Read vee, concave, volume and float on the Slices tab

The readouts under a station

Open a design in the editor and select the Slices tab. Above the section drawing, beside its width, thickness and area, three readouts describe the station the way SurfStudio and AkuShaper describe theirs:

• bottom reads Flat, Vee or Concave with a depth, or Double concave with both depths, or the number of channels and the deepest. The depth is the height of the stringer above or below the line through the two rail points, the point on each side where the bottom turns up into the rail.
• apex is the height of the widest point of the rail above that line, and the split of the thickness it sits at, deck over bottom. 74 / 26 means the apex sits 26% of the way up.
• rail @ 1"/2" is the vertical thickness one and two inches in from the apex, the way AkuShaper's rail thickness marks read it.

The same numbers are on the spec sheet's station table and the share page. A board that has not been shaped by hand reads Flat, because a generated section has no bottom contour.

Set a depth by typing it

On a board you can shape, the bottom readout is an input. Pick Vee or Concave, type the depth in your unit, and press Enter. The section is reshaped so the readout reads exactly what you typed: the rail points move, the stringer and the deck stay where they are, so the thickness you set does not change. Type 0 for a flat bottom. It is an ordinary edit, so Undo takes it back and the 3D view, the volume and the spec sheet follow it.

If a section has no rail point to move, a bare three-point section, the editor says so. Add a point between the stringer and the apex first.

The bottom contour as a curve

In the Slice at card of the inspector, under the small plan, in the editor and on the design page, the Bottom contour strip draws the vee or concave reading of every slice as one curve along the board (the same strip sits under the plan on the canvas while the Slice tool is out, and over the side profile in the editor's Rocker tab, so you can set the bottom while you work the rocker), concave above the dashed line and vee below it, with a filled point for a slice you have shaped and a hollow one for a slice still on its generated section. It is the same number the bottom readout shows, drawn for all the slices at once, which is how Shape3d shows V and concave in its side view.

On a board you can shape, drag a point up or down and that slice is reshaped to the depth under your pointer, in steps of your unit. Click a point to select its slice and type the depth in the bottom readout instead. Set all takes a depth at the tail, the centre and the nose, with Eased on to run the bottom smoothly between them or off for a straight run, and reshapes every slice between the tips in one step, so one Undo takes the whole curve back. The tip slices are left alone, and a slice with no point between the stringer and the apex is named and left as it was.

Set all has a Mode. Vee or concave reshapes the slices as above. Double concave and Belly leave the slices as they are and add one 3D layer each, with its depth running through the same three stops, so you can shape a board still attached to its file this way too:

• Double concave cuts two rounded concaves that meet at the stringer, so the stringer holds its height and the bottom falls away either side of it out to where it turns up into the rail. The readout reads it as a double concave.
• Belly adds a rounded panel on the stringer, which reads as a soft vee.

Applying a mode again replaces that mode's layer; set all three depths to zero to take it off. Both layers show in the 3D layers section, where you can fine-tune them (see Add 3D layers).

The curve is not saved on its own: the slices are the bottom, and the strip reads them. The DXF export carries the same curve on a BOTTOM_CONTOUR layer under the rocker, one point per station, concave positive, so a cutting centre can read your contour without measuring it off the slices.

Cut channels

Under the bottom contour, Channels cuts 2, 4 or 6 channels into the bottom between two positions along the board, the way Shape3d's Add Channels works. Type the count, the depth, the width, and where they start and end, measured from the tail, then Apply. The channels run straight, parallel to the stringer, the way production channel bottoms are cut: the outermost sits a channel's width inboard of where the bottom turns up into the rail at the middle of the stretch, and where the tail narrows past it, it runs out through the rail. They are at full depth from where they start to where they end, with a short run-out past the end and a short run-in before the start where there is room for one; channels that start at the tail run out of it at full depth, right to the tip.

The channels go on as a 3D layer named Channels, so the slices you shaped stay as you drew them and the channels run smoothly along the whole stretch rather than only where a slice is. The bottom readout reads them at every station they reach, "4 channels, deepest 4 mm". The depth you type is the depth of the cut, as a depth gauge reads it. The readout lays a straight edge across each channel, its floor against the bottom either side, so on a flat bottom it shows the depth you typed; on a concave, and most of all a double concave, that straight edge also spans the bottom's own curve, and the channels can read a little deeper than you typed. The layer also shows in the 3D layers section, where you can fine-tune it; see Add 3D layers.

To change them, open Channels again, type the new numbers and Apply. Remove takes them off. Channels are 1 to 8 mm deep and 20 to 80 mm wide, and six wide channels on a narrow board are refused rather than pushed into the rail. Apply and Remove are each one step for Undo.

A board whose channels were cut into its slices before has them taken out of the slices the first time you Apply or Remove: Apply puts the channels you typed on as the layer, and Remove leaves none. A slice whose channel points you had moved by hand is named instead, and nothing changes until you reset that slice.

The spec sheet and the share page list the channels with the board's other layers, and the DXF and AkuShaper exports carry them in the slices. The Shape3d export does not: its slices have five points, which cannot hold a channel.

On a board still attached to its file

Channels work the same way there: the layer goes on over the file's own slices, and the file's shape is not changed.

Volume by section and the centre of volume

Under the plan view, the bars show how the volume is spread along the board, in 10 cm or 6 inch sections depending on your unit, with a tick at the centre of volume and the widest section named. The bars add up to the volume measured from the 3D shape. On a drawn board that is the volume in the Volume field; when the field holds an estimate, a typed volume or the figure from an imported file, the bars name their own total beside them.

The buoyancy line

Select Buoyancy line under the bars and drag the waterline. The readout gives the litres under the line and over it, what the submerged part carries in seawater at 1.025 kg per litre, the waterline's length, the wetted surface, and the centre of buoyancy, drawn as a hollow tick on the bars. A board floats a rider when the litres under the line, as kilograms, exceed rider plus board, which is the same check Shape3d's buoyancy line makes. The waterline is a question you ask, not a property of the board, so it is not saved.

Foam weight

Below the Volume field, pick the blank's foam. The editor shows the foam weight live: the volume times the foam's density. The list carries the industry's nominal figures, EPS by pounds per cubic foot and PU in light, standard and heavy grades. It is the foam alone, before glass, resin, stringer and fins, and the label says so. The weight and the foam are printed on the spec sheet.

Bottom slope in the 3D view

In the 3D view's appearance menu, under Surface, Bottom slope colours the bottom by how steeply it tilts across the board, the reading AkuShaper calls Contour Highlight. A flat bottom stays dark; a concave's walls, a vee's panels and the tuck into the rail light up. The colours are scaled to the bottom you have, not to its single steepest spot, so a shallow double concave still shows when the board also has channels: their near-vertical walls simply read in the brightest colour. It is read off the board on screen, so an imported model reads the same as a drawn one.