerance is not achieved within this limit, an error results, as
indicated in the next section.
3.12.5 Expansion Failure
The mathematical algorithms involved in the expansion calculation can fail.

Unidirectional expansion is more likely to fail than isotropic. Failure will show
up as:
• a message saying “Edge Tolerance Not Achieved - No Expansion"

• a message saying "Expansion Failed" or "Unable to Find Solution"
• a message saying "Flat Mesh Generation Failed", or
• a message saying that a large expansion error has been detected.
In the first case, try setting the edge tolerance larger and re-attempting
the expansion.
In the last case, there is a valid expansion, but it may be quite unsatisfactory.
If you choose Expanded Mesh on the Image tab of the Plate viewer you will
be able to see any errors in the result. Also, choose the Data tab and look at
the value for Expansion Error. In the case of a good result, this number will
be < 0.001.
The usual causes of expansion failure are too much plate curvature or very
irregular boundaries; usually the best cure is to split the plate into two or more
smaller pieces and deal with them separately. Sometimes the program will find a
solution at one edge tolerance and not another, so it is worthwhile trying several
values of this parameter.
The message "Flat Mesh Generation Failed" usually means that the mesh is
degenerate somewhere on the plate. This can be caused by surface edge
attachment, by superimposed control points and by some other conditions.
26
Templates
Templates
3.13 Templates
The Plates - Templates menu choice opens the Templates dialogue. It is also
accessed through the Autoplate Navigator. When you make your choice of
options and click OK, the program loops over all selected plates and creates the
specified templates for each.
Templates are arranged along a Sight Line, which is the line formed by the
intersection of the in-place plate and a plane containing the average normal
vector of the plate.
Choose either to allow Autoplate to determine the sight line orientation (Best Fit)
or specify that it should be horizontal, vertical or normal to the frames. The latter
option is meaningful only if frames locations (baseline) have been specified.
Template spacing may be set at a given distance or calculated from the number of
templates required for the plate or templates may be located at frames. In the last
case you can chose to have templates at the plate ends.
Template shapes consist of a base with curved bottom conforming to the in-place
plate and an orientation handle with a right angle hook at the top. See the figure in
Section 4.7. The handle is positioned such that if the templates are in place on the
formed plate, the orientation handles all line up in the sight line plane and the
hooks line up along one straight line. The frames are not loacated at the ends.
27
Chapter 3
3.14 Pin Jig

Pin Jig
The Plates - Pin Jig menu choice produces the Plate Pin Jig dialogue. It is also
accessed through Autoplate Navigator. This allows you to set parameters for
creation of pin jig data.
When you click OK, Autoplate cycles through the selected plates and generates
pin placement for each. The result for any one plate may be seen in the Plate
Viewer, and exported as a DXF layer.
28
Reports
Reports
3.15 Reports
Autoplate will generate both per-plate and summary reports. In both cases the
included plates may be those selected or all plates in the project. A per-plate
report contains the name, class, stock details, metric information and
expansion results. A summary report is arranged by classification, indicating
the number of plates, total weight, total area and total CG of plates in each
class and for all classes.
The report is produced using the Autoship report editor, with all the editing and
output capabilities of that system.
29
Chapter 3
3.16 Panels
Panels
A panel is a group of contiguous plates which are to be welded together. To this

end, Autoplate will generate the data required to create a pin jig to hold the plates
in their correct relation to one another.
3.16.1 Creating a New Panel
Selecting the Panel - New menu item will bring up a dialogue for creating a new
panel. The program generates a unique name for the panel. You may change the
name to be more meaningful in the context of your project. The All Plates list box
shows the names of all expanded plates existing in the current plating group.
Un-expanded plates cannot be placed in a panel. Select the plates you wish to
include in the panel by picking their names in the All Plates list. Multiple select is
supported, with the usual use of shift and control key sequences. To have the
selected plates included in the panel, click the Add Selected button - the plate
names will be displayed in the In Panel list. You can edit the In Panel selection by
adding more plates from the All Plates list, or by selecting plates in the In Panel
list and clicking the Remove Selected button.
30
Panels
You may type a comment of arbitrary length into the Comment text box. This
comment will be stored with the panel data and will appear whenever you edit
the panel.
When selecting the plates to include in a panel, keep in mind that they should be
at least partly contiguous. The program makes no attempt to enforce this, or even
to prevent you from putting superimposed plates into a panel. In the latter case
the program will produce meaningless results.
3.16.2 Selecting Panels
The second sub-menu item under Panel is Select. This brings up a dialogue in
which you may select one or more panels. If just one panel is selected, the
second (Edit) and third (Pin Jig) sub-menu items are enabled. The Edit item
brings up the same dialogue as above, with the panel data filled in. You may edit
this information, even adding and removing plates, and save the result. Multiple
panel select is relevant to export as DXF (see below), where the program will
export all selected panels.
3.16.3 Creating a Panel Pin Jig
Selecting the Pin Jig menu item brings up a dialogue to specify pin jig layout.
31
Chapter 3
The picture box on the right displays a projected view of the panel with its plate
boundaries visible as black lines. If a baseline is defined in the project, frame
locations are displayed in cyan.
You can choose the units in which the minimum pin height and spacings are
displayed. In the Spacing frame there are option buttons to select between Grid
and On Seams. These determine the type of pin layout created. In the former
case, the pins lie on a regular grid, spaced according to the Row Spacing and
Pin Spacing values. If you select this option, the red lines in the picture box,
which represent pin rows, will have small circles drawn at the pin locations. If you
select On Seams, the pin location circles are not drawn. Pins will be placed on the
row lines where they cross plate boundaries. If the span between any two pins
exceeds the Pin Spacing value, extra pins will be inserted.
The Align controls allow you to place the pins as you wish. The Rotate spin
control causes the row lines to rotate around the panel centre. The shift spin
controls move the row lines. If the Grid spacing option is selected the pin
locations are moved up and down by the right shift spin control.
When pin information is generated the layout may be chosen for the pins to be
located either on the inside or outside of the hull. This is determined by the setting
of the Side option.
32
Export
Export
3.17 Export
Export
Autoplate will generate per-plate drawings, per panel drawings and a shell
expansion in DXF form. The dialogues for these drawings are accessed by
clicking the appropriate sub menu item under Files - Export.
3.17.1 Plate DXF
When you have made your choice of options, Autoplate loops over all selected
plates and generates, for each plate, a file for 2D output (if chosen) and another
file for 3D output (if chosen). The default file names are created by pre-pending
the characters "2dPLT_ " or "3dPLT_ " to the plate name. If a file of that name
already exists in the destination directory you will be prompted to change the
name or overwrite the file.
In both the 2D and 3D cases separate layers are generated for each option
chosen. If any other option is chosen, the outline is included by default. If the
Templates option is included, the template layout lines and template shapes are
placed on separate layers.
33
Chapter 3
The small boxes to the left of the check boxes are painted in the colour which will
be used for the layer. If you click a colour box, a bar containing the available
colours will appear. Clicking on one of the colour patches will change the layer
colour to the one selected.
The view in 2D output is from the inside of the hull (provided the surface is
oriented with normal vectors pointing outward). If, when you created the plate you
chose Twin across center plane, drawings will be produced for the plates on both
sides of the hull.
If Curves is chosen (either 2D or 3D), the program draws all curves which are
embedded or projected on the surface patch covered by the plate. If the Offsets
option is chosen, the program draws x and y Cartesian axes and shows the
coordinates of points with respect to these axes.
Strain contours and thickness contours may be used to guide fabrication. The
former indicates the magnitude of strain to be induced at each point on the plate
while the latter can be used to monitor the fabrication process.
The 3D output represents the in-place plate. Choosing Mesh in the 3D output
produces a PFACE entity representation.
The units options allow you to choose the units in which the drawings
are produced.
34
Export
3.17.2 Panel DXF
Having assigned plates to a panel (Panel - New menu item) and defined the
layout of a pin jig for the panel (Panel - Pin Jig menu item), you can export the
resulting layout to a DXF file. The program loops over all selected panels
(Panel - Select menu item) and produces one file per panel. The file name is
composed of the panel name appended to "Panel_". Colour choices for layers are
selected as described in the previous section.
35
Chapter 3
Making a choice of options and clicking OK will result in generation of a DXF file
containing a shell expansion of the current plate project. If no option is chosen,
only the expansion outline will be produced. A separate layer will be created for
each option.
The program will optionally refine each surface and curve to a specified tolerance
before performing the expansion calculations, which are based on table values.
The colour patches to the left of each check box indicate the colour which will be
used for that layer. You can change any colour by clicking on the patch and
choosing a colour from the palette presented.
36
Invalidation and Regeneration of Plates
Invalidation and Regeneration of Plates
3.18 Invalidation and Regeneration of Plates
At any time, each plate is in one of four states: invalid un-expanded (iu), valid un-
expanded (vu), invalid expanded (ie) or valid expanded (ve). A valid plate can be
marked invalid for several reasons:
• Its classification has been changed,
• The surface on which the plate lies, or the surface used to generate
the polyobject on which the plate lies, has been modified since the
plate was expanded,
• Any of the bounding curves has been modified since the plate
was expanded.
Checks for the last two situations are performed every time a project is loaded. If
any plate is found to be invalid at this time, a message is displayed saying that at
least one plate is invalid. A check for invalidation is also performed each time a
curve is edited in Autoplate.
You can determine what state a plate is in by bringing up the plate selection
dialogue and selecting the class for the desired plate. The first two columns in the
list box contain "iu", "vu", "ie" or "ve".
Selecting the Regenerate menu item causes Autoplate to loop over all plates
in the project, performing regeneration on any which has an invalid expansion.
If the plate has never been expanded, its boundary and mesh only are
regenerated. If it has been expanded, the expansion is recalculated, using the
original expansion parameters.
If any boundary curve defining a plate or the surface or polyobject on which

the plate resides has been deleted from the PR3 or PLA file, that plate will
also be deleted.
37
Chapter 3
3.19 Plate Deletion
You may delete one or more plates by selecting them and then choosing
Delete from the Edit menu or by pressing the Delete key. Delete works only in
select mode.
3.20 Switching Between Autoship and Autoplate
It is possible to run these programs simultaneously. Before switching from

Autoplate to Autoship, save the plate project. To switch from Autoship to
Autoplate, save the Autoship project, then reload the Autoplate project; it will read
in the new version of the PR3 file.
Beware of making changes to the Autoship project which affect the plate
project. Editing curves, surfaces and polyobjects which are used in Autoplate
may invalidate plates. Any invalid plates should be regenerated. Deleting any
such object will cause the dependent plates to be deleted when regeneration
is performed.
3.21 References
Lamb, Thomas. 1994. "Report on Limitations of Computerized Lofting for Shell

Plate Development", The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, Ship
Production Committee.
38
Tutorial
Chapter 4
Tutorial
4.0 Preliminary Considerations
In order to produce an expansion of a surface patch, Autoplate requires a

surface definition. Autoplate does not have the capability to produce a surface
definition and relies on input from Autoship. The form of this input is an
Autoship project file. Autoplate uses this file, but to ensure data integrity, does
not make changes to it. Instead, Autoplate stores its information in a file having
the extension PLA. Hence an Autoplate project consists of two files: the PR3
and the PLA; the PLA file is of no use without the appropriate PR3 file.
The definition produced in Autoship consists of various curves, surfaces and

polyobjects. Autoplate requires that the entities (surfaces and polyobjects)
defining the region to be plated be collected together in a Group. For each
polyobject to be used in a plating group the original surface must exist in the
Autoship project.
Since there is no facility in Autoplate for creating a surface or polyobject; the

surface definition must be completed in Autoship before turning to Autoplate.
Operation of Autoplate consists of laying out curves on the surface of the model,
choosing appropriate curves as plate boundaries and then having Autoplate
create and expand a plate over the enclosed area.
The intent of this tutorial is to guide you through the entire process of starting a
new Autoplate project (using an Autoship project supplied with the Autoplate
installation) and producing the information to cut and form the various type of shell
plates usually encountered in a ship constructed of metal. Additionally, insight into
the tools which help the operator optimize plate production is provided.
It is assumed that you have a basic understanding of the principles,

operation and building blocks of the Autoship program.
39
Chapter 4
4.1 Starting a New Autoplate Project

Starting a New Autoplate Project
When Autoplate was installed on your system, a tutorial folder was created and
a file named APTUT.PR3 was copied to it. This model is composed of several
curves, six surfaces, four polyobjects and two groups.
The group "Aft Plating Group" consists of:
• polyobject Trimmed Hull Aft Lower

• polyobject Trimmed Stern Bulb
• surface Hull Aft Upper
The group "Fwd Plating Group" consists of:
• polyobject Trimmed Hull Fwd Lower

• polyobject Trimmed Fwd Bulb
• surface Hull Fwd Upper
These are the surface definitions we will be using.
We suggest that a separate directory be created for each new vessel, or portion of
a vessel to be plated and all the work for that project be stored in that directory.
For the purposes of this tutorial, we will use the TUTORIAL directory. The
TUTORIAL directory can be found in the public documents special folder, the
exact location of this folder depends on your operating system:
In Window XP or Windows 2000:
Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\ASC\Autoplate\Tutorials
In Windows Vista:
Users\Public\Public Documents\ASC\Autoplate\Tutorials
The first operation necessary to start a new plating project is to bring the Autoship
project into Autoplate. After you have started Autoplate, select the File - New
menu item to begin a new project. The Open Autoship Project File dialogue will
appear. This is where you indicate which Autoship project you will be using for
your Autoplate project. Pick the file APTUT.PR3 found in the TUTORIAL directory.
40
Starting a New Autoplate Project
After the project is loaded, the Autoplate screen will probably be blank. This is
because, by default, nothing has been selected to be shown.
In the top bar, click the Groups button to show the groups in the project.
Notice that the button changes state. Now you should see the outline of the
tutorial model on screen. If your screen is not showing all four views, click the
Four View button at the bottom of the screen. Select the Settings
menu and pick the Preferences item, click the Coordinate System button in
the Preferences dialogue and select the Naval/Aircraft US radio button. Click
OK to exit the Coordinate System dialogue, and then OK to exit the
Preferences dialogue.
Next, we have to indicate to Autoplate which portion of the hull, or group, we will
be working with.
Click the Plate menu and pick the Group item. In the Select Group For Plating
dialogue that opens, pick Fwd Plating Group and Click OK.
Now to visualize the portion we wish to work on and enable Autoplate to deal with
it, click the Show Plate Group button in the top toolbar. Notice that the
button changes state. On the screen, you will see that now only the forward half of
the vessel is shown.
When the Show Plate Group button is on, only the surfaces and polyobjects in
the plating group, plus any curves that are embedded or projected onto these
objects in the plating group, will be visible.
41
Chapter 4
4.2 Defining Plate Stock
As part of the setup for a new project, we need to define Plate Stock - the raw
sheet material we will be using to construct the shell plating. For this example,
we will create four different stock specifications:
• 1000mm x 2000mm in 8mm plate
Click the Plate menu and the Stock item.
Fill out the Plate Stock dialogue as follows and then click Save.
Answer Yes to the prompt "Do you want to add …" . Add three more entries the
same way:
Name Thickness Material Max Dimensions

Length Width
1500x6000x8 mm 8 Steel m 6.00 1.50
1000x2000x10 mm 10 Steel m 2.00 1.00
1500x6000x10 mm 10 Steel m 6.00 1.50
Remember to click Save each time you finish an entry. When you are done,
click Exit.
42
Plate Classification
Plate Classification
4.3 Plate Classification
Next, we will set up a Plate Classification system.
Plate Classification is a categorization scheme intended to help the designer

organize the various plates into meaningful groups. The architecture of the
organization is entirely open - it may be laid out in any manner that suits the
purpose. For instance, you could choose to categorize your plates based upon
supplier or the region of the hull to be plated or the date of forming. Creating a
Plate Class scheme is not required but can be very useful.
Click the Plate menu and the Class item to bring up the Plate
Classification dialogue. This is divided into two sections: the left half is
used to define the classification tree; the right half is used to control where
plates fit into the classification tree.
In the Plate Classification dialogue, under Class Tree, Fwd Plating Group
will appear highlighted. This is the entire tree structure of the classification
system so far. We want to add some branches and leaves to the existing tree.
Suppose for our vessel that we have two different shops, Shop A and Shop B,
available to cut and form our plates. Further, the two shops have different
forming capabilities, and Shop B can only handle the smaller stock.
With Fwd Plating group selected, click the New Level button. This will add
another category below the Fwd Plating group. A dialogue with Class1
highlighted will appear, change Class1 to Shop A and Click OK. Now our tree
consists of Fwd Plating group with a sub-category named Shop A.
Let's add some leaves, 8mm and 10mm, under Shop A. With Shop A selected,
click the New Level button again. Change Class2 into 8mm.
Now create category 10mm at the same level as 8mm: with 8mm selected click
the Add At Level button. Change Class3 into 10mm.
Now we want to add Shop B, also with 8mm and 10mm: With Shop A selected,
click the Add At Level button and change Class2 into Shop B.
43
Chapter 4
With Shop B selected, click New Level, change Class2 to 8mm. With 8mm
selected, click Add At Level and change Class3 to 10mm.
Further, for this example, we want to associate a particular class with a
particular type of stock. Since Shop B can only work with the smaller stock, lets
associate the 1000mm x 2000mm plates with Shop B:
Click the 8mm category under Shop B and then in the Stock box, pick
1000x2000x8. Answer Yes to the "Are you sure …" prompt. Then, still for Shop B,
click the 10mm category and for Stock, pick 1000x2000x10.
Now, do the same for Shop A using the 1500x6000 stock sizes.
Later, when we are defining plates, they may be assigned to any of the terminal
categories, or leaves.
Click Exit when you are done creating your classification system.
44
Setting Up a Baseline
Setting Up a Baseline
4.4 Setting Up a Baseline
In order to help us lay out butts to be offset from frames, we can utilize a
function in Autoplate which defines frame locations. The same function is
available in Autoship and, if used there, the information will be passed through
to Autoplate.
Click the Settings menu and pick the Preferences item and in the Preferences
dialogue, click the Baseline button.
For the vessel we are using in this tutorial, the aft extent is at L = 2.5A (A for Aft of
the origin) and the forward extent is at L = 137.5F (F for Forward of the origin).
The AP is at 4F, the FP is at 130F. Suppose we want the following frame spacing:
• 800mm for aft of the AP
• 700mm from the AP to the FP (or as close as possible)
• 800mm ahead of that
In the Baseline dialogue, under Group for First Location enter 2.5A; for Last
Location enter 4F, for Separation enter .8 and then click the Insert Group
button. In the Frame box, note that frame 9 is at 4.0F while frame 8 is at 3.9F.
Since we want a frame to coincide with the AP at 4.0F, we need to move the
frames forward by .1m: change First Location to 2.4A, Last Location to 4F
and click the Insert Group.
Note that now frame 1 is at 2.5A and frame 2 is at 2.4A. We don't need the
frame at 2.5A, so in the Frame box, click the Frame 1 line and then click the
Delete button.
Suppose we wanted frame 0 to be located at the AP: In the First Frame

