KayakFoundry – User Manual
Contents
1. KayakFoundry User Manual Version 1 5 March 18 2006 KayakFoundry is a graphical kayak design program that has been tailored specifically for creating designs suitable for the wood strip technique of kayak construction It provides a rich environment with intuitive controls that allows you to create a design finely adjust its shape examine and evaluate its hydrostatic properties and ultimately generate printed cross sectional and stem forms for construction Key Features KayakFoundry contains a number of interesting features e Simple intuitive user interface with adjustable detail level Dynamically computed hydrostatics and graphics including waterlines and buttocks Imperial or Metric numeric display Undo redo operations Multiple cockpit support Auto positioned cockpit s based on center of buoyancy Display panels that can be resized or hidden to adjust screen real estate Zoom settings from 100 to 400 Exaggerated curve settings from 1x to 5x Optional grid with user specified interval Scaling function to adjust length beam and or height Flexible form printing with multi sheet support user specified strip thickness printer calibration and model scaling e Integrated KAPER drag prediction and support for the Broze drag prediction spreadsheet e Form export as set of coordinates Print study drawing or export as a graphics file png e Simultaneous display of multiple designs for side by side comparisons Registratio2. cross section Each of these views contain a fixed set of control points that can be moved around to define the kayak shape Provide the weight of the paddler s anticipated cargo weight and estimated finished boat weight Taken together these parameters define the total target displacement of the design Adjust the Design Waterline DWL in the Profile view to control the design displacement The DWL should be adjusted so that the design displacement closely matches the target displacement All hydrostatic information reflects the state of the kayak at that DWL You can play around with the DWL to see how paddlers of different weights will affect the trim Shape the cockpit to your desired dimensions In multi cockpit designs each cockpit can potentially have its own shape or the can all share the same shape The position of the cockpit is automatically moved by the program to keep the paddler s center of gravity CG over the kayak s center of buoyancy CB As you shape your design you can evaluate the effects of those changes on the predicted drag of the design The Drag Prediction tab displays a plot of drag vs paddling speed computed using John Winter s KAPER algorithm Continue to refine the design until you are satisfied with the design and its hydrostatic properties When you re ready to print forms switch to the Form Layout tab and define the form parameters and arrange the forms on a virtual canvas The form layout is p
3. Control plus minus to increment decrement the exaggerate level You may need to hide some of the panels to see the entire exaggerated curve Used together the Zoom and Exaggerate features provide an effective combination to aid in creating fair curves The Options Detail level menu gives you control over the detail level used in the display panels If you find that the program is slow to update the screen particularly true when one panel is maximized you can drop the detail level and the performance will improve This is a global setting and will affect all active designs This setting controls the details in the following way e High Displays clouds and color gradients e Medium Displays color gradients e Low Displays no color gradients KayakFoundry lets you design a single double or triple cockpit kayak Control A adds another cockpit Control R removes a cockpit When you change the number of cockpits the Hydrostatics panel changes to reflect the new number of cockpits Each cockpit has settings for shape the weight of the paddler and the distance from the aft edge of the cockpit to that paddler s center of gravity The 2 and 3 cockpits have settings for spacing This spacing corresponds to the distance from the aft edge of that cockpit to the aft edge of the cockpit directly in front of it Based on all these settings the program calculates a cumulative center of gravity which it always places directly over t
4. Metric units are being displayed then a unit less number will be treated as kgs The supported units are as follows Length Units lt double quote gt in ins lt single quote gt ft mm cm Weight Units lb lbs kg kgs All entries must use only one unit designator so if you want to enter 1 ft 3 inches you must type 15in of 15 or 1 25 ft etc In addition the following numeric fields have valid ranges Bow Tip Radius 0 25mm or 0 1 inch Stern Tip Radius 0 25mm or 0 1 inch Cargo Weight 0 136 kg or 0 300 Ibs Finished Boat Weight 0 136 kg or 0 300 Ibs Half angle Distances 50 200 cm or 19 inches 6 5 feet Cockpit edge to CG 0 200 cm or 0 inches 6 5 feet First Form Position 10 61 cm or 4 24 inches Form Spacing 10 61 cm or 4 24 inches Minimum Stem Length 10 100 cm or 4 inches 3 25 feet Strip Thickness 0 13 mm or 0 0 5 inches Printer Calibration Multipliers 0 1 1 5 no units If you enter a value that is less than the minimum the value will be set to the minimum Similarly if you enter a value that exceeds the maximum the value will be set to the maximum Tip Notice that there is no specified range for paddler weight but my advice is to keep it at a healthy level All of the curve shaping is done by moving control points Left click on a point to select it A ted halo is drawn around the point to indicate that it is the selected point You can drag the control point with the mouse or nudge it
5. specified by the user and it was used to help define the appropriate cross sectional shape of the kayak In KayakFoundty 1 5 Pve moved to a model where the user has full control over the hull cross section and the volume distribution curve is a derivation of the shape of the underwater portion of the hull In version 1 5 you do not shape the volume distribution curve directly it is simply another bit of hydrostatic information generated by the program The goal of these changes was to provide a more intuitive approach to controlling the shape of the design certainly it is more in line with general purpose CAD programs While you have control over the cockpit s shape KayakFoundry computes its longitudinal position The program always places the paddler s center of gravity CG directly over the kayak s center of buoyancy CB To simplify calculations the program assumes bilateral symmetry of both paddler and kayak so that both CG and CB lie on the centerline of the kayak The cockpit s will automatically shift as the CB changes due to changes in the distribution of volume over the length of the kayak This ensures that the trim of the built kayak will match that of the design You ll know exactly how the kayak will sit in the water before you begin construction iew of Operatior Briefly here s how you use the program to design a kayak e Shape the kayak in Plan view top Profile view side and the Active Section view
6. axis Displays bow stern or split bow stern views These curves are derived and cannot be directly manipulated Active Section view The section at the position of the sliding section marker If this position corresponds with one of the 5 representative shaping sections then the hull and deck cross sections can be modified Click on the graphical arrows to move to the previous next representative shaping section Also the lt spacebar gt will move to the next section and Shift lt spacebar gt will move to the previous section e Distribution of Volume The curve of areas along the length of the underwater portion of the kayak This curve is derived from the underwater hull shape and cannot be directly manipulated e Notes If youd like to record notes to yourself or descriptions of the kayak as you create the design you can enter notes in this panel The Drag Prediction tab contains the following e Drag Plot Displays the drag resistance vs paddling speed There are 3 curves that represent frictional drag residual drag and total drag e Drag Data Raw data for the 3 drag curves The Forms tab contains the following panels e Forms Layout view Contains a virtual canvas for you to arrange the forms The forms will be printed in the arrangement specified here To move a form click and drag it to the desired position To rotate the form use the left right arrow keys while you have the form selecte
7. d To rotate to 45 degree increments hold down the lt shift gt key while using the arrows The stem forms can be mirrored using the right click menu If a form overlaps another the forms will be shown in red Usually you probably don t want to print overlapping forms so make sure you arrange the forms so that they re all green e Profile Forms view Displays the position of each of the forms superimposed on the profile of the design The red form can be dragged to define the position of the 1 form which anchors the rest of the forms The yellow form can be dragged to specify the form spacing Its distance from the 1 form is replicated to all other form spacing Both of these values can be specified in numeric forms in the edit fields on the left hand side Bulkheads can be placed at arbitrary locations along the length of the kayak Right click to access the Add a bulkhead menu option The bulkheads are shown in blue and are not subject to form spacing They can be dragged to any position along the length To remove a bulkhead simply drag it off the end of the kayak and drop it Tip Use the What s This functionality to get context sensitive help Select Help What s This Shift F1 or click the MJ icon to enter What s This mode Then click on one of the panels or hydrostatic data items to get a brief description of its purpose In the main Design tab each panel can be hidden in order to gain more screen real esta
8. d to x motion and another that s restricted to y motion the group of points won t move at all Tip Use Control click to select additional control points or click and drag to draw a rectangle around a group of points to select To deselect all selected points click in an open area on the panel When switching back and forth between panels when you first give focus to a panel by clicking in it the previously selected control points remain active A second click in an open area will clear all selections This lets you pop back an forth between panels to tweak the same control points in each without having to re select the points each time Vk All curves are cubic Bezier curves that have 4 control points each KayakFoundry draws the first and last points as squares and the two middle points as circles The first two and last two sets of points are connected by a dotted line Bezier curves always pass through the first and last control points This means that the square control points will fall somewhere along the curve of the kayak Also the shape of the curve at the endpoints is tangent to the line between the endpoint and the adjacent middle point Anywhere you see a square endpoint a circle control point and a dotted line between them the curve will be tangent to the dotted line as it approaches the square endpoint Each curve of the kayak is a spliced set of Bezier curves with shared endpoints The last control point of the first segmen
9. e strip thickness setting is scaled as well Note As the forms are scaled down in size the inner curve that accounts for strip thickness will become less accurate e g it won t exactly follow the outer curve in a parallel fashion Expect smaller forms to get a little funky as they are scaled down especially the tips of the stem forms The printed study plans provides a one sheet view of the kayak design along with the designer s notes if any and some of the more pertinent hydrostatic values The outline views of both the deck and profile can be used to sketch possible strip patterns Study plans for most kayaks will look best if printed in landscape orientation but if you are designing a relatively short kayak portrait orientation may be more appropriate On both printed forms and study plans the dimension will be printed using the currently active numeric display mode Imperial or Metric Should you want to import forms into a separate CAD package KayakFoundry provides an Export dialog The Export dialog is very similar to the Print Forms The Export dialog contains additional settings to allow you to tailor the format of the exported form coordinates Each form curve is represented as a list of X Y coordinates that can be processed by other applications With Microsoft Excel the exported file can be imported as a comma delimited file Select the X and Y columns and create a XY scatter chart to view and verify the exported co
10. ext previous shaping section As you drag the control points to shape the cross section the curve will be drawn in red if any part of the curve falls outside the rectangle bounded by the top of the deck the keel and the max beam of the section Any red is generally not a good idea since it means that cross section is not a standard shape You should always take steps to remedy this situation When the Active Section view displays any section other than the representative shaping sections it will display the interpolated positions of all cross sectional control points as smaller dots You cannot manipulate them directly but they do let you see where the points are located There are two features that help you to generate smooth curves Zoom and Exaggerate Each panel can be zoomed from 100 to 400 in 25 increments The right click popup has a Zoom entry to let you select a particular setting You can also use the plus minus keys to increment decrement the zoom level With all zoom settings but 100 the panel will contain scroll bars Drag the scroll bars or use Shift lt arrow key gt to position the view The curves in the Plan and Profile panels can exaggerated to make it easier to judge fairness The exaggerate function scales up the y coordinate of each curve in the panel The scaling settings are 2 3 4 or 5 times actual y values The right click popup has an Exaggerate entry to let you select a particular setting You can also use
11. he kayak s center of buoyancy Each cockpit can have a separate shape or they can all share the same shape Only the first cockpit of a particular shape will have control points in the Plan view As you add cockpits the kayak s total displacement will increase You will need to move the DWL upwards to compensate for the extra displacement Adjust the DWL until the Design Displacement is approximately equal to the Target Displacement This will give you an indication of how the kayak will trim with the specified paddler weights The program supports unbounded number of undo redo operations Undo the last movement with Ctrl Z redo the operation with Ctrl Y Multiple consecutive movements of a particular point is considered one movement So if you move one control point around to ten locations an undo operation will move it back to its original location Movement of a group of selected points is considered a single operation As you undo redo control point movement operations the program displays the points selected If the panel containing those control points happens to be hidden you will not be able to see any undo redo activity but the undo redo operation does still occur KayakFoundry can print station forms stem forms and cockpit templates Before printing the forms should be arranged on the virtual canvas in the Forms tab The forms will be printed according to this layout Forms that are overlapping at all will show in red U
12. in any direction using the keyboard arrow keys Tip Use the arrow keys when you want very fine control over positioning control points Each keystroke a nudge moves the selected control point s 1mm Each control point has a specific degree of freedom Most control points can be moved in any direction Some are restricted to movement only in only x or y and a couple of them are stationary For instance in the profile view in order to force the bow to start at x 0 the control point at the tip of the bow can only be moved in the y direction Similarly in the plan view the extreme end points of each curve ends at the centerline of the boat Those control points allow motion in the x direction only so don t worry about dragging those control points off center they won t budge off the centerline Within a panel multiple control points can be selected at once by using Ctrl left click on each point Each newly selected point will have a red halo When you move a selected group of control points they all move so that they remain in the same position relative to each other You can move the group by click dragging any of the selected points or by using the arrow keys This can be convenient when you ve got a curve about right but want to shift its position a bit The selected group of control points has its own degree of freedom based on the cumulative effects of each of the selected points So if you select one point that s restricte
13. n This program is offered as donation ware There is no registration fee required to use this program However if you like the program and find it useful you can make a contribution of any amount that you feel is appropriate To make this convenient Pve placed a PayPal button on the KayakFoundry webpage If you sell designs developed with KayakFoundry sell kayaks built from KayakFoundry designs or in any way use the program commercially I do ask that you purchase a one time license distribution Please contact me for details Please send correspondence to Ross Leidy tleidy blueheronkayaks com or refer to http www blueheronkayaks com contact html for a mailing address The KayakFoundry BBS is a public forum for submitting questions problems comments and suggestions about the program Please use this as the primary avenue to obtain support I will closely monitor the board and do my best to respond in a timely manner By keeping the exchange public the board will benefit all users who may have similar comments and will hopefully encourage and facilitate discussion KayakFoundry 1 0 followed a design model that was similar to that used by Robert Livingston s Bearboat program That is most of the kayak dimensions were under the control of the user but the program would partially control the hull cross sectional shape based on a uset conttolled volume distribution curve In this model the volume distribution was an input
14. oned anywhere along the length of the boat The Body Plan and Active Section views display the cross section at that position In addition the Hydrostatics panel displays all the relevant data about that section e g deck height sheer width etc Position the line by dragging the control arrow at the bottom of the line Tip Double click in the panels to move the active section line instantly to a particular position Double click on individual sections in the Body Plan panel to that section the active section The Hydrostatics panel has a number of entries that can be modified directly These entries are shown in blue to distinguish them from the static fields To modify their value double click on the entry or select the entry and hit lt enter gt Some entries are string fields and there is no specified format For example the entry for the Design Name can contain whatever text you like Numeric entry fields have specific format requirements Most fields will require you to enter a units designator after the value If an invalid value is entered or if the units cannot be determined then the contents of the field will revert to the original value With the exception of weight entry fields all numeric entries must have units specified Weight values without units will be assumed to be in the units corresponding to the current display mode That is if Imperial units are being displayed then a unit less number will be treated as lbs If
15. ordinates All dimensions are stored and manipulated in millimeters mm When converted to Imperial units some imprecision can result For the most part this is not a problem because the sheer size of the kayak dwarfs any resulting rounding error KayakFoundty varies the precision of displayed Imperial units to reduce useless fractional information for larger values The following scale is used to determine the displayed precision of decimal numbers e Values lt 1 inch rounded to the nearest 1 1000 of an inch e Values lt 2 inches rounded to the nearest 1 100 of an inch e Values gt 2 inches rounded to the nearest 1 10 of an inch
