I wrote this program when I began building bows about ten years ago and have used and tinkered with it ever since. I also make it available for free to anyone who is interested in bow design.
One of the strengths of the program is that it lets me see the effect of changing design characteristics of a bow without having to make tons of experimental bows. It is a very good tool for exploring questions like:
What is the effect of recurve or reflex?
Effect of brace height?
Why are some bow designs more stable than others?
What is the effect of thickness taper on tiller profiles Vs. width?
Where does the energy of drawing the bow go? How much energy makes it to the arrow, how much stays in the limbs? How much stays in the string?
What is the effect of string design on bow performance?
Etc.
What it won't do is build the bow for you. It won't help you deal with knots or construction details. It doesn't know if your materials deviate locally from the average values used for each material type. For example, it won't perfectly predict draw weight because no two pieces of wood are exactly alike. However, it will get you in the ball park. But, the issue is no different with real bows. I feel I could use this program to do just as good a job predicting the draw weight and performance of a historical artifact as building an accurate reproduction.
Alan
