Small additions to PIAS in recent months

In addition to the larger development projects, there are occasionally smaller functions that we adjust in the software to make it easier or faster to work with. Some of these that have taken place in recent months are listed below.

From the very beginning, the hull shape data (cross-sectional shapes) were stored in a file with the extension .hyd. Now, after 38 years of service, this file has been replaced with an extended file type, with extension .frames. The .hyd file can still be read but instead a .frames file will be written. The old .hyd file is then automatically renamed to .hyd.pre_2021 for backup purposes.

In the .hyd file the ship’s cross-sectional shapes were stored as closed B-spline curves, with the appendages included. The .frames file contains the model twice: once as a model with only the input frame coordinates as B-spline curves (so without appendages) and additionally as a model with dense and closed polyline curves. The polylines are always derived from the B-spline curves and the specified appendages, and are used for the hydrostatic and stability calculations. The advantage of this redundant storage is that the originally entered frame coordinates are better preserved, because they are no longer modified by repeated adding & removing of appendages, and that the polylines that are used for the calculation are immediately available and do not have to be derived from the B-spline repeatedly.

In Hulldef, cutting/pasting of list of coordinates of frame has become easier. Also, you can apply the ‘knuckle’ shortcut (Alt + K) to multiple cells at once.

In Probdam, with the SPS code selected, the user is now given the option to choose either SOLAS 2009 or 2020 as regulatory basis.

In the table of wind heeling moments the maximum on the number of rows has gone. So larger, and hence more accurate, tables can be computed now.

As soon as you have the latest version of PIAS from https://cloud.sarc.nl/, you can use the above additions.