ProSail 4

Tutorial

Armstrong-White Automation (NZ) Ltd

© Armstrong-White Automation (NZ) Ltd

22 Kereru Grove, Greenhithe, Auckland 0632, New Zealand.
ph +64 9 413-7642 fax +64 9 413-7643
[email protected]
www.prosailcutter.com

ProSail
jan 09 1
Note: This tutorial gives a brief overview of some of the features of this
software. A more detailed description of the software is given in the manual.
There may be some differences between this tutorial and the demo software
if the software is a more recent version.

It shows the headsail/mainsail part of the program. It does not show the
gennaker, patch, gaff or patternmaker modules.

ProSail will displaying a standard Open dialogue:

This dialogue displays a list of the mould files that were supplied with this demonstration.

Click on the demo file DEMOHEAD and then click Open at the bottom right.

We are now looking at the sail from port, with the luff on the left and the leech on the right.
The scroll bar on the far right moves your view point up or down the sail, the left scroll bar
rotates or leans the sail left or right and the bottom scroll bar rotates the sail around the
vertical axis.

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 Animated View
You can view your sail in 3D wire frame or as a solid rendering.
To switch between wire frame and solid use the square coloured button on the left of the
screen.

Make sure we are using solid rendering before continuing. If not, click the button again.

An easier way to change the point of view is with the Animate feature.

Select Animate from the View menu :

A square outline will appear on the screen. As soon as the mouse enters the square the
animate feature is activated. Do not click the mouse yet as this deactivates animate. By
moving the mouse side to side and up or down you can rotate the view. Now move the mouse
around until you have the view you like and click once to lock in that position.

If you get disorientated click the small square at the bottom left of the screen:
This will return you to the zero view as seen from port.

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Select Open from the File menu.

In the following dialogue click on the arrow button to the right of ‘Files of type’ (at the bottom
of the dialogue) to display the drop down menu. Select Mainsails (*.MAN).

Click on the name DEMOMAIN.MAN and click Open.

You should now see a mainsail. If you do not, try Open again.

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 Chords
Select Chords from the Window Menu :

This will display the Chord (cross section of the sail) at the foot of the sail:

Thumb bar

The numbers at the top of the window give the Depths, Angles and Position for this chord.

To see other chords up the sail, use the “scroll bar” at the far right of this window. With the
“thumb bar” at the top we are looking at the chord at the headboard. At the bottom we are
looking at the chord at the foot.

The number at the top of the scroll bar gives the % height up the sail we are looking at. Note
that the chords do not appear to change in size as we go up the sail. This is because the view
is scaled so it will fit in the window.

Press the Esc key at the top left of the keyboard.

This will leave the view of the chords and return to the 3D view of the sail.

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 Dimensions
Select Dimensions from the Mould menu:

This dialogue displays the current dimensions of the sail that we can change. You can highlight
these fields by scrolling down using the Tab key on the keyboard. Or by double clicking in the
appropriate field.

This button is either mm or %.

If it is %, click on it to change
it to mm.

This changes Boom Droop to millimetres.

Now double click the Boom Droop field to select it.

Type 1000 then press the Enter key once.

This time type 1f (the number “1” followed by the letter “f”) and press Enter once only.

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Feet will have been converted into mm. These conversions are done automatically in all
dialogue boxes.

Press the Enter key once more. This will accept the changes we have made to this dialogue
and is the same as clicking OK.

The sail will now be drawn with a drooped boom:

Before entering the next section, use the mouse to move the height scroll bar down to
achieve the following view so we are looking up the sail (Or use Animate from the View menu
as we did before. A quicker way of selecting Animate is to simply press the F1 key on the
keyboard or right click the mouse and click Animate from the popup menu).

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 Shaping

Select Shaping from the Mould menu to see the following dialogue:

This dialogue contains all the curves (except for roach) that define the shape of the sail.

For the purposes of this demonstration we will be dealing only with the Mast-Bend and Depth
curves. Currently the mast-bend is probably displayed.

If this icon: is not highlighted, click the mouse in it to highlight it.

The left of the screen corresponds to the tack, the right corresponds to the head.

Because many curves on the sail are only slight, it is useful to visually distort the view of these
curves to see their shape more clearly. This is done using the scale scroll bar near the lower
right of the screen.

Drag this thumb bar up: To increase the scale:

The three vertical lines correspond to points at which we can change the shape of the curve
and are called Adjustment points.

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 Shaping

Move the mouse so it is exactly on the 3rd adjustment point as shown:

Click the mouse button and while keeping it down drag the mouse up vertically to achieve the
following picture. Then release the button:

Instead of using the mouse to change the shape of curves, we can use the keyboard.

Press the Tab key until the Y field is highlighted:

Then type the number 250 and press the Tab key again:

This has increased the Mast-bend to a very large value at that point.

Click OK to accept the changes and return to the 3D view:

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 Shaping

Select Shaping from the Mould menu again:

Click the mouse on the Depth icon to highlight it and display the depth up the sail.