Number box, type -8 and click the Apply button. In the Frame box, the frame
numbers are now re-organized to match the new input.
Continuing with the other two sets: For First Location, type 4F, for Last
Location type 130F, for Separation type .7 and click Insert Group.
If you scroll to the bottom of the Frame list, you will see that frame 180 is at 130F.
45
Chapter 4
The final set: For First Location, type 130F, for Last Location type 138F, for
Separation type .8 and click Insert Group. Now scroll to the bottom of the frame
list, the last frame is at 138F and the second to last is at 137.2F. We don't need
the frame at 138F, so delete it.
Click OK to return to the Preferences dialogue. If the checkbox beside Display

Baseline is not checked, do so now. Click OK to return to the main screen. The
baseline should show in the plan and profile views.
Now we have finished with the setup necessary for a new project. Before we carry
on to produce some plates, save this Autoplate project.
46
Laying Out Seams and Butts
4.5 Laying Out Seams and Butts

As a first example, we will lay out some plates forward of midships on the bottom
of the hull. Suppose that in the forward part of the vessel the butts are to be
100mm forward of frame locations. Working forward from midships, we expect to
be able to use the larger of the plate stock we have defined. Midships is at 55F,
the large plates are 6m, so we need a butt at around 100mm forward of the frame
just aft of 61F. The baseline definition shows frame 81at 60.7F; let's position a
butt at 60.8F.
Expecting that butts will be staggered between adjacent strakes, we need to
position a butt somewhere between 55F and 60.8F. From the Frame List, frame
77 is at 57.9F, so let's put a butt at 58F. Then, 6m fwd of 58F is 64F and frame 85
is at 63.5F, so our next butt will be at 63.6F.
To define plate boundaries, i.e. a butt, we need to use either an embedded or a
projected curve. An easy way to define each of these three butts is to create a
simple straight curve running transversely and then project it up onto the hull to
produce a projected curve in the correct location.
Click the Create button and then the Curve button. In the Create Curve
dialogue, with the Free tab selected, complete the dialogue as follows.
47
Chapter 4
Click OK when you are done.

Then we can create the butt: Click Create - Curve; this time, select the Projected
tab, enter the following data and Click OK when you are done.
Name Butt 1F
Tab Projected
Type Type 2
Projection Top
Source Curves Butt 1F Template
Host PolyObject
Trimmed Hull Fwd Lower
Acceptable Tolerance .001
You may find it easier to visualize these curves if you turn off the baseline:
Settings - Preferences - Display Baseline checkbox.
We will create Butt 2F at L = 60.8F in the same manner.
The template curve: click Create then the Curve button and input the following:
Name Butt 2F template

Tab Free
Control Pts 2Free
End 1 L = 60.8F
End 2 L = 60.8F
T = 13
48
The Butt Curve:
Click Create - Curve and input the following:

Name Butt 2F
Tab Projected
Type Type 2
Projection Top
Source Curve Butt 2F template
Host Polyobject
Create Butt 3F at L = 63.5F the same way:
The Template Curve:

Name Butt 3F template
Tab Free
Control Pts 2
End 1 L = 63.5F
End 2 L = 63.5F
T = 13
The Butt Curve:

Name Butt 3F
Tab Projected
Type Type 2
Projection Top.
Source Curve Butt 3F template
Host Polyobject
49
Chapter 4
Now we have three butts. Of course we would need many more butts to plate
the entire hull. However, let's define a few seams so that we can then create
some plates.
On this vessel, the bottom is flat from midships to quite far forward. In this flat
region we would expect to have a seam at or near the centerline and other seams
spaced multiples of the width of the plate stock outboard of that.
For purposes of this example, we will concentrate on the portion of the hull
outboard of the flat-bottom section. In the region of our three butts, let's define a
seam at a transverse value of 7.5m (5 x 1.5m plate width). The easiest way to do
this is, again, with a projected curve.
Create a New Curve:

Name Seam 5F template
Tab Free
Control Pts 2
End 1 L = 55F
T = 7.5
End 2 L = 65F
T = 7.5
And the Projection:

Name Seam 5F
Tab Projected
Type Type 2
Projection Top
Source Curve Seam 5F template
Host Polyobject
50
For the next seam, we can use a special curve type named Geodesic Offset to
put another curve at a specific distance, measured along the surface, away from
Seam 5. To ensure that the resulting plate fits onto plate stock of width 1.5m let's
make the offset distance 1.45 m.
Create another curve, as follows, using the Geodesic Offset tab:
51
Chapter 4
4.6 Defining a Plate

Defining a Plate
First we must specify the boundaries we wish to use:
Click somewhere in the Top view window and then zoom in on an area that
includes all the butts and seams you have defined. Make sure that Select mode is
turned on, the Show Plate Group button is turned on and that nothing is selected
("No Selection" appears in the object box at top right). Select the four curves: Butt
1F, Butt 3F, Seam 5f and Seam 6F. Refer to the following picture if you are unsure
of the identity of the curves. To select multiple curves, click theclickclick curve,
hold down the SHIFT key and click each of the other curves.
Now to create the plate:
Click the Create button, then on the Plate button, and then click somewhere in the
area bounded by Butt 1F, Butt 3F, Seam 5f and Seam 6F, as shown below.
(Note that the "curved" line in this picture is the flat of bottom tangency.)
52
Defining a Plate
The New Plate dialogue will appear:
Complete the dialogue as shown. If the 8mm and 10mm classes under Shop A do
not appear then double click the Shop A tag.
In this dialogue, for ease we have left the name as Plate_1. Note that the check
box Twin across center plane has been turned on - this will create the plate
information for the port side of the vessel as well. The flat of bottom tangency runs
through the middle of this plate, however we do not want to break the plate there,
so the Chine as Boundaries check box is turned off. Under Class, we have
designated this plate as being in the Shop A, 10mm category. Note that Stock for
Shop A, 10mm shows as 1500x6000x10 - one of the large plates to be formed at
Shop A.
When you are finished, Click OK to start the plate definition process.
After a short pause while the calculations are completed, the normal screen and
cursor will be restored. To verify that the plate has been defined, turn off the Show
Plate Group button and turn on the Show Plates button . The name
Plate_1 will be displayed near the middle of the plate you have just defined.
53
Chapter 4
At this point in time, we have defined one plate, however, it has not been
expanded and so there is not yet any information with which to cut and form
the plate.
Turn off Show Plates and turn on Show Plate Group. Click the Plate menu and
pick the Select Item to open the Plate Selection dialogue:
The Plate Selection dialogue is used, primarily, to select one or more plates for
viewing, expansion, template creation and pin jig creation. Note that for viewing
purposes only one plate may be selected. The Plate Selection dialogue may also
be used to edit the class of a plate. In the Plates box, Plate_1 appears with a "vu"
in front of the name. This is the plate state: "v" means the plate is valid, ''u" means
the plate is un-expanded. Other states include "i" (invalid) and "e" (expanded).
Refer to the Help - Contents - Menus - Plate Menu - Select and Regenerate
topics for further information.
Click the name PLATE _1 to select this plate and then click the OK button.
Next, we will take a look at the in-place mesh created for this plate. Then we will
have it expanded and look at the expanded mesh and a few other attributes of
the expansion.
54
Defining a Plate
Click Plate - View:
The View dialogue is used to see various attributes of a plate. In this case,
because this plate has not been expanded, only the radio buttons in the left
column under the Image tab are available.
It is good practice to view the in-place mesh of a plate before expanding it. In
some rare cases the program produces a faulty mesh and that will prevent
proper expansion of the plate. Such problems can often be detected by
viewing the mesh.
Try a few of the other options to see the results and then click Exit when you
are done.
55
Chapter 4
Now to expand the plate: Click Plate - Expand.
The Expand dialogue is used to set how the plate will be expanded. For a
complete description of these settings, refer to the Help - Contents - Menus -
Plate Menu - Expand topic. However, this plate is destined for Shop A, which has
extensive forming capabilities, so we will accept the defaults for the settings.
Click OK to have the plate expanded.
The Expand dialogue stays on screen while the expansion calculations are being
performed. The time required for expansion depends on the plate shape. Long,
narrow plates take the most time.
After the calculations are finished, and the main screen and regular cursor are
restored, you may notice that the name Plate_1 displayed in the four views is now
shown in green, rather than red. Red indicates an un-expanded plate, green
shows that the plate has been expanded.
Click Plate - View. In the View dialogue, click the Expanded Mesh radio button.
The mesh shown will change shape slightly. Try some of the other views. Of
particular interest for the forming of the plate are Strain Contours and Roll Marks.
56
Defining a Plate
Strain is the proportional change in linear dimension of material under applied

forces. Autoplate calculates the strain which must be induced in flat plate stock to
give it the shape of the hull patch it is meant to cover. The strain is presented as
contours. The cyan coloured contours show the amount by which the plate
material must be stretched while the yellow contours show the amount of
shrinking required. When the maximum strain, displayed below the strain map, is
smaller than about 1/10 % one can assume that the plate will probably fit on the
hull without stretching or shrinking beforehand.
When a plate is worked to stretch or shrink it, the thickness is decreased or

increased, respectively. The program calculates this effect and the results may be
viewed by clicking the Thickness Contours radio button.
Note that Template and Pin Jig information are not available because you have
not yet requested their calculation.
Congratulations! You have successfully defined and expanded your first

shell plate.
Since that plate was so successful, lets try the half-plate just aft: Make sure that
the Show Plate Group button is turned on. Select Butt1F, Seam 5F and Seam
6F. Click the Create mode button, the Plate button and then somewhere
between Butt1F, Seam 5F and Seam 6F and the aft end of polyobject Trimmed
Hull Fwd Lower.
57
Chapter 4
At the New Plate dialogue, leave the name at Plate_2, check Twin across center
plane and for Class, pick Shop A, 10mm. Click OK when you are done.
The resulting calculation may take a some time. When the main screen is
restored, turn off Show Plate Group and turn on Show Plates.
Now check the mesh to make sure the definition is correct: because Plate_2 was
just created, it is also currently selected, so we can go straight to Plate - View
without having to select a plate first.
If the mesh is regular then expand the plate: click Exit and then Plate - Expand.
Note in the bottom left of the Expand dialogue Plate_2 is listed as the current
plate. Again, accept the defaults for this expansion as this plate is destined for the
shop which has more elaborate forming capabilities.
After the plate has been expanded, go to View. By toggling repeatedly between In
Place Mesh and Expanded Mesh you will see that the plate has not changed
shape significantly. Roll Mark shows an interesting pattern: remember this plate
has a flat-of-bottom tangency running lengthwise through the middle - and the roll
marks show this attribute. Looking at Strain Contours, notice from the strain
values shown at the bottom of the dialogue that this plate requires no shrinking
and that the amount of expansion is negligible.
58
Defining Templates
Defining Templates
4.7 Defining Templates
Templates are very much as the name implies - shapes that are cut out of a
planar material, such as plywood, and used as a guide during the plate forming
process by holding the cut edge against the plate at certain locations. In order to
indicate how the templates fit on the plate, template markings are provided at
user-specified locations and the template is created the same width as the
formed plate so that each end of the template fits to an edge of the plate.
Further, each template has a handle - a straight reference line which is used to
align the group of templates. While forming the plate, the templates are
correctly oriented when the templates are positioned at their proper locations,
all of the handles are lined up in a common sight plane and the handle tops are
lined up. This is illustrated below. Note that the template planes are normal to
the sight plane.
59
Chapter 4
With plate_2 selected, click Plate - Templates.
The Templates dialogue is used for laying out the position and orientation of
templates and their handles. In this dialogue:
Sight Line refers to the orientation of the sight plane.
• Best Fit positions the plane along the major axis, or length of the plate.
• Horizontal positions the plane horizontally as depicted in the View window.
• Vertical positions the plane vertically as depicted in the View window.
• Normal to Frames positions the plane lengthwise, normal to the frames.
Arrangement sets the interval between adjacent templates.
• Spacing is used to input an exact measurement.

