Carlson Hull Designer Alternatives?

After years away, I want to design some small boats.

I LOVED the free "Hull Designer" from Carlson Design. It was just right for my purposes: designing small stich-and-glue ply boats. I loved how you could print patterns for layout on plywood. Or, as I often did, print on cardstock, cut and tape to make models.

However, I find it hard to use now. Probably because it has not been updated in years.
Can't blame Carlson-- he did a great service to making available, and there's no money in it, so why would he do the PITA work of updating it?

So... Anyone aware of:
a) Guides or workarounds to make it easier to use?
b) Good alternative programs?
- Does at least what Hull Designer does
- Free or low cost for an amateur home designer
- Minimal learning curve

Any advice much appreciated!

Ted

PS- Maybe I just need a 2014 computer

 

If you find that difficult to use, i dont know of any new program that is any more basic. If only for small craft.....

Bearboat Software

 

I have not found an active link for "hullform", that was pretty basic but worked fine.

 

Thank you!

 

You can test my Gene-Hull free applications developed within the frame of Open office, here is the one for sailing dinghy, the others are mentioned in the post text here below . Just to note that these applications cannot generate multi-chine hulls.
Gene-Hull Dinghy 3.1 and its post application VPP in connection https://www.boatdesign.net/threads/gene-hull-dinghy-3-1-and-its-post-application-vpp-in-connection.68654/#post-955449

 

I really like this software too, despite many more advanced options I come back to it when I want to play with an idea. Just so straightforward and tangible. I have gotten it to run pretty well on Windows 11, even got the table of offsets window back, by playing with the compatibility settings.

That said, I too would like a more modern interface and a few more options... but not much more than that. I've also found (only a few) errors, mostly related to the way it calculates displacement for odd shapes.

I keep playing with the idea of trying to re-write it - I haven't done an application before but have been learning various pieces of the puzzle for other purposes. Do you suppose there would be wider interest?

 

Actually looking back I think the main thing that allowed it to work on Windows 10/11 was to copy the three .OCX files from the HUL folder to the C:\Windows\SysWOW64 folder: MSCOMCTL.OCX, DBGRID32.OCX, and Msflxgrd.ocx .

 

People have to start somewhere, Freeship with its gazzilion buttons is off-putting from the get go. The real question is, why these simple programmes are no longer availiable, is it just software compatibility? I did run my old Plyboats 2.0 in a virtual windows.

 

I was a developper for over 20 years and am also interested in learning how to design smaller sailboats. I just finished building my Michalak Mayfly 16 this summer and thought it would be fun to learn more about the design aspect. Reading on Jim's old blog, I saw he was using Carlson Hulls, but it isn't maintained anymore and I have a MacBook...

I'd know how to make such a program and if I was to do so, I'd do it in javascript, so it could run on everyone's computer, probably make it MIT licensed and put the code on github so anyone can contribute. Only thing is, I know how to code but I am unsure what the algorithms are behind those software. If someone knows and is willing to share a description I'd be happy to give it a go after the summer months.

 

I did a free application for dinghy hull with 5 chines, within the frame of Calc (open office spreasheet tool), can be of interest for you :
Gene-Hull Dinghy Chines 3.1 https://www.boatdesign.net/threads/gene-hull-dinghy-chines-3-1.70048/

 

I'd definitely be interested to help with this; I have already made a (rough) outline and understand the key naval architecture algorithms from a moderate to high level. I've also played with mocking up different parts of it in python/java/octave (matlab). Have worked with software folks before but never as a developer myself.

 

That could be a pretty interesting collaboration. I won' have much time until about end of august, but by then I should have time to dedicate to this project. Until then, maybe we could start by documenting the app "requirement"? What features it should have, how those work, etc.