16. rinted across multiple pages which are then assembled in a grid Tape the pages together cut out the forms and youre not far from placing the first strip on your new design KayakFoundty displays the kayak design in a number of panels Each panel provides some information that is useful during the design process With a couple exceptions the contents of each panel can be manipulated in some way to define or refine the shape of the kayak The main Design tab contains the following panels Hydrostatics Contains all the calculated numeric data about the design It is organized in a hierarchical tree to make it easy to find the data that interests you Nodes of the tree can be expanded or collapsed so the panel shows only the data you want to see at the time Entries shown in blue can be modified directly To edit the value double click or select the entry and hit lt return gt Entries shown in black are derived values and cannot be modified directly Plan view The top down view of kayak It displays the sheerline waterline s and cockpit s The cockpit shape and the curve representing the beam of the kayak along its length can be modified The waterline curves are shown at 1 inch increments below the DWL Profile view The side view of the kayak It displays the deck sheerline and keel line all of which can be modified The buttock curves are derived Body Plan view The view of the kayak sighting down the longitudinal
17. sually you don t want any overlap so make sure all forms are shown in green before printing The Print Forms dialog contains a checkbox for each form The checkboxes control which of the forms will print Forms are printed according to the form layout canvas using with multiple sheets of paper Each page will contain registration marks to make it easy to align adjacent pages The printer calibration option allows you to fine tune the accuracy of the printed forms It s a good idea to do this once on each printer to check the dimensions of the calibration sheet If it s off you can specify a multiplier to allow KayakFoundry to compensate for the inaccuracy Print the calibration sheet then measure the true dimensions of the printed rectangle If the dimensions are incorrect calculate the ratios that are described on the sheet and enter the values in the specified edit fields Print another calibration sheet to verify the new dimensions The Print Forms dialog also allows you to print scaled down forms for use in constructing models There are pre set selections for 1 2 1 3 and 1 4 scale factors and a custom scale factor that allows values from 1 0 5 to 1 12 When printing scaled forms the printed forms indicate the scaling factor and the printed dimensions and distances are adjusted to reflect the scaling So if you have specified 12 as the form spacing and you select 1 3 scale then the printed forms will show a spacing of 4 Th
18. t is the first control point of the next segment so they share a square control point To ensure that there are no discontinuities where the segments are joined the program forces many of these adjacent segments to share the same tangent Visually this appears as a teeter totter motion between three control points with a square point at the center This behavior is consistent throughout the different views The control points for a set of spliced curves all have the same color Each set of spliced curves has a unique color within the panel This helps distinguish which control points affect which curves Tip The orange and red control points affect underwater curves gray control points affect the sheer curves and green control points affect the deck curve The mechanism for shaping the cross sectional shape of the design deserves special attention KayakFoundrty defines five special sections spaced along the length of the kayak These sections are referred to as representative shaping sections The shape of these five sections indirectly controls the shape of all other sections KayakFoundry blends settings of consecutive representative sections to artive at the shape of the intermediate sections At each representative shaping section you can control two deck control points and two hull control points Move between the shaping sections by using the arrow buttons in the Active Section view or use lt space gt or shift lt space gt to move to n
19. te for the view you re editing at the time Panels can be shown or hidden using the corresponding View menu item or by using the right click popup and selecting Hide Panels can be resized dragging the splitter bars that separate the panels Each panel has a right click popup menu containing entries to control aspects of that panel Most entries will be self explanatory The only one that requires some discussion is Hull Controls that appears in the Plan and Profile panels It provides a top and side view of the position of the hull shaping control points along the length of the kayak You cannot manipulate these points in the Plan and Profile views the display is for information only The hull can be shaped using the 5 representative sections in the Active Section view See Cross Section Shaping Superimposed on the views are floating markers that indicate certain important positions e g Maximum beam at sheer BOA maximum beam at waterline BWL etc These markers move automatically as you shape the design All of the curves can be shaped by manipulating control points See Control Points and Curves The control points are visible only in the panel that has focus This makes it easy to identify which panel is being shaped and it gets rid of clutter in the other views so you can focus on the shape of the kayak In the Plan Profile and Distribution of Volume panels there is a sliding active section line that can be positi
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