• Number partitions the length of the plate into the given number of intervals.
• At Frames positions one template at each frame.
• Min Height determines the length of the shortest template handle.
Since we have specified frame locations, in the Sight Line group pick Normal
to Frames and in the Arrangement group pick At Frames. Leave Min Height at
1m. Click OK and then go back to Plate - View.
Now when you click the Template Layout option, the expanded plate outline
will have several coloured lines superimposed. These are the locations of
the templates we specified. The template locations can be included in an
exported DXF.
Click the Templates option to see the shape of the various templates. Note that
the template shapes are colour-keyed with the locations just seen with the
layout option. The straight lines with the right-angle hook at the upper end are
the template handles. The template shapes are exportable via DXF.
The results of template calculations are stored in the plate file.
60
Defining Pin Jig Settings
Defining Pin Jig Settings
4.8 Defining Pin Jig Settings
A pin jig is another optional aid to plate forming. To calculate jig settings, select
one or more expanded plates and then click the Plate - Pin Jig menu item. In the
Plate Pin Jig dialogue, set the parameters as follows:
• Min Pin Height is used to tell Autoplate the lowest setting that your pin jig
can accommodate.
• The Spacing group is used to lay out the grid of pins;

X corresponds to the longitudinal direction,
Y is transverse.
• The Units group sets the units used for pin jig output.
Under Spacing, set X to .5 and leave the other settings as they are. Return to
the View window and select Pin Jigs. Because of the shape of the plate, the
upper left pin does not fit on the plate, and so is not shown. Note that the
spacing of the pins is less in the X direction (longitudinally) than it is in the Y
direction (transverse).
61
Chapter 4
4.9 Defining Plates on the Stern Bulb

Defining Plates on the Stern Bulb
First we need to alert Autoplate that we now want to work with the Aft Plating
Group: Go to Plate - Group and select Aft Plating Group. If the Plate - Group
item is grayed out, click the Select mode button. Click the Show Plate Group
button to verify that the proper part of the hull is selected.
Before we can do any plating on the aft portion of the hull, we must specify some
classes of plates. If we assume we will be working with the same shops as for the
forward portion, then the classification scheme will be the same. However, let's
also suppose we have access to some 2000mm by 6000mm by 10mm stock for
this part of the hull. Create a new stock called 2000x6000x10. In the Classification
dialogue, set up a class with this stock in Shop A in the Aft Plating Group.
Because of the high degree of curvature, the plates will have to be more wedge
shaped on the stern bulb than elsewhere on the vessel
Let's start by dividing the bulb polyobject in half length-wise with an

embedded curve:
Name Stern Bulb Seam 1
Tab Embedded
Host Polyobject
Trimmed Stern Bulb
End 1 r=0
c = .5
End 2 r=1
c = .5
In Side view, zoom in on the stern bulb area. Make sure the Show Plating
Group button is turned on.
Make a new plate: click the Create mode button, the Plate button and then on
the part of the stern bulb above the curve just created. In the New Plate
dialogue, for Class pick Aft Plating Group - Shop A - 10mm.
Verify that the correct plate has been created by turning off Show Plate
Groups and turning on Show Plates.
62
Now when you go to expand this plate you should receive the message "One or
more plates is larger than the specified stock." This means that the area to be
plated will have to be reduced in size.
This is easiest accomplished by running a butt vertically to cut the bulb in half.
And the easiest way to create this butt is with a projected curve.
Create a New Curve:

Name Stern Bulb Butt 1 template
Tab Free
Control Pts 2
End 1 L = 4.1
V = 4.5
End 2 L = 4.1
And then its Projection:

Name Stern Bulb Butt 1
Tab Projected
Type Type 2
Projection Side
Source Curve Stern Bulb Butt 1 template
Host Polyobject
Trimmed Stern Bulb
Acceptable Tol .005
63
Chapter 4
Delete the last plate made and then, using the projected curve just created, define
a new plate in the upper aft portion of the stern bulb.
Remember to select the two boundary curves, Stern Bulb Seam 1 and Stern
Bulb Butt 1, before creating the plate. Verify that the plate is where you expect it
to be by turning off the Show Plate Group button and turning on the Show
Plates button.
Now, expand this plate, using the default settings.
Next, view the plate. Try to compare the un-expanded mesh to the expanded
mesh. Because this plate has a high degree of curvature, we should pay special
attention to the forming details: take a look at the Thickness Contours. Note the
values at the bottom of the dialogue. Thinned Min and Thickened Max indicate
that, for the formation process chosen, this plate must be made both thicker in
some regions and thinner in others. This is also revealed in the Strain Contours,
where both stretching and shrinking are indicated. Some shops cannot perform
both operations.
Assuming that only stretching is available do the following: select Plate - Expand,
set condition to Expand Only and Click OK.
When the plate expansion is finished, view the Thickness Contours again. This
time there is no thickening of the plate, only thinning.
Now let's plate the rest of the stern bulb, starting with the forward top section:
In Select mode, select curves Stern Bulb Seam 1 and Stern Bulb Butt 1. Then in
Create mode, click the Plate button and in the side view click somewhere above
and forward of the intersection of Stern Bulb Seam 1 and Stern Bulb Butt 1. In the
New Plate dialogue, keep name as Plate_4, check Twin across centerplane,
select Shop A - 8mm and Click OK. Again, verify the plate definition: turn off
Show Plate Group and turn on Show Plates.
If the definition is correct, select the plate and expand it. Like Plate_3, set
Condition to Expand Only. Check the results in Plate - View.
Lets create and expand the bottom two plates a slightly different way: Stern Bulb
Seam 1 and Stern Bulb Butt 1 should still be selected. Create a new plate directly
64
below Plate_3. When that definition is finished, create another new plate directly
below Plate_4. Verify the definitions.
Now choose Plate - Select. Plate_6 should be selected. Hold down the shift key
and click Plate_5. Now both Plate_5 and Plate_6 are selected. Go to Plate -
Expand. Note that "Two plates are selected" appears at the bottom left of the
Expand dialogue. Set Condition to Expand Only and Click OK to expand both of
these plates.
Again, we get the message that one of the plates is larger than the available
stock. Since two plates are selected, we need to find which plate is too large.
Go to Plate - Select and pick Plate_5. Go to Plate - View and pick the Data tab.
The bottom entry on the right side shows that the plate is oversized for the stock.
The Size values on the left show us the overall plate size. Comparing that to the
Stock Name at the top left, we can see that the plate is too wide for the stock.
Repeat this same procedure for Plate_6. Evidently, both plates are too wide.
We have just seen that these two plates are too wide, so we must split them.
Obviously, the easiest approach would be to create another seam.
Delete the two plates Plate_5 and Plate_6: from Plate - Select, pick Plate_5,
hold down the SHIFT key and pick Plate_6. Click OK. In Select mode, click
the Delete button. In the Delete Selected Objects, with Selected Plates
Only turned on, click OK.
Create a New Curve with the Following Settings:

