If you are unable to read this entire e-bulletin then please click HERE to open up a live version in a new browser window.

Autumn roundup of the latest development
As the curtain decends on a difficult year for the UK our thoughts turn towards fixing the next major version of LSS, version 9.80 to be precise. We gave a roundup of the major developments in our recent Newsletter, but we now have a much clearer idea of a couple of new items for inclusion.

Design sans frontières
We've been working for some time on some new options within both sidewall and template design which should make the process much quicker and more intuitive. Whenever a user has wanted to design from a model, back into the same model the process has been quite involved. The concept was straightforward, you cannot design a cut or a fill slope if you are already sitting on the terrain surface. After all, in this case there would be nothing to do. But what if you wanted to design a slope which started on the floor of a quarry and rose at a 45deg angle until it hit the quarry side? This was possible using 'Design / Template' but you had to engineer a small step to fool LSS into thinking that it had some work to do before it would then perform the intercept command correctly. This was all well and good, but trying to communicate this requirement wasn't the easiest task.

Then, one user approached us with a challenge; to be able to design either a cut or fill slope from the edge of a survey to intercept a tilted plane using the same sort of options available in sidewall and template. In the example below, LSS in its current state would always consider this as a fill situation and design down, but the user wanted control over whether he designed a cut or a fill slope. That's what the new options will allow.

This enhancement to LSS is currently undergoing testing and will be released in the Beta program in due course and before version 9.80 is launched.

The rise of the machines

Ten years ago GPS Machine Control was in its infancy, but nevertheless it was clear that it had a huge potential to save time and money through the control of a wide variety of excavators and graders on site. The Trimble Site Vision system was the first one we exported to and since then we have added other manufacturers and systems to the list. In fact, LSS is currently being used extensively on the 2012 Olympic site for building the athletics facilities in Stratford, East London.

One of the strengths of LSS lies in its powerful surface feature capabilities and specifically, in this context, surface depths. By applying a depth to a surface it can then be used in volume calculations and when exporting to machine control equipment, the underside of the surface can be exported.
This is fine except where two surfaces abut, each with a different depth. The boundary between these two surfaces effectively has a vertical side and the machine control systems are not able to handle this situation, so we limit the export to one surface at a time. Although this isn't an LSS limitation, we have decided to offer a solution which will allow an entire survey to be exported in a form which can be handled by such systems and can also be used by those wanting to generate an earthworks outline model from a survey which contains several different surfaces with height and/or depth.

The solution is to create a series of points just inside each surface packet to overcome the issues of vertical sides and this approach, currently possible using Design / Parallel is the only reliable solution to the problem. Those of you who do this sort of thing for a living will immediately appreciate the potential time saving that an automated solution will offer.

We are at the early stages of development of this and related commands, but will notify everyone in a future e-bulletin when it is available for testing.

New training initiatives

Those of you who have read our Autumn Newsletter will know about the changes to the way we package our training courses, but it does no harm to explain it again in case you didn't receive the Newsletter.

As you'll be aware, every month we run a standard set of one day training courses at our offices and from time to time host them in hotels across the UK. There is no change to the way we do this type of training. However, for organisations requiring 4 or more people training it's more cost-effective to book a 'Team' training day. Pick from the standard set of courses and we charge a flat rate of £500 per group of up to 5 trainees. Additional trainees are charged at £100 each per course and if you come to us that's the total. If we come to you then we charge expenses on top of this.

Then, there are orgainsations which have specific training needs and for this we can produce tailor-made courses which we call 'Bespoke'. Pick and mix from a wide range of modules to make up a course and the cost will be £700 per day per group of up to 7 trainees. Again, if we come to you we'll charge expenses on top of this.

If you'd like to find out more then call Duane or David on 08456 444244 / 01452 864244 and they will be pleased to give you a no obligation quotation.

Online payments

We launched our new website with full e-commerce facilities in June which means that you can purchase new copies, renew licences, book and pay for training and pay invoices online with a credit or debit card and even order online using a Purchase Order number. All visitors to the system can be assured that any purchases they make are fully secure.

All online card purchases are classed as 'Cardholder not present' because the supplier doesn't get to see the card you are using, just some of the numbers from it and while you the consumer are protected against fraudulent use, the supplier isn't. You may be aware also that whenever you purchase anything with a credit or debit card, the supplier is charged a handling fee for processing that transaction.

So, from next week our payment processing hosts will be implementing a system called '3D Secure' which was established by Visa and Mastercard as a further layer of security against credit card misuse. What this does is protects us, the supplier, against card misuse because it asks you a security question at the time of purchase which only you will know the answer to, thereby proving that it is you who is actually making the purchase. But, don't worry if you haven't registered for 3D secure with your card supplier, there will be an alternative security question you will be asked to answer, such as your date of birth. With 3D secure in place the bank charges us lower fees, thus helping us to keep our costs down and to continue to offer all of our customers a better service.

Online resources

The new website allows us to update the information on it whenever we like which is why we have a News page. One customer asked for a quick way of checking if he was on the latest version of LSS without having to visit the Download pages as he wasn't able to implement automatic checking in LSS. Within a couple of minutes we had amended our News page with the latest LSS version information at the top. He now has dtmsoftware.com/news on his desktop and a double click will show him if there have been any changes.

The capacity of the new website has also allowed us to put everything we have on our CD on the site, plus a load of other material including 'Rough Guides' and a few utilities we think our users will find of value.

And just a note for those who have reported difficulty registering on the site. We have spoken to the website hosts and they are going to simplify the login process and set up a cookie which means that it should automatically log you in everytime you visit the site, making visiting the downloads section so much quicker. If you have any suggestions for new material to put on the site then please let Nigel know.

Do you link from your website to ours?
If you do, we would be grateful if you could check where the link is going. It should link directly to http://www.dtmsoftware.com and not any other web addresses we may have used in the past. We have also changed our logo in the past few months. Please download the latest logos from http://www.dtmsoftware.com/downloads/logos/2009_Logo_RGB400.jpg for a 400pixel wide version or http://www.dtmsoftware.com/downloads/logos/2009_Logo_RGB200.jpg for a 200pixel wide version.

That's all folks

That's about it for this e-bulletin. Please keep an eye on the website for up-to-date news on training, development and other important goings on. If you'd like to contribute to a future e-bulletin or Newsletter then please email us any material you have. It's a great and free way to promote your business and, who knows, it might introduce you to some new customers.

Some of you may have spoken to Lynn on the phone recently and may already know that she will be off for a few weeks following a minor operation. We're sure that you'll join us in wishing her a speedy recovery. Rest assured that we'll continue to deal with all your account enquiries in her absence, but when you call please ask for Nigel.

If we don't get the chance to send out an e-bulletin in December, the entire team at McCarthy Taylor would like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas and a busy and profitable 2010.

You are receiving this email because in the past you have supplied us with your email address, either as a user of our software, someone working for the company where LSS is used or have enquired about our software or services. If you do not wish to receive these e-bulletins in future then please follow the link below and your details will be removed from the e-bulletin distribution list. Thank you for your understanding.