Getting started
From BoardCAD
Contents |
Introduction
Welcome to the latest version of BoardCAD.
BoardCAD is an open source CAD-program for the design of surfboards. It is easy to use without putting any restictions on your designs. Most CAD-programs that are specifically made for surfboard design only let you define a few curves in 2D from which the 3D model is generated. In BoardCAD you can choose to work in 2D or 3D making it possible to define the exact shape of the complete board, including the tail. Since BoardCAD uses standard NURBS surfaces it is possible to export the exact model to any common CAD application using the STEP file format. While the current version of BoardCAD does not come with a machine interface, it is possible to export the board in several formats, load the board in an external CAM-program and cut the boards on any CNC machine.
Starting point
New file
New in file menu opens a new file. You can chose between three basic shapes, a FUNBOARD hybrid shape, a generic SHORTBOARD and a LONGBOARD shape.
Load
BoardCAD has support for loading boards created in aps3000, akushaper, shape3D and surfCAD in addition to the boardCAD file format.
Editing
Edit the curves by click and dragging the control points. You can also move these points with the keyboard arrow keys (more precise) or input the exact coordinate in the respective text boxes (in the lower, right corner) and click the set button. To make a tangent longer press E (extend), to make it shorter press R (retract). To rotate the control point clockwise press W, to rotate it counter-clockwise press Q.
By holding down the ALT key you make every editing operation 1/10th of normal operation. This gives you good precision even when dragging the points with the mouse.
By clicking while holding down Ctrl or Shift, or by clicking and dragging a rectangle box around the points you can select multiple center points that can be moved all together with the mouse or moved by steps with the keyboard arrow keys (this is useful for adjusting the rocker without changing the thickness at the nose tip and tail tip) In the Deck View select all nose and/or tail control points and drag/move. It's also useful for adding vee's or concaves without distorting the rail shape, select all the center points of the rail and move them together.
The "h" key hides/shows the control points.
Use the < key to cycle through the tangents and center point of a control point. Use the c key to cycle through the control points of a curve.
Click add point to go to add point mode. Click on the curve to add a control point to the curve. The curve will not change. Click delete point to delete the selected points.
Undo/redo can be done on every change you make to the board. The number of operations you can undo is only limited by available memory.
Pan and zoom by selecting the pan and zoom mode clicking on the respective buttons. To go back to edit mode (for selecting control points), press the edit button in the toolbar or in the right click pop-up menu , or even hit "Esc" on the keyboard. You can also pan by holding the mouse scroll wheel button (very useful!) and dragging the board. Spinning the mouse wheel zooms in and out when in edit mode.
Cross Sections
In the cross section view, the lower view shows the position of the crossections on the outline. The currently selected cross section is show with a red line.
Click near any crossection to select it, or use +/- to cycle through the cross sections. Cross sections can be added, moved and deleted using the menus.
When adding cross sections the new cross section depends on the interpolation method used, this setting is in the misc menu. If blend or S blend interpolation is used, you will get a copy of the nearest cross section, if control point interpolation is used the new cross section will be the interpolated slice at this point. Copy and paste of cross sections can also be done.
Guide points
You can add guidepoints by clicking the Add guide point button and directly insert the point in the 'board area' by clicking.
You can also open the Guide points table either via the Board menu or via Right click of the mouse. Once the table is open you can directly edit any existing guide points by double clicking. By right clicking the mouse you can choose to add new guide points via (x,y) coordinates or you can choose to remove any highlighted guidepoints.
Input values
All inputs that take measurements can take the following formats: FEET/INCHES (ex. 6'10" or 3 1/4"), METERS (ex. 0.5m), CENTIMETERS (ex. 50cm), or MILIMETERS (ex. 2200mm).
If you don't specify a unit, the current unit will be used. In the case of feet/inches the input value will be inches.
Ghost board
A ghost board can be loaded in the background to compare designs. The ghost board can be moved by holding down G (brings it into focus) and using the arrow keys.
The ghost board can also be scaled to the same size as the current board using the respective command at the Board menu.
Background image
A background image can be loaded in every view. This is positioned by holding down T and clicking on the tail, and holding down N and clicking on the nose. Note that if the board is positioned vertically the image needs to be narrower than wide for this to work properly and visa versa.
3D/nurbs view
The board can be viewed in 3D by selecting the 3D model view and choosing to convert to 3D. The board can futhermore be edited using the 3D view nurbs editor and tail editor. To edit, click and drag on a control point.
Saving
The board is saved in either .cad format for nurbs or .brd format for beziers.
Save and Refresh is a handy command to refresh the original board curves.
Printing
The board templates can be printed in full scale. In addition a spec sheet page can be printed or saved to an image file. Printing to pdf is not supported, however a virtual pdf printer can be used to generate a pdf file. When printing templates, the margins should be adjusted to the absolute minimum your printer can handle to minimize the amount of paper used. The difference between a wide and narrow margin can easily be the difference between one and two strips of paper being used. If you loose data in the print, adjust the margins up. You can check the print against the grid where each square should be an inch. Note that the printer may distort the image somewhat when print due to the paper feeder being inaccurate. Therefore it is recommended that you check the accuracy against the grid. You can not trust the edge of the paper being true to the print.
Export
The board can be exported in 3D in the formats step, dxf and stl to be cut by most standard CNC machines. To export in these formats you need to convert the board to 3D first. The board profile and template can also be exported in two different dxf formats to be used for cutting foam block with a hotwire cutter or cutting templates.
Other useful features
- There is a sliding info bar for measurements at any given point along the length of the board. In it, you can also show over curve measurements which makes it possible to get accurate measurements at any given point over the bottom curve. Very useful to get measurements as exactly as possible as it's hard to measure on the actual blank unless you measure over the bottom curve. On the other hand, if you look at these measurement with regards to the x position the difference is not that big.
- You can view the curvature of the board to ensure that the curve is smooth. In particular around a control point the curvature graph may be discontinous. This may be visible in a cut board or a template. The curvature graph can also be used to analyze the curves beyond what is otherwise possible visually. Note that the sliding info for bottom shows the radius of the curvature at any point which is also useful for analyzing the curvature of the rocker. Curvature can be compared between boards by loading a ghost board, when G is pressed the curvature of both the current board and the ghost board are shown (if 'show curvature' is selected).
- If you have zoomed in close and want to see how your changes affect the greater picture, you can click the spot check button or space bar to view the entire board, when you let go it returns to the previous zoom.
- Most drawing functions such as ghost board, original board, grid, control points, etc. can be turned on/off in the view menu.
- A grid is available to give a better idea of the measurements of the board.
- Clicking on settings under the misc menu, most colors and line thicknesses can be configured.
- In the misc tab at settings you can set a property/function called Use Rocker Stick Adjustment. If this is turned on, the rocker will be adjusted so the center tangent is level. This is similar to the industry standard way of measuring rocker with a rocker stick.
Enjoy!