Name Stern Bulb Seam 2
Tab Surf Row/Col
Type Embedded
Axis Column
Parameter 0.75
Host Polyobject: Trimmed Stern Bulb
65
Chapter 4
With the boundary curves Stern Bulb Seam 1, Stern Bulb Seam 2 and Stern Bulb
Butt 1 selected, create Plate_5 as the aft, mid-height portion of the bulb. Create
Plate_6 as the forward, mid-height portion, Plate_7 as the lowest aft portion and
Plate_8 as the lowest forward portion. You may have to zoom in close to point at
the location of Plate_7 and Plate_8. Verify the definitions. If Plate_7 is hard to
visualize, double click in a black portion of the screen to de-select the curves and
then select Plate_7 from Plate - Select.
Now expand these four plates, again using Expand Only. You will find that they all
fit on the stock specified.
66
Defining Plates on the Bow Flare
4.10 Defining Plates on the Bow Flare

Now let's make some plates on the highly flared section at the upper forward
portion of Hull Fwd Lower. First, under Plate - Group select Fwd Plating Group.
Lets work down from the knuckle line and out from the centerline. In order to
make plates of constant width we will lay out the seams as geodesic offset
curves. To start this process we create an embedded curve along the top of the
lower forward hull:
Name Fwd Knuckle Line
Tab Embedded
Host Polyobject
End 1 r=1
c=0
End 2 r=1
c = .5
Create three geodesic offset curves:
Shop B will be forming these plates. Remember, they can handle 1m x 2m stock.
Lets set the geodesic spacing at 950mm.
Name Seam A
Tab Geod. Off.
Offset Left
Distance = .95
Source Curve Fwd Knuckle Line
Host Polyobject
67
Chapter 4
Name Seam B
Tab Geod. Off.
Offset Left
Distance = 1.9
Host Polyobject
Name Seam C
Tab Geod. Off.
Offset Left
Distance = 2.85
Host Polyobject
As described above, the ends of geodesic offset curves often do not end where
we need them to. We will match these three with embedded curves which we can
edit into place:
Name Seam Ae
Tab Match
Type Embedded
Tolerance .005
Source Curve Seam A
Name Seam Be
Tab Match
Type Embedded
Tolerance .005
Source Curve Seam B
68
Name Seam Ce
Tab Match
Type Embedded
Tolerance .005
Source Curve Seam C
Then, make the source curves invisible (Attributes - click the "X" in the Vis
column). Finally, for each curve, select it, go to edit mode and pull the inboard
control point across the centre line and let it snap back.
On this region of the hull, plate butts have no relationship to frames. In this
example, we will stagger the butts. Since the stock length is 2m, the butts should
be laid out at just less than 1m intervals. However, we will use this spacing only
along the top edge of the lower hull surface and the butts will converge as they
move down the flare. These butts are easily created as vertical projections of
horizontal source curves. In the top view, create curves A1 Src, A2 Src and A3
Src, as shown below, and then project each curve onto polyobject Trimmed Hull
Fwd Lower as Butt A1, Butt A2 and Butt A3. Note that you should be able to use
Type 1 projected curves here.
69
Chapter 4
With these curves in place, create 4 plates bounded by
1. Seam Ae and Butt A2 and the two edges of polyobject Trimmed Hull Fwd
Lower;
2. Seam Ae, Seam Be and Butt A1 and one edge of polyobject Trimmed Hull
Fwd Lower;
3. Seam Be, Seam Ce and Butt A2 and one edge of polyobject Trimmed Hull
Fwd Lower;
4. Butt A1, Butt A3, Seam Ae, Seam Be.
In the New Plate dialogue for each plate, check Twin across centre plane and
select the class Fwd Plating Group - Shop B - 8mm.
Select all of these plates and expand them as a group. Then view the strain maps
for each. You will find that they consist of small irregular patches of expand and
shrink of very small magnitude. This is just numerical noise and is an indication
that the plates have almost no Gaussian curvature and need no forming other
than bending to fit the conical shape of the hull at that point.
70
Defining a Panel and its Pin Jig
Defining a Panel and its Pin Jig
4.11 Defining a Panel and its Pin Jig
Autoplate has a facility for calculating pin jigs used for the assembly of several
adjacent plates. Such an assembly is called a Panel. We will use the stern bulb
plates as an example.
Select the Panel - New menu item. In the New Panel dialogue, highlight the
names of the 6 plates on the Stern Bulb (Plates 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8) and click the
Add Selected button, then the OK button. Select Panel - Select, highlight
Panel_1 and click OK. Select the Panel - PinJig menu item. The following
dialogue will appear:
Note that the selected plates are outlined in black and frames are shown in cyan.
The view is along the average normal vector of the panel. That this is not parallel
to the plane of the frames is revealed by the curvature of the frame lines.
Set the units to m and MinPinHgt to 0.5. Under spacing, click the On Seams radio
button. Set Row Spacing and Pin Spacing to 1.0. The parallel red lines
superimposed on the drawing indicate pin layout rows. Because you selected On
71
Chapter 4
Seams, the program will place a pin everywhere a red line crosses a black plate
outline. Further pins will be placed anywhere that the distance between two pins
in a row exceeds the value Pin Spacing. Click the Grid radio button and you will
see small cross bars on the red lines. These indicate pin locations at the interval
Pin Spacing along each row.
Select Out in the Side frame; this means that the panel is to be assembled sitting
on the pin jig with the inside facing up. Thus the jig placement marks in the DXF
output will be drawn for placement on the outside of the plates.
Experiment with the Align controls to move the jig into the desired alignment with
the plates of the panel. In the figure, no rotation was applied but the left shift
button was used to achieve the configuration shown.
72
DXF Output
DXF Output
4.12 DXF Output
Autoplate has facilities for producing several different DXF files. Under the Files -
Export menu there is a sub-menu containing Plate DXF, Panel DXF and Shell
Expansion entries. Now that we have created several plates and a panel we can
exercise these export items.
4.12.1 Plate Drawings
Set the plating group to Aft Plating Group. From Plate - Select, select Plate_4
and Plate_5 from the bulb. Select Files - Export - Plate DXF.
In the Plate Output to DXF dialogue under 2D check the following boxes:
Frames, Templates, Chord Lengths, Strain Contours and Data. Under 3D
check Mesh and Frames. To the left of each check box is a small square. Click
the one corresponding to Frames. A colour selection dialogue will appear. Click
the red square. The small square in the original dialogue will change to that
colour. Select the colours you want to use for each checked item.
Select m under units. Click OK. A dialogue in which you select the tutorial
directory will appear. The DXF files will be written to that directory. Click OK. You
will find 4 files in that directory: 2dPlt_Plate_4.dxf, 2dPlt_Plate5.dxf,
3dPlt_Plate_4.dxf and 3dPlt_Plate_5.dxf
The first two contain 2D drawings and the last contain two 3D drawings.
Start your CAD program and read in the first of these files. You will discover that
• there is a layer for each selected item and one for the plate outline.
• there is a layer for template layout and one for templates.
• layer colours are as chosen in the Plate Output to DXF dialogue.
• the chord length layer has straight lines joining various points on the plate.
Each is labeled with the measurement between points taken through
space on the hull.
• there is a layer containing a table of plate data in text form.
73
Chapter 4
4.12.2 Panel Drawings
The second DXF output is Panel. Choose the Panel - Select and select Panel_1.
Then choose the Files - Export - Panel DXF menu item. In the dialogue, check all
the boxes and set their colours. Click OK. Now you will find the file
Panel_Panel_1.dxf in the chosen directory. Open this file in your CAD system.
You will find a drawing of the panel with the markings you specified. The pin
locations are labeled with integer pairs (e.g. 4, 1). There is also a table in which
pin information is presented, keyed to the pins by the same integer pairs.
Autoplate will also generate shell expansion drawings. Select Aft Plating Group
and all the plates in it. Choose Files - Export - Shell Expansion. In the dialogue
check all items and set their colours. Check Do Refinement and set the tolerance
to .005 m. Click OK. The calculations take a little while, as marked by an
hourglass cursor. This time the created file is called Shell.dxf. In the drawing you
will find that each chosen item has its own layer and the colour specified. Only
selected plates appear.
4.13 Generating Reports
Choose Report - Create. In the Create Report dialogue, under Which Plates,
select All and under Report Type, check both items. Click OK. After a period of
calculation the Autoship Report Editor will appear. You will see that each plate in
the project has an entry, and that at the end of the report there is a summary for all
plates. The editor allows you to save the report to a file, to print it or to edit it.
74
Notes
75
Copyright 2008 Autoship Systems Corporation
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Autop

