New Orca3D Version (3.1.7) Available

April 8, 2025

We are happy to announce the release of Orca3D Version 3.1.7. This is a free update to Version 3 license holders. If you have a Version 1 or 2 license, please click here to purchase an upgrade to Version 3.

Highlights of this release include a new Conditional flooding setting for compartments, and tanks, so that if an associated opening (Point of Interest or Curve of Interest) becomes submerged the status of the compartment or tank will change from Intact to Damaged, a new Curves of Form analysis, more compact reporting and options for sections to include or exclude from reports, and much more. Please see the Release Notes below for a more complete list of additions, improvements, and bug fixes.

To update a previous installation of Orca3D Version 3, download the installation file from this page. Double-click on the downloaded file to run it, and follow the instructions.

Following is a summary of what is new in Version 3.1.7, as well as the previous releases Versions 3.1.5 and 3.1.4. For information on previous releases, please see the Release Notes.

New Features

A new feature has been developed that allows the user to add one or more openings to any watertight compartment and then define the flooding state of the compartment in a load case to be dependent on the location of the openings relative to the external waterplane surface. This feature, known as Conditional Flooding, examines the locations of all openings defined for a particular compartment to see whether they are above or below the external waterplane at the given condition.

Compartment openings are defined by selecting Points of Interest and/or Curves of Interest in the Orca3D Design. You can have more than one opening for a compartment, and a given POI/COI can be associated as an opening with more than one compartment.
There is a new compartment mode, “Conditional,” which when set on a compartment in a given load case, treats the compartment as intact up to the point where any openings are below the external waterplane. Once an opening becomes submerged, the compartment becomes flooded (i.e., providing no buoyancy but considering its permeability like a damaged compartment).
Currently, if the compartment is also a tank, the tank must be empty to apply conditional flooding. Orca3D automatically checks for this and warns the user of a non-empty tank is set to conditionally flood.
If a POI that is used as a compartment opening is also marked as a downflooding point for stability criteria evaluation, and that POI is also a compartment opening for a Conditional compartment, the ‘Downflooding’ attribute is automatically ignored for stability criteria evaluation since the compartment floods if/when the opening is submerged.
The UI supports defining compartment openings both from the Compartment Properties form, where there is a new button to define openings, and from the POI and COI forms, where there are new buttons to Add/Remove/Clear compartments associated with the selected POI/COI.
Reporting of conditional flooding status for tanks is addressed by adding a new table to the report. Whether or not to include this report is determined by a new Orca3D reporting option.

A new stability analysis type, Curves of Form analysis, and a corresponding new command, OrcaCurvesOfForm, has been implemented. The existing OrcaHydrostatics command also has the capability to analyze multiple hydrostatics input conditions. However, this new command has its own input form designed specifically for computing curves of form and also has its own report option settings (as described in the Enhanced Features) which allows users to easily create hydrostatics tables without including all of the detailed output for each condition.
Added optional display of the Orca3D vessel axes (showing Fwd/Port/Up) in the Rhino viewport(s). This is intended to allow the user to quickly see if the Orca3D vessel directions match the current model. A new option was added to the View tab of the Orca3D panel to show/hide the Orca3D axes.
Ported the command, OrcaNavCadAnalysis, to Orca3D V3 allowing the user to create a NavCad script (with STL geometry) to perform a resistance analysis in NavCad.

Enhanced Features

Several enhancements have been made to the Orca3D reporting functionality as follows:

Stability reporting options have been enhanced to allow choosing different options depending on the type of stability analysis being performed (hydrostatics equilibrium, righting arm analysis, stability criteria evaluation, stability cross curves, floodable length, curves of form). For example, the user can choose to exclude condition details for a righting arm analysis while still including them in a simple hydrostatic equilibrium analysis. These analysis-specific reporting options are now saved at the Rhino application level so that they are automatically applied each time you start Rhino, instead of being saved with the Rhino document.
The user can now control which items are included in the Orca3D report header. Like the other reporting options, this persists at the global application level (per user).
Implemented user-specified sorting of basic hydrostatics output for use in reporting when multiple conditions are being analyzed. The sorting methods available in Orca3D V2 have been extended to include Sinkage, DraftAtFp, DraftAtAp, DraftAtMidships.
Added logic to improve reporting of tabular data to address formatting issues when tables become wider than anticipated. The POI output table of heights-above-WL with varying heel angle now becomes what had been a single table into multiple tables with up to 5 POIs per table listed across columns. Similarly, the cross curves analysis report was modified to swap rows and columns on table so that heel angles vary across columns and displacements vary across rows, and the output is broken up into multiple tables with up to 5 heel angles per table.
Modified POI reporting so that points that are below the free surface are highlighted in the POI table.
Modified stability reports to include an ID number on POIs so they can be referenced in the criteria righting arm table and heights ABWL table.
Modified the plotted GMt line in righting arm curves to try not to distort the vertical scale of the plot.
Added trim output measured as difference between draft at FP and AP to stability cross curves report (in addition to trim angle).