Click the mouse on the mm button to change it back to %:

The depth curve is a little different to most of the other curves since two curves are drawn.
The lower curve is the actual vertical depth in the sail going from the foot at the left of the
screen to the head-board at the right.

This is the same as the view of the sail depth as seen by looking from a long way aft of the sail.
The difference being it is drawn horizontally rather than vertically.

The upper curve is a plot of the % depth going up the sail.

The % depth at a given height up the sail is the actual depth at that height divided by the cross
-sectional (chord) length of the sail at that height.

For example, at the foot (left of the screen) the actual depth (lower curve) is greater than at
the head of the sail. However, the % depth (upper curve) is less at the foot than at the head.
This is because the cross-sectional length at the foot is much greater than at the head.

The % depth curve is by far the most useful of the two curves. It is a non-dimensional curve
and it is the way the aerodynamics sees the sail. It is the % depth curve that mostly
determines the sails entry and exit angles.

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 Shaping

Move the mouse so it is exactly on the following adjustment point:

Click and drag the mouse down vertically to achieve the following picture. Release the mouse:

Click OK. This will accept the changes made and show the 3D sail view again:

Notice the dramatically reduced depth in the upper half of the sail.

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 Shaping

There are many other tools available in the Shaping dialogue used for shaping the
various curves in the sail. If you wish to try some of these, re-enter the Shaping
dialogue.

Select the Mast-bend icon : Mast-bend is the safest curve to experiment

with.

To summarise some of these shaping tools:

(i) Clicking the mouse well above an adjustment point (don’t click on the
point) will select that adjustment point. If selected, a Red Arrow will
be drawn under the curve at that adjustment points location. The X
and Y values displayed will correspond to that adjustment point.

(ii) Typing in a value in the X field will move the currently selected adjustment
point horizontally. To move between the X and Y fields, hit the Tab
key or click in the field.

(iii) To Add an extra adjustment point, click on the Add button. This will
display a dotted vertical line. Move the mouse horizontally until this
line is at the horizontal position you wish to add the adjustment point
and click the mouse.

(iv) To delete an adjustment point, first select it as described in (i) then click
on the Delete button.

(v) To move all the adjustment points in a curve at once rather than just
moving one, click on the scale check box:

Then when you move one adjustment point, the others

will change proportionally. To get back to just moving one
at a time, click in the scale check box again.

If you get into difficulty and would like to revert the sail shape back to the shape
you had before you last entered the shaping dialogue, click on the Cancel button
to leave the shaping dialogue without accepting the changes.

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 Battens
Select Battens from the Mould menu :

This dialogue operates in a similar way to the shaping dialogue we used previously. Here
battens are treated like adjustment points.

Repeatedly press the Tab key until the Roach field is highlighted :

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 Battens

First ensure the %/mm button is showing %.

Type in 100 and press the Enter key.

This will change the Roach to 100% of the batten Length.

Click OK. This will accept the changes and return to the 3D view of the sail:

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Up until now, we have only been modifying the shape of the mould of the sail. We have not
referred to panel shapes at all.

We can now take our mould that we have designed and tell ProSail to wrap panels around this
mould to generate the 2D panel shaping for us.

Before we start panel development, to keep this tutorial consistent with the mould we are
referring to, we need to open the file DEMOMAIN again.

Select Open from the File menu:

ProSail will ask us if we wish to save the changes to our sail :

Click NO.

This will display the standard Open dialogue again :

Click the Open button.

This will restore the sail back to its original shape before we made the changes.

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 Panel Development

Select New from the Panel menu:

If the following icon is not highlighted, click the mouse on it.

Click OK.

This will select the cross-cut panel configuration and display the Turnover dialogue:

Click OK.

This will accept these turnovers and display the Cross-cut dialogue:

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 Panel Development

To make the nesting of the panels more efficient, we want to reduce the Ref. Seam value to
1%.

Ensure % is displayed in the %/mm button. If not click on it to toggle from mm to %.

Press the Tab key on the keyboard twice to highlight the Ref. Seam field.

Then type in 1 and hit the Enter key. Then click OK:

This will tell ProSail to develop cross-cut panels with a fabric width of 914mm and a seam width
of 30mm. These panels will be developed from the headboard down to 1% above the tack.

ProSail will draw the panels as it develops them starting with the head panel.
It will then display the Twist Seam dialogue where the position of the remaining seams in the
lower portion of the sail can be specified:

Currently there are no seams specified in this dialogue.

Click the Add button. This will add one seam.

Click OK. This will develop that seam.

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 Panel Development

You will now see the panelled sail. You can use the viewing scroll bars or Animate to see
different views of the sail as we did earlier in this tutorial.

Select Panels from the Window menu:

Initially this will display the foot panel (i.e. panel number 1). The amount of shape on the top
of the panel has been exaggerated so it can be easily seen.
To exaggerate the shape more, use the mouse and move the thumb bar in the bottom scale
scroll bar to the right. To show the panel without any exaggeration, move the thumb bar to
the left.

To see the other panels in the sail, use the vertical scroll bar. If this was a full working version
of ProSail the amount of shape is also digitally displayed above the panel.

Press the Esc key at the top left of the keyboard.

This will return us to the 3D view of the sail.

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 Nesting

Select Nesting from the Window menu:

Click on New Panels:

Click OK: This will load our cross-cut panels onto the Nesting Window:

NOTE that the view of the panels is distorted horizontally so the entire lay can fit on the screen.

You will notice that the foot panel is not well placed. To position it better, we can drag the
panel with the mouse.

Click the mouse on panel number 1 and with the mouse button still down, drag the mouse until
the dotted outline of the panel is roughly in the following position:

Make sure the panel is hard up to the top of the fabric and to the right of panel number 2.

Release the mouse button.

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 Nesting

Click on the compact icon :

This will have compacted all panels to the left. Notice that the efficiency has now risen from
87.5% to 98%.

Panel number 1 is now black meaning it is selected. All of the following icons apply to the
selected panels. Try clicking the mouse in each one of the following icons in turn to see the
effect they have on panel number 1:

To flip a selected panel horizontally, click:

To flip a selected panel vertically, click:

To rotate a selected panel by 180°, click:

To duplicate a selected panel, click:

Click on the go away box (small cross at the top right corner) of the Nesting window to return
to the 3D view of the sail. Click No to the Save nesting dialogue.

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 Radial Panel Development

To see the true power of the Nesting window, we need to develop radial panels.

Select New from the Panel menu again:

Click on the C-Cut icon

Click OK. This will display the turnover dialogue :

Click Ok. This will display the Horizontal interface dialogue which generates the seam between
the radial-head and radial-clew panels:

Ensure % is displayed in the bottom centre button. If not click to toggle from mm to % then
type 56 and press the Enter key.

This will change the position of the seam to 56% down the luff.

Click OK. The Radial-Head dialogue will then be displayed:

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 Radial Panel Development

Click OK.

This will develop 4 radial-head panels. When finished the First Radial-Clew dialogue will
appear:

Click the mouse on Straddle icon:

This will prevent ProSail from generating a seam into the corner and hence allow us to have a
panel that straddles the corner:

Click OK. This will develop 3 radial-clew panels.

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 Radial Panel Development

The second Radial-Clew dialogue will appear:

Click the mouse on the fabric width icon:

This will generate panels to the full fabric width for greatest efficiency.

Click OK:

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 Colour Panels
At this stage, we would like to colour in the panels. This is done to identify panels from
different cloth.

Select Colour Panels from the Window menu.

To change colours, click the mouse on the large coloured button called New Colour. This will
bring up the colour palette (shown above right).

Choose a colour from the basic colours palette by clicking on it, then click OK to close the
Palette. The button called New Colour will have changed to the selected colour.

Now move the mouse onto the luff head panel, click and hold the button down while you drag
the selection box down and to the right to include the two upper and lower panels as shown
below. (If you make a mistake, click the Undo button and try again).

Again click on the New Colour button, select another colour and click OK.

This time, starting at the bottom, click the mouse once in alternating panels to give the
following result:

When finished, click OK to see the panels on the 3D sail.

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 Nesting Panels

If we were to use ProSail with a plotter or cutter, we would now load the panels we have
generated onto the Nesting Window for arrangement.

Select Nesting from the Window menu:

Click New Panels:

Click OK. This will load our radial panels onto the Nesting Window:

If you had the autonesting module, you would just click the auto icon to have it automatically
nested these panels for you. However it can also be done manually. The following page
explains how to do this.

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 Nesting Panels
Using the mouse, drag panel number 12 to the left.

It is important that panel number 12’s left edge is after panel number 8’s left edge but before
panel number 9’s left edge :

Similarly drag panel number 8 vertically down and slightly to the right.
It is important that panel number 8’s left edge is before panel number 12’s left edge but after
panel number 7’s left edge.

Click on the compact icon :

This will have compacted all panels to the left.

At this stage you would just select Plot from the Plot menu and ProSail would plot all the
panels telling you when you need to pull the fabric through at the end of each table.

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Although we have just compacted all the panels in the sail, normally you will want to separate
panels of different colours into separate files first and then compact them individually.

To do this, first click on one panel.

This will make the following icon turn the colour of that panel :

Then click on that icon to highlight all panels of this colour.

The highlighted panels can now be saved as a separate file.

Click on the following icon : and enter a suitable file name.

Repeat this process until there are only panels of one colour left in the nesting
window. They can then be nested and plotted. The other panels that you saved in
separate files would then be opened and plotted with their fabic.

Click the Go Away button at the top right of the Nesting Window to return to the 3D view of
the sail and again click No to save changes.

Leaving ProSail

Select Quit from the File menu:

Click No to all dialogues asking for changes to be saved. This will exit the ProSail program.

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