Computer aided sketching in the early-stage design of complex vessels

Various methods have been developed for automated and semi-automated architecture generation in the computer aided ship design processes. The question remains as to how this can speed up the design process without losing the requirement elucidation intent for concept phase. This paper presents a novel approach with a software toolset to develop design and analysis approaches to early stage ship design and provide a sketching tool. This was done by enhancing the user interface and experience of the UCL Network Block Approach to achieve a "thinking sketch" in a way that is "quick" and "fluid" enough to promote inventive and creative sketching comparable to hand sketching. The UCL Network Block Approach draws on the UCL Design Building Block (DBB) approach and uses network methods applied to the synthesis of distributed ship service systems (DS3) and Computer Aided Ship Design (CASD) to expand DS3 definition in early stage ship design. The UCL originated inside-out/DBB approach to sketch driven synthesis has been made translatable to both DBB ship descriptions and ensuring early stage naval architectural "balance". The proposed approach has been used for the first time successfully to not only carry out a rapid sketching exercise for a naval ship design but also enable quick preliminary analysis of a set of DS3 networks.