plate For Windows®

Autoship Systems Corporation

Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. AutoCAD is a

Autoship Systems Corporation

Tel: (604) 254-4171

Chapter 1 - Getting Started 1

1.0 Introducing Autoplate 1

1.1 System Requirements 2

1.2 Installing Autoplate 2

1.3 Starting and Exiting Autoplate 4

1.4 Online Help 5

Chapter 2 - Quick Overview 7

3.0 What is Plate Expansion?

3.2 The Autoplate User Interface 13

3.3 Points and Curves in Autoplate 14

3.4 Preparing an Autoship Project for Autoplate 15

3.5 Starting a New Autoplate Project 16

3.7 Setting Up a Classification 18

3.8 Plate Boundaries 19

3.9 Creating a Plate 21

3.10 Plate Selection 22

3.11 The Plate Viewer 23

3.14 Pin Jig 28

3.18 Invalidation and Regeneration of Plates 37

3.19 Plate Deletion 38

3.20 Switching Between Autoship and Autoplate 38

4.0 Preliminary Considerations

4.1 Starting a New Autoplate Project 40

4.2 Defining Plate Stock 42

4.3 Plate Classification 43

4.4 Setting Up a Baseline 45

4.5 Laying Out Seams and Butts 47

4.6 Defining a Plate 52

4.7 Defining Templates 59

4.8 Defining Pin Jig Settings 61

4.9 Defining Plates on the Stern Bulb 62

4.10 Defining Plates on the Bow Flare 67

4.12 DXF Output 73

4.13 Generating Reports 74

Tel: (+1) 604 254 4171 (Extension 104)

Contacting Autoship's Head Office:

Tel: (+1) 604 254 4171

Autoship Systems Corporation

1.0 Introducing Autoplate

• automates many of the processes involved in defining plate boundaries

The system incorporates security features which are designed to prevent

1.1 System Requirements

Autoplate is a 32 bit Windows program.The following table shows minimum

Operating System Windows® 2000 Sp4

* Operation is possible at 256 colors, but for rendering to function

1.2 Installing Autoplate

1. Place the CD in your computer.

1.2.1 ASC Program Authorization

5. Accept the default installation location, or click Change to specify

6. Follow the remaining instructions to complete the installation.

1.2.2 Autoplate Setup Program

8. Accept the default installation location, or click Change to specify

9.Follow the remaining instructions to complete the installation

1.2.3 Lock Settings

1.3 Starting and Exiting Autoplate

1. Using the File menu:

2. Using the Windows close box: