The line heating method is a popular technique used to form ship hull in shipyards. In order to promote shipbuilding productivity, some researchers have made progress in their studies on automatic fabrication system for plate forming. These researches have, however, focused on heat-induced plate deformation with particular mechanical modelings, and do not yet propose the heating paths applicable to actual plate forming process. In this paper, a new algorithm to determine heating lines is developed to simulate the line heating process. The important feature of this algorithm is that it calculates principal curvatures of deflection difference surface which represents difference between target surface and surface in fabrication. Several trials to typical surface types show its usefulness and good applicability to tactical use.