Implemented the ability to export to/import from a CSV file for the Orca3D Stock Material Library.
Added the option to display Curves of Interest in the Stability Analysis window that shows the calculation progress.
Added persistence of the state of the "Show Tanks Only" checkbox each time the Load Case form is closed so that it reopens in the same state on opening.
Modified the CrossCurves (and by extension Hydrostatics Curves of Form) input forms to allow specification of draft at midships in addition to sinkage or displacement.
A modification was made to allow the user to set the visibility of the Orca3D reference layers that show up in the Rhino layers tree. There is a new option "Hide Orca3D Layers" in the Orca Properties form. If the user checks the checkbox, Orca3D layers will not be visible in the Rhino Layers panel unless the user modifies the layer filters. This setting only takes effect after restarting Rhino or loading a new Rhino document.
Implemented logic to check for bad Rhino objects when selecting geometry for most Orca3D commands that require object selection. If a bad object is detected, the user is given a warning.
Modified the default parameter settings in the Orca3D hydrostatics solver to accommodate a wider range of atypical hull shapes and extended the OrcaProperties command to allow the user to adjust these solver parameters if necessary. The new parameters include the maximum allowable change in heave, trim, and heel per solver iteration as described in the Help file.
Modified the form for performing Floodable Length Analysis to (a) check the user-defined transverse bulkhead locations to make sure they are within the longitudinal bounds of the model geometry, and (b) add a button to allow the user to interactively select transverse bulkhead locations.
Added a new command line option to the OrcaHydrostatics command, OverwriteCSV, that allows the caller to force overwriting the specified CSV file even if it already exists. Also added export of GM corrected values to CSV export.
Modified the behavior of user-defined custom heeling moments so that if the input heel angle values are one-sided (either all positive or zero, or all negative or zero) the custom moment is treated as symmetrical about 0 heel angle. If the input heel angles contain both positive and negative values, no symmetry about 0 heel angle is assumed.
Modified the OrcaStix command that performs the Stability Index (STIX) analysis to allow the user to specify which direction the vessel should heel. In prior versions the vessel rollover was performed in the direction to which the vessel naturally heels in equilibrium. However, sometimes the “worst” case is in the opposite rollover direction.

Bug Fixes

Modified the Load Case form resizing logic to improve sizes of Fixed and Fluid Load data grids for different display settings.
Fixed an issue in computing real-time hydrostatics locations (center of buoyancy, center of flotation, station of max area) in Orca3D Hull Assistants if an origin shift is applied.
Fixed an issue in which the form for assigning Orca3D weight/cost properties to one or more Rhino objects could inadvertently set the name(s) of the selected Rhino object(s) even when the user did not intend to do so.
Fixed an issue in which the automatic termination of the righting arm calculation for criteria evaluation occurred at too low of a heel angle if the equilibrium heel angle magnitude was greater than the heel angle increment used for the calculation.
Fixed an issue in the stability criterion logic used to determine if the contained stability limits require a heeling arm.
Fixed a bug in setting some of the color settings on the View tab of the Orca3D Properties form.
Fixed an issue in which graphical output in reports for Fixed Loads and Points of Interest were not always transformed correctly to the equilibrium condition.
Fixed an issue in the Curves of Interest form where the Calculate checkbox was not being updated to properly reflect current COI status.
Added logic in POI/COI forms to check for duplicate names when renaming either of them.
Fixed an issue mirroring COI.
Fixed a bug in the scriptable command line version of the command, OrcaHydrostatics, in which the optional InitialHeight argument was not properly considering the current Rhino unit system.
Fixed a bug in the command to create a lines drawing in which the annotation style used in the drawing was created after the title block text was drawn.
Fixed an issue related to using Orca3D Sections for downstream analyses like creating lines drawings. It is possible in certain cases for the Rhino sectioning logic to create curves that are not in the originally defined section plane within the specified tolerance. When Orca sections tried to use these curves, it would cause an error that prevented the completion of the operation (e.g., lines drawing creation). This error is now handled so that the operation can continue with the appropriate user notification.
Fixed an issue in the OrcaSimericsAnalysis command during creation of the spro file where there was a missing carriage return after writing the Orca version info and before writing the ‘lwl’ expression which caused the CFD report to show some error information for Excel cells that reference lwl.
Fixed an issue in which minimizing the Rhino main window while an Orca3D Hull Assistant form was open had caused the Hull Assistant form to close and the Orca3D command to end.
Fixed a few issues in Orca3D weight/cost functionality

