The bottom line in all of this is that Blender's python API even in 2005 encouraged breaking out of the 3D program to make all sorts of stuff and push the limits for what could be done with it. All steampunked out with brass trimmings and gauges for fun. A design I never built was to be a lake ferry for about 8 to 10 people with an electric pancake motor for the shaft and long benches running fore and aft. I formed a wooden boat company called Franklin Boat Works with my partner, and we made all sorts of water craft in the small category. There are a lot of 'inspired' boat builders out there. Now there are much more sophisticated geometry extraction algorithms with machine learning to guide the resulting mesh 3D creation without the use of laser scanners. How to Draft Basic Patterns by Ernestine Kopp, Vittorina Rollo. The photoclinometry algorithm I utilized for the wood carvings from photos was adapted from NASA/JPL research to be able to get more information from the thousands of black and white singe lens photos taken by the various satellites and spacecraft. The Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing (Reader's Digest Publishers, New York. I also made traditional strip and strongback kayaks and a Greenland kayak with bamboo and canvas vs.

The kayaks were made from 4mm marine-grade Okume. We would incorporate the carvings into the coaming around the kayak's cockpit. The inside and outside would be glassed with epoxy resin from West Marine and fiberglass resulting in a beautiful glossy wood after much finishing and sanding. Using bare copper wire, you would fish it through and twist the ends to bring the edges into contact, hence 'stitch-and-glue'. Along the edges to be joined, you would drill a very small hole, 0.0625' (~1.6mm) diameter, 6mm from the edge and 100 to 150mm apart. I would eventually use Rhino to develop the 2D panels to cut on my ProgressiveCNC rack-and-pinion router table. I tried a few others, including Rhino and trying to develop one in Blender, but the NURBS were a bit hacky then for what I was intending. I used DelftShip (IIRC it was FreeShip at the time) to design the hulls.

I was doing two different things: wooden carvings from photos on solid maple boards, and stitch-and-glue kayak designs and building.

Pepakura for sewing patterns