THIS IS A SIMPLE HELP FILE ON HOW TO USE THE BoatCAD APPLICATION


1. This application produces most of the drawings you need to build your boat
from a given OffSet Table (Table of Offsets), together with some additional
parameters.

2. You need to fill in the table for your boat design; either manually or
using a pre-recorded file.

3. For learning and demo purposes four different sample tables are provided 
together with the application. You can access these samples by clicking 
"SELECT FROM SAMPLE PLANS" button near the buttom of the screen.

4. As soon as you click, the table cells are filled in. That means we can
start working with the plan. To start, click the red START NEW BOAT button at the
bottom.

5. As you click the button, just down below right of the button, the Cross-
Section drawings appears. This means that the application is working properly.
If data values are correct, you get the correct drawing.

6. You can click "Side View", "Top View", or "3D View" options under the
DRAWINGS dropdown menu to view corresponding graphics.

7. The main purpose of this application is to provide station drawings
automatically from the table data. Make Station Button is used for this purpose.
You can select any one of the profiles provided by the table from the listed
menu when you click the  Make Station Button. Select and click your choice. The
drawing will be presented in drawing area.

You may notice that the stringer notches are also cut, at some predefined
angles. The notch parameters; i.e., the width, depth and the angle (Type) are
to be provided ADDITIONAL to the OffSet Table, which are given at the lower
section of the table; below the bold-face typed "LINES" row.

The width and height parameters depend on the timber size you will be using,
while the Type (or the angle) depends on where the stringer is located.
The lower level notches are Type 1, and angles are perpendicular to the hull.

As you upper levels the notches become more parallel to the sides with Type 2,
Type 3. Default values are suggested by the plan. You may change them if you
wish.

8. Not all the stations are full frames. Especially, at the stern, half-profiles
are used. The application provides a solution for this with the CUT facility.
Next to Make Station Button, there is Cut Station Button, again with some
selections.

You can either select predefined levels like Deck, Chine2; or any arbitrary
level as given by the option:  " y = ...". The last station drawing present in
the drawing area is cut at selected level.

For the arbitrary y level input, you should provide height information in
millimeters, and negative if below water level.

Station is cut at selected level. You can try different cut levels one after the
other without loosing the station.

9. Some people prefer to build Radius Chine Boats; i.e., the profiles are
rounded, rather than with sharp edges. If you would like to create round chine
stations, then you should set the ROUNDED value at the very bottom of the table
to 1, which is set to 0 by default. This value should be set just after loading
the OffSet Table and BEFORE clicking the START NEW BOAT button.

10. Station widths can be specified by typing in the desired value in the
STA.WIDTH cell, just above the ROUNDED value. In the sample file, the default
value is set as 100mm.

11. The Stem at the Bow end is tilted backward. Therefore, the last station is
not positioned vertically, but tilted backward, hence creating an offset
between the top and bottom levels along the length (Z-axis) of the boat.

This is called Z-Offset and can be specified in the Zoffset area, located
above the STA.WIDTH area. For the S495DR sail boat, this is given as 290mm in
the plan.

12. You can print the drawings you create by selecting Print Preview option
from the Drawings Menu; or via usual File >> Print Preview >> Print selections.

It is highly recommended to preview the pages before printing them all; 
because many of the pages might be blank due to the nature of the drawing;
hence you can selecet the nececssary ones before actually printing them.

13. You can save your drawings to be used as CNC cutting files in SVG format
on your own disk. Select File >> Save SVG option.

14. If you have made changes on the OffSet Table and want to use it later
with those values, you can save the table by OffSet Table  >> Save Table
option with any name and extension on your disk.