Additional functions in Maxsurf version 12 and later can greatly simplify the process of getting the markers into their correct order for most designs. After for example importing DXF markers or digitising a Linesplan in Maxsurf (see Maxsurf manual for instructions), you may have a number of Marker stations and perhaps a bow and transom shape described by markers.

Use the Markers | Generate Grid from Markers in Maxsurf to sort markers into stations and order them automatically. If you have sloping sections, you should specify a minimum of more than one Marker to define a station and perhaps loosen the tolerance value:

To help verify that you have the markers in the correct order, turn on Connect Marker Stations (Display | Markers menu). And display all the markers. The first marker for each station will be shown in bold when the Connect Marker Stations option is turned on.

Correctly sorted markers.

It will still be necessary to manually add “stations” for the stem and stern and to assign the correct station index to these markers. There is a variety of additional tools for correcting marker-ordering problems – see the Maxsurf manual for details.

Transfer the markers to Prefit by going to the Markers table and saving the table as a tab-delimited text file (Save Markers As…).

Open the Prefit Program and select File | Open Text to load the markers that you just saved in Maxsurf.

Prefit should show a similar view, but the markers will be mirrored: