AiC December 2015 Newsletter

Transcription

1 AiC December 2015 Newsletter As you will see we have been kept busy since the last newsletter in September. In this issue we announce the release of n 4ce v3.1, the results of our customer survey and new training dates for February It makes interesting reading! 30 Years of AiC in 2016 If you receive Geomatics World from PV Publications you will see that the twice yearly Showcase has an article called The AiC Story still flying after 30 years. This is a follow up article written by Mike Fort and was published 28 years ago. The article was titled AiC Ready for Take Off. We commissioned a full size advert to go with the new article. AiC started out as Applied CADD, but because we were getting confused with a new and upcoming CAD system called AutoCAD, we had to change our name! Our first system, ProSURVEYOR, took the market by storm being based on a CAD system called ProCAD. It comprised survey processing, Mapping & Modelling, Roads & Drainages Design costing in the region of 8,000. This was followed by 4CE (may the force be with you!), our own wholly developed package, at a cost of 4,500. n 4ce, our current equivalent comes in at 2,750 with greater functionality, speed and capacity. New website You may be aware that we ve been having problems with our website. It all started when our service provider hosting the website had a massive crash, which destroyed the secure login area of our site. Since we d already decided to replace the old website with a new one, using WordPress, our efforts have been spent bringing forwards the new website, which will go live in January 2016 with new and updated features, including videos and PowerPoint presentations. Case Studies, Testimonials and Links to Customer Websites The new website will have a section on Case Studies and we are seeking your assistance in sourcing interesting projects you ve been involved in. Anything big or small which shows off how useful n 4ce has been to you. We will acknowledge the source. We d also like to receive user testimonials. Some of you will also have your own website and have asked if you could use our artwork identifying themselves as n4ce/4site users. If you use a link to our software Internet searches will improved. AiC Newsletter December 2015 Page 1

2 New n4ce Software (v3.1 Dec 2015) A new formal release of n4ce is ready for downloading. This is called v3.1 and will be supplemented with intermediate versions this coming year with versions 3.1a, 3.1b, 3.1c etc. Watch this space. The following is a brief list of new features. A full list of bug fixes and improvements are in revision notes attached to the installation and found in n4ce support icon Help folder. Alignments, if they are in the project, can now be back clothed and put into drawing viewports in Lite and Professional. A new menu has been added to the Code Prefix dialog called File. This now contains the options to Load and Save prefixes to.ini files. A new option allows you to purge any unused code prefixes from the current project. When loading JPG or TIF image files as backcloths, n4ce now looks for a JPW or TFW world file to determine the co-ordinates of the image. A new value can now be displayed using a text macro. This is the bearing and gradient (%) of the line between two points and is displayed using the macro key PB and PG. The bearing will be displayed using the current settings for angles but will not display unit symbols. The height difference between these points can also be displayed using the macro key PDZ. When exporting CSV files, you are now given the option to add header names to the top of the file showing which value is where. ECW images can now be displayed in the 64-bit version of n4ce together with MrSID images and others such as PNG. Various new query options in the section view to query profile points, profile segments and whole profiles. Also, point to point distances, height differences and offsets from lines. Sections can now be printed from the Section View using a drawing template. Multiple sections can be printed and, if the correct driver is available, PDF files can be created. n Digit now supports Leica True View and Faro Scene LT n Didit can be accessed from the Cloud icon in the Modes icon bar of the Professional and Designer editions. It works by listening to queries made in 3 rd party cloud viewing software and attaching feature code to these coordinated points to see vectors appearing in n4ce. In earlier releases of this software you have to manually run n Socket, an external program that created the link between n4ce and the cloud viewing software. This is now automatically connected when selecting the n Digit icon. The following 3 rd party packages are now recognised with links to ndigit. AutoCAD (2014 onwards not LT) Bentley MicoStation Leica TruView Trimble RealWorks Viewer ArcGIS Explorer Pix 4D Faro SCENE The AutoCAD version is interesting as you can now digitise CAD detail directly into n4ce rather than use the Generate from CAD option. A PowerPoint presentation and videos will be posted later on our new website. The new version can sit alongside previous releases and use the same support files. The SDB is fully compatible with v 3.0. AiC Newsletter December 2015 Page 2

3 n 4ce User Survey One of the first things Deborah has done since joining AiC was to initiate a user survey of n 4ce. The results make interesting reading and are summarised here. We offered a 50 Amazon voucher to the winner of a draw, for participants. This was won by Anthea Friar of Opus International. We d like to thank all of you who took part as it gives us direction to make changes to our software and how we provide support and market ourselves. There were 134 returned surveys. Q1 Which Edition of n 4ce software do you use? Over 70% of the returns were from Pro & Des users. Q2 Approximately how long have you been using n 4ce? Over 80% who responded had been using the software for over 5 years. The response to these questions makes interesting reading. Clearly more advanced Pro & Des and longer term users are keen to get involved. This is encouraging and gives AiC confidence to know that we re are doing the right things. Happy customers are our best advert! Q3 Which services do you provide using n4ce? Whilst our custom base is varied, we ve always assumed that typical users fall within in Topographic and Volumetric surveys. These two areas are clearly identified with strong presence of building and setting out surveys. Other categories include Monitoring, Underground, Rail and River surveys all about equal. Its also encouraging to see how many people are using n 4ce for general CAD. This implies that they are producing field to finish solutions! Q4&Q5 If applicable which manufacturer of Total Station and GNSS do you use? It comes as no supprise that Leica and Trimble come out top of the list with Leica just edging in front. Topcon and Sokkia users fall well behind. We blieve our relationship with these manufactures will aid users get the most out of their instrumentation. The n 4ce code table can be exported to Leica, Trimble and some Topcon instruments, using XML files. Promps for attribute data will improve productivity and data flow from the instrument to our n 4ce software. Q6&Q7 Would you be happy to move a Software Leicence which removed the necessity of a USB dongle being plugged in AND Would you consider buying licences on a cheaper but renewable annual basis? The response to both these questions was came in roughly the same with 70% happy to replace the perpetual harware lock with a software key and 70% in favour or renewable licences. The software key can be downloaded and returned to a service provider, for other users to access. It would give flexibility to control licence issues better, including 30 day trials. But this licence can only be used on the machine its copied to. Internet access is required. With a software key we can offer either annual renewable and perpetual licences. There will also be customers who d like a harware lock due to its flexibility, which we plan to retain as perpetual licences. Note Prices and licencing are being reviewed in 2016! Q8 Is processing mass data important to your business? The response fell into 63% No and 37% Yes. We suspect the yes camp want to handle Point Clouds. Over the years we ve monitored how people process data. With ProSURVEYOR 1,000 points was a large survey and creating a DTM could take over 8hrs, but at the time this was state of the art! AiC Newsletter December 2015 Page 3

4 With DOS 4CE 10,000 was a reasonable survey size, but with n 4ce this went up to 100,000 in normal interactive usage, although many more points can be handled. DTM creation improved to seconds. n 4ce was never designer to handle Point Clouds being based on vectors with attributes using the code table to generate intelligent graphics. There is a large overhead to do this. We introduced LiDAR grid models into n 4ce to handle mass data, with vastly increased capacity and speed. No features are identified here. The first question to asked is what do you want to do with your Point Cloud data? If its to calculate volumes, do you really need millions of points? If its to join the dots to generate vectors then we have a solution for you. Its called n Digit! This is only available in Pro & Des. Q9&Q10 Do you use any of the following CAD products AND In the future which if any technolgies do you invisiage will become more important to your business? AutoCAD comes out as product leader here well ahead of competition like Bentley DGN and ArcGIS. Future technoligies include Point Clouds, AutoCAD DWG complience, 3D BIM models and less the viewing data on any device (ipads etc). We will monitor the BIM technology but this is aimed more at people working above ground. We ll provide access to additional attributes to seek compliance where necessary. Q11 How best can we improve our support? We already know n 4ce is user friendly (we ve been told so) but there will always be features that are not fully understood by users. How Do I notes and Training Videos are well received. We plan to keep these fully up to date on our new website with the addition of PowerPoint Presentations. We ve also started the replacement to our on-line documentation, which is out of date but still provides useful information. This can be found in the v3.10 under SettingsDocumentation. n 4ce Training Days We are now offering three separate training days for n 4ce, namely Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced. The following dates have been pencilled in for Wednesday 3 rd February - Beginners This course will take you through basics of n 4ce, how it is set up and the code table with hands on exercises. CAD will be introduced including the creation of symbols and generating points from CAD. General Import/Export will be covered along with feature creation, model creation and editing. Thursday 4 th February - Intermediate Now we get interesting, with fireworks! Taking over from the Beginners course, sections volumes and Drawings will be discussed in detail. Introducing select List and automatic filtering of height text, plus more options for generating points from CAD. Don t attend on this course if you don t have the basics! Wednesday 10 th February - Advanced This is for the specialists, who want to carry out design covering features found in the Pro and Des editions, including alignments and access to the dedicated CAD backcloth. The import and editing of different data types including LiDAR grids. Course costs are 175+vat per person per day. We can also offer one-to-one training at our offices for 350+vat and can also come to your offices which may be a cheaper alternative where training for 4 or more people is required. Our daily rates are 695+vat plus travel and subsistence, where applicable. AiC Newsletter December 2015 Page 4

5 Irish and Scottish n4ce Training (2016) We ve delayed these visits until next year due to difficulties confirming venues. In Scotland we planned to use Forth Valley College, near Stirling, which is a new site for us. We are aware of the travel restrictions around the Forth Road Bridge and await feedback from potential delegates. We ll be in touch with those of you that have previously indicated an interest. We ve provisionally identified the Carrickdale Hotel and Spa in Dundalk for our Irish venue. This should be reachable for delegates from both North and Southern Ireland. Reasonably priced accommodation is available for overnight stayers. We plan to have a two day event in conjunction with Martin Graham and the IESS group, one of which will be dedicated to training. Details to follow. Please Contact Deborah for all your training needs at deborah@appsincadd.co.uk Christmas Cards Last year we decided not to send out business Christmas cards but to donate money to a local charity called Rainbows, which is a children s hospice. We are doing the same again this year. AIC Office Closing dates Our offices will be closed during the winter break from lunchtime Wednesday 23 rd December returning back on Monday 4 th January May we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and hope that all your aspirations for the New Year come to fruition. AiC Newsletter December 2015 Page 5