Previously, hidden Rhino objects were not being included in the Manage Weight/Cost Items for or in the weight/cost reports
If any errors occurred while computing the mass properties of an item, the computation of total weight and CG in the Manage Weight/Cost Items form would fail (leaving empty fields) and any attempt to generate a weight/cost report would fail with no warning for the user. Now if an error is encountered in computing weight/cost properties for an item (a) an error is registered in the Orca3D log containing the failed object id, (b) the grid control highlights the object in red, (c) the grid totals are highlighted in red to indicate one or more items had an error, (d) the items are identified in red in the weight/cost report, (e) the user is warned when using weight/cost items in the basic hydrostatics form.

Fixed an issue in implementation of the logic for exporting subdivision history related to creating external files for custom geometry.
Fixed an issue in scriptable commands, OrcaCreateDesign and OrcaCreateComponent, so that informational messages do not open an interactive window requiring user interaction.
Fixed an issue in which stability criteria righting arm curves could sometimes note multiple points on the curve with the same stability limit type (e.g., residual GZ0 points).
Fixed units and orientation issues for Orca3D Grasshopper load condition input classes.
Fixed a bug in OMCFD when copying an actuator disk for a self-propelled simulation in which the kt/kq data was not initialized.
Fixed a bug in OMCFD powering report where otherwise identical propellers but with opposite rotation direction was considered invalid for reporting.
Made a modification to Orca Grasshopper component so that it can still load (but not run) if Orca is not loaded.
Addressed an infrequently occurring issue in computing the height of fluid in a tank during rollover calculations for certain tank geometries.
Fixed two issues in the Orca3D STIX analysis in which (a) the required minimum angle of vanishing stability (minPhiV) was not be listed in the report for Design Categories A and B and (b) a TCG offset which caused the rollover analysis to be performed in starboard direction would fail.

Release 3.1.6 (January 23, 2025)

This is an internal release of Orca3D 3.1.

Release 3.1.5 (November 23, 2024)

New Features

Orca3D V3 is now multi-targeting to be compatible with both Microsoft .NET Core and Microsoft .NET Framework (which it has always been compatible with). This means that for Rhino 8, whichever .NET mode you are currently running in, Orca3D will automatically choose the correct version of the plug-in to load (see McNeel documentation at, https://www.rhino3d.com/en/docs/guides/netcore/). You no longer need to use “/netfx” on the desktop icon or the Rhino command SetDotNetRuntime to load Orca3D (although other plug-ins may still have this requirement). For Rhino 7, Orca3D V3 should continue to run with .NET Framework as is required.
A new command, OrcaTonnage, was added providing the ability to compute and report Net/Gross Tonnage according to the 1969 International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships. Orca3D spaces now have a tonnage attribute allowing them to be identified as “Enclosed Spaces,” “Cargo Spaces,” or “Excluded Spaces.” The command, OrcaSpaceProperties, allows users to set the tonnage type on one or more selected spaces. The View tab of the Orca3D Panel has been extended to include an option to display spaces by tonnage type. The colors used for tonnage type display can be set in Orca’s property settings. The report options have been extended to allow the user to toggle reporting of graphics for individual spaces in the tonnage analysis.
The legacy command, OrcaStixCriteria, was added providing the ability to perform the stability index (STIX) calculation according to the ISO 12217-2 International Standard. In the new implementation, the user has several input options including (a) specifying the height of the center of effort and center of lateral resistance directly or selecting points in the model representing the locations, (b) specifying sail area directly or computing it from selection of 3 points defining a triangle, (c) specifying Lh,Lwl,Bh,Bwl directly or computing them from hydrostatics, (d) specifying a separate load case defining the Minimum Operating Condition or using the primary load case for this condition. Output is provided via Orca3D’s new reporting tool.
Added a new command, OrcaSetAreaVolumeAttribute, that lets a user set (or optionally clear) face name attributes that are used by the Area/Volume report to report specific area properties grouped by name. This new information is output as UserSurfaces information with an element included for each model component which includes sub-elements for any defined area/volume information within that component.
Added two new Orca3D document settings that allow the user to override the maximum heel angle and heel angle increment used in the stability criteria evaluation. Specifying a value of 0 for either of these implies Orca3D should use the default value.
The legacy command, OrcaStraightenPoints, has been implemented in Orca3D V3 to support aligning selected control points along a user-specified input line.
Added the ability to display Points of Interest for the current Orca3D Design. The View tab of the Orca3D Panel now includes a checkbox to enable/disable display of POIs in the Rhino views. In addition, POI visibility can be toggled in the Orca3D window that shows the progress of a stability analysis, and a new report option was added to enable POI display in stability reports.

Enhanced Features

Developed a graphical clipping box control to allow the user to adjust the Orca3D clipping box interactively using gumball controls in the graphical view. As part of this addition, a new view option to “Clip to Frames” was added on the View tab of the Orca3D Panel to snap interactive changes to the clipping box to frames in the current frame system.
Modified the stability criteria analysis so that the default righting arm curve calculation ends at the first angle past the angle of vanishing stability, GZ0.
Modified the behavior of the Heeling Moment form so that selecting the option to "Apply IMO Pressure" (which can only be selected when both applying wind gust and specifying wind pressure) the Gust Factor is automatically set to 1.5 and the heeling moment Distribution is set to constant in accordance with IMO requirements. These settings are disabled so the user cannot change them without unchecking Apply IMO Pressure.
Implemented a new version of the Orca3D Basic Hydrostatics form with organizational improvements. In order to allow the user to choose whether to use the new or “classic” style of the form, a new command-line-only option was added to the OrcaProperties command.
Modified the command, OrcaCrossCurves, to (a) open the Orca3D simulation window to show analysis progress when running this command interactively, (b) fix a bug where the reported sinkage values were not correct if the equilibrium heel angle did not match the first heel angle in the sorted list of heel angles, (c) made the input form contents persistent across command invocations, (d) added "P/S" labeling to heel angles and righting arms both in the chart and the table of values in the output report.
Added plot of GMt to righting arm curve in stability criteria evaluation report output. Modified both criteria evaluation and stability analysis righting arm plots to use GMt corrected instead of GMt uncorrected.
Moved the chart legend for stability criteria righting arm plots to the left side of chart.
Added Points of Interest (POI) and Curves of Interest (COI) to hydrostatics and stability CSV export, including their height above waterline during rollover calculations.
Extended area/volume report output to include (a) centroid of decks and transverse bulkheads, (b) splitting of transverse bulkheads into sections between decks and exporting area, centroid, and lower deck name to XML export, (c) adding orientation for user-defined surfaces to the output.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug in some hydrostatics calculations used in the context of the Holtrop/Mennen and van Oortmerssen analyses as well as the lines drawing principal particulars.
Fixed a bug in the logic for computing free surface properties of tank fluids in cases with large trim/heel angles when tank quantity is defined by sounding/ullage.
Addressed issues in the resizing behavior of the OMCFD Propulsor Performance form.
Fixed a bug in the Savitsky Analysis form when specifying the shaft angle by clicking the Place button.
Fixed a deserialization issue in which the open water data for OMCFD propeller actuator disks was not properly updated in some cases.
Fixed a bug in which Rhino block instances could not be used as input for hydrostatics analyses.
Fixed an issue when computing righting arms for a fluid load case that uses virtual free surface corrections for one or more tank loads and is defined by a fixed float plane.
Fixed a units conversion bug when the user specifies the moment of inertia in the Orca3D Marine CFD input form with unit settings other than SI.
Fixed a bug in computing transverse project area for wind heeling moments that occurred when a closed area region was entirely above or below the static waterline.
Fixed an issue in the Orca3D Hull Assistants in which section-based hydrostatics (e.g., Cp, Ax) were not being computed.
Fixed a bug in the Orca3D Stability Criteria and Stock Materials libraries in which it was possible to inadvertently overwrite the persistent library when exporting the library data.
Fixed a bug in the scriptable version of the command, OrcaHydrostatics, in which the heel angle input for rollover calculations was not being properly converted to internal orientation in certain cases.
Modified several of the default Orca3D unit settings for specific dimensions (e.g., moments, mass moment of inertia) in some of the unit systems.
Fixed a units-related bug in computing the total surface area of spaces and compartments.
Fixed a bug which occurred when deleting a library item that is not a direct child of the library root (i.e., a child under one or more folder levels).
Fixed an issue in which if the first part of a stability criteria limit is a numerical value and doesn't need to be evaluated, it wasn't shown in the Information section of the report.

