This is one of the best tarp designs I have seen in a while.

http://www.finetrack.com/product/product_shelter.html

Is there anyone out their with a CAD program that is willing to try to draw up plans?

Edited by amount on 01/23/2007 23:57:27 MST.

My bets are on Bill Fornshell or Henry Shires being able to take one look at it and MYOG.

That's identical to a 1960's vintage official BSA Explorer tent without the door flap.

Looks similar to Tinny's design on Minibull designs ... except this one has a back wall.

Aaron,
Nice name.
This tarp would definitely need to be a cad design and each piece would have to be sewn together to copy the tarp.

This tart would be even easier to do one piece.
The only thing you wouldn't have is straight sides. The front would have less width due to the back end being higher.

The tarp under my name, (on the side), is the same design only I sleep width wise.
This allows me to sit up in the center where there is more room.
If you went with 2 tarps with the same square footage, 1 sleeping length wise and the other width, the tarp you sleep width wise will always be lighter.
It is also sturdier with a better footprint and again, more room in the center

The one positive for the length wise tarp is that you don't have the tarp so close to your head when laying down.
Another thing to remember is that with this style tarp to be off of the ground, you will have 4 separate ridge-lines that will all need to be guyed out with lines (all 6 of them).
This makes it so that you sometimes have to search around for a spot that the guy-lines can reach out to.

Good luck with your project.
Aaron

Edited by awsorensen on 01/23/2007 20:05:39 MST.

Reverse engineering this? This looks like 5 flat panels, I dont see any catenary cuts or for that matter, any curved cuts at all. Looks like it would be flappy in the wind, and difficult to pitch the panels taut no matter how taut you made the sides. Any catenary tarp would seem to be preferable to this one, IMO.

A really cool place to find almost any tarp design is here:
http://equipped.com/tarp-shelters.htm

It's more of an oragami page, but if you wanted a permanent shape, it wouldn't be hard to cut, sew, reinforce, add pull outs, and seal whatever design you like. I adopted the 10x20' tarp design for my 5x9 when I want to get fancy.