2014-01-23
Hello,
I am mocking up a GUI for an enhanced, quick-cartoon-to-Initial Design to make designing ship hulls and superstructures faster and easier. Current CAD systems and specialist ship design interfaces are too simplistic or too complex, too expensive and modular, and too unapproachable and mind-numbingly user-unfriendly. I want to create something in between, with more balance. Something to wrest back more time for the Designer so he or she has more time for exploring and creating alternative GAs (General Arrangements). The tool will be for those who do not have access to things such as what large navies, specialist shipbuilders, or marine engineering firms of capacity have. Besides, in the ID (initial Design) stage, most people may not need a computer to spend 8 or 18 hours grinding through 800 or 2 million arrangements alternatives when, in the end, a human will make the final design nuances effectively based on national or personal style and client expectations.
I want to team up with developers from different backgrounds and different countries. This is NOT a mono-nation project. So, blatantly, bluntly, a team will have on it no more than two passport-holding persons from the USA (I count as one for counting purposes), 1 or 2 from South Korea, 1 or 2 from Russia/Ukraine, 1 or 2 from Japan, 1 or 2 from China, and 1 or 2 from Europe. We will be joint-ownership in nature, and not allow the entity to be bougth out, certainly not before we have have a good run of five to 6 years of activity, ownership, and disruptive influence on the industry. Roles in the company will include:
-- Design Interface Evangelist (1) (that might be my role, jack of many trades, but non-programmer and master-of-none)
-- Principal Architect (1) (overseer, not necessarily an NA with 20+ years)
-- Data Wrangler (1 or 2) (not IT, but database maestro who has user-friendliness in his/her heart, and who avoids vendor lock-in products)
-- Interface Programmer (2) (Platform agnostic tools-using developer-- LCD is that the code must port to Linux, Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS)
-- CAD Graphics Engineer (2) (Graphics Kernel)
-- Payroll Specialist (1) (no overlap with bookkeeping)
-- Bookkeeping Specialist (1) (no overlap with payroll)
-- Office Facilitator (1) (multi-hatted person, second or 3rd face of the non-tech side of the office)
-- IT Manager (verse in Linux as well as, not just, Windows, and Mac)
-- Marketing Specialist (1) (when the time comes)
-- Multi-Lingual Programmers/Document Writers (4-6) (passable but non-distracting fluency) (E/K/J/Cn/Ru/Ge)
-- Mentor/Second Community Contact (1) (maybe a former professor, able to speak to professionals, students, companies, and enthuisiasts simultaneously)
-- Drafters (3) (Skilled in how to produce construction documents, but with an emphasis on helping polish the interface, not actually daily produce revised working drawings)
We will get the appropriate visas and backgrounds simply because it by design will be an international entity, and because funding can become dramatically simplified if all employees come from countries likely to want to fund us on the expectation that will generate ground-breaking/envelope-pushing tools. We may also get around to opening localized offices and rotate staff among them if we an de-localize our work enough to permit such (annual) rotations.
Hopefully, we strategize and successfully receive funding/support/equipment from multiple sources, particularly sources not out to hijack our activity or manipulate it. However, we will certainly entertain licensing our products according to funding support/benefactors facilitation.
It is my idea that the product interface will not mimic but will improve upon in a new way the best or worthiest features of:
-- Ship Constructor (huge, heavy, intrusive, expensive)
-- Cafe (powerful, but....))
-- FreeShip/Hydronship (great reports, semi-tedious modelling)
-- PolyCAD (powerful surface-making tools, some ability to compartmentalize a model)
-- AutoShip (similar to Ship Constructor)
-- Friendship (mentioned as a reference)
-- MaxSurf (mentioned as a reference)
And a few others. Again, he GUI will be completely unlike any of them. It has to -- for various reasons. It has to be disruptive and game-changing, yet non-destructive to the community. Not all firms or engineers or architects need to be turned, just enough and enough companies to license our work as complementary if they are engineers. Non-engineers and NA/ME-minded fence-sitting enthusiasts might choose us instantly.
It will initially start out small (small is a stretch), and encompass areas including:
-- Upright/Initial Stability
-- Damaged Stability
-- DC Zones
-- Compartmentation
-- Hydrostatics
-- Hydrodynamics
-- Curves of Areas
-- Powering/Speed/Acceleration/Turn Prediction
-- Alternative designs incorporated into the model
-- Masses, Areas, and Centers of Gravity
-- Weight Groups
-- Proxy Geometry Placement
-- Rapid resizing of compartments and zones
-- Rapid resizing of decks and structural supports
-- Ventilation calculations
-- Real-time tallies on critially important properties as the model is edited
-- Boundary/Envelope markers to warn of modeling that deviates from performance targets
-- Quick Insertion of and trimming of deck plates, pipes, joiner partitions, generic furnishings/equipment/
-- Back-end database (not just programmatic, but also in USERLAND) work sheets and reporting tools as easy as Lotus Approach
We most likely will not engage in:
-- GA rearrangement algorithms
-- Explosion/Shock modeling
-- Advance DFM/DFP capability (other than high-quality fairing and watertightness and weld calcs of the plates)
-- Assembly Planning
-- Numerous other areas too costly to engage
As an ex-Sailor who before and after naval service studied ships far more than I did while in the service, I have my own opinions of ship aesthetics, payloads, mission targets/capabilities, and so on. I am not given to fanciful or cartoon-world ships. Also, since I served in many roles, from being the Captain's Phone Talker (during Special Sea Detail and sometimes UNRPS), being on the Security Alert/Back-up Alert Force, Roving Patrol, Flying Squad (Rapid First Team and Damage Control Teams), Repair Locker Plotter, in Deck Department and on the Mess Decks, and in other areas, I have ideas about how *SAILORS* need their ships to be designed, not just what a naval officer, a non-seagoing architect, or some policy wonk thinks or cookie-cutter patterns to.
However, the ships have to appear as if professionaly produced for presentation to a real-world client willing to pay for such shps. They need to be progressive yet conservative, balanced. They need to LOOK "kewl", yet subtly borrow facets from multiple nations and yet simultaneously appear as if any borrowed-from nation is the key inspiration. And, they should not look like uninspiring clones of a senior nation partner or design bureau.
Also, having been exposed to no fewer than 10 ship design or hydrostatics tools/programs, none has had in one place the key, core items that would excite me:
-- Ease of 3D modeling (Think: Punch! ViaCAD and Punch! Shark)
-- Ease of sketch
-- Ease of converstion to a faired hull
-- Internal hull library as a comparator/limiter
-- Hydros
-- Powering
-- Tank generation
-- Ease of modeling and revision
-- EASY-to-use and very flexible layer and geometry management system
-- Non-stifling, non-intimidating, non-overly-engineering-oriented menus and tools
-- Less than $500 per seat price tag
Intellectual Property Considerations: If you approach me, and your background cannot withstand an employability check, or if you are into using software cracks/codes, or use unlicensed software, or have as part of your activity anything that could imperil a startup or ongoing business, please sniff elsewhere.
Personality/Background Expectations: Open-mindedness; sense of humor (safe but not litigation-inviting); diversity; wordly; like military ships but not necessarily anxious to see them used; educated or able to convince by behavior and knowledge that you are; some academic, government, or naval connections who can be willing sources of funding; maritime/naval/engineering background; programming background; clear articulation in English but multilingual nevertheless; respect for intellectual property; disdain for vendor lock-in; level-headedneess; background devoid of serious crimes; drugs-free; hygienic on a daily basis; not too rich or so wealthy as to be bored or hostile toward the goals of the team; have a valid passport; no connections to entities or persons who will harm you or the team; have a passion for helping demystify the world of Naval Architecture; have a passion for model ship building or creating with your hands something useful, fun, or entertaining to others regardless of their backgrounds, education, or life experiences.
It is my intention to create and product able to reduce ship GA/ID to childsplay, blazingly fast and simple, inexpensively, and yet be appealingly tantalizing to professionals, students, and artists/animation designers.
And, now, to whet your appetites, some images of some recent activity
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