Release 3.1.4 (July 29, 2024)

New Features

Implemented functionality to automate evaluation of the IMO Weather Criterion and other stability criteria that use a wind heeling moment with a wind gust. This includes automated calculation of the IMO rollback angle and a user-specified wind gust factor in the wind heeling moment definition. The user can define the bilge shape information and bilge/bar keel area as well as optionally override the hull characteristic input (which is computed from the equilibrium hydrostatics by default) for computing the IMO rollback angle. Orca3D stability criteria evaluation now recognizes the keywords ImoRollback and SteadyEquilNoGust as angle definitions for stability criteria limits. ImoRollback is the heel angle to which the vessel rolls back from the steady equilibrium angle with steady wind (and not the change in angle). SteadyEquilNoGust is the heel angle at which the heeling moment due to steady wind (without the gust) matches the righting moment. In cases with a wind gust, SteadyEquil is the angle at which the heeling moment with the gust matches the righting moment. Stability criteria report output now include display of the IMO rollback angle and steady wind equilibrium without gust when used in the evaluation.
Added the ability for Orca3D users to choose which modules they wish to use in a network license environment. Also updated the network license server installation to (a) include a server that allows “per-machine” licensing in which multiple Rhino instances on the same machine will only consume a single license seat in a network license environment and (b) to include batch files to perform common network license server operations.

Enhanced Features

Implemented the ability to cancel a long-running stability analysis that was started via the command, OrcaRunStabilityAnalysis. When the analysis is started via the UI, the form that opens showing the progress of the analysis has a Stop button to stop the computation.
Added the ability to optionally display fixed loads (including fixed load groups) in the Rhino viewports via a checkbox on the View tab of the Orca3D panel, as well as in the Stability Analysis form via a new checkbox on the form. The colors used for this display is set by the user as part of the Orca3D Design view options in the Orca Properties form. A display color key is shown in the Rhino viewports. This can be disabled via a checkbox in the Orca3D panel.
Extended the Orca3D stability report output to add the ability to drill down into fixed load groups in the load case details to see child loads. If a fixed load is a load group, a '+' sign appears next to it in the report details. Clicking on the ‘+’ expands the group to show the child fixed loads. Clicking the ‘-‘ sign contracts the group to just show the load group. Note that the operation could take a little time because the report must be reformatted.
Added the ability to include full detailed hydrostatics output for heeled conditions in stability (righting arm) analyses through a new report option.
Made several modifications to the Orca3D stability criteria report output including, (a) adding a pass/fail summary at the beginning of the report with hyperlinks to the corresponding detailed report section, (b) adding equilibrium condition information to detailed stability criteria output, (c) adding new reporting of damaged tanks/compartments when there are any in the analysis.
Modified the scriptable version of the command, OrcaFrameSystem, to add the ability to remove all frames in a specific direction using the keyword 'All' when asked for the frames to remove.
Modified the OrcaPlaningAnalysis command to be more robust in computation of the transom location and to provide clearer indication of any issues that occur during the analysis.

Bug Fixes

Implemented a workaround to address an Excel issue in a recent update which prevents Orca3D Marine CFD reports from generating plots.
Fixed a bug in the command, OrcaCreateLinesDrawing, in which successive lines drawings created after the initial one caused things using the lines drawing annotation style, like text fields and section labels/dimensions, to be incorrectly removed.
Fixed an issue displaying tank face colors when running in Rhino 8.
Fixed a bug in defining stability limits where the angle unit dropdown control in the form could be empty.
Fixed issues in deserialization of the Orca3D product model.
Fixed issue in command for creating CFD report for resistance simulations that include actuator disks and/or body forces (Resistance w/Propulsors) when there is more than one propulsor.
Fixed a bug in defining a heeling moment for beam winds with icing in which a pressure-based moment (vs windspeed-based) was not being accepted.
Fixed a bug in the beam wind heeling arm so that the wind gust factor is only checked for being valid if the wind gust factor is being applied. Also allow wind gust factor when using wind speed as input.
Fixed a bug in Orca3D Marine CFD when creating a propulsor (actuator disk, body force, or wake survey) by copying an existing propulsor, in which the location/orientation of the source propulsor was being used instead of a new copy of the location/orientation.
Fixed an issue in Foil Assistant when computing the solid properties of the foil, where choosing ‘None’ for the solid material did not set the material density and hence foil weight to zero.
Fixed several issues related to Orca3D libraries (Fluid Library, Stock Material Library, and Stability Criteria Library). These include (a) not being able to delete a user-defined fluid from the library, (b) not being able to delete a stock material from the library, (c) renaming a criteria set causing some downstream library operations to fail.