Although product development and support is always given a high priority at Softree, the last few months have also been busy with marketing and training. Jack has been very busy training this fall. In addition to a teaching courses in Western Canada and the US, Jack returned to Bogor, Indonesia to carry out training with Art Klassen of TFF.

New product sales have been strong this fall despite the slow B.C. economy. Recently we have completed sales in Malaysia, Indonesia, Switzerland, France, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Mexico, England, India, Australia, Scotland and Venezuela as our international business continues to grow.

For those unfamiliar with RoadEng, the above comment often generates skepticism. To backup our claim, and arm ourselves with some marketing ammunition we decided to have a closer look at "HUMUNGOUS-CAD" systems. With open minds, we sat through presentations of the two best known of these systems. The demonstrations, given by experienced users, were enlightening.

"HUMUNGOUS-CAD" systems are complex. These products require that you first master the underlying CAD software, then you must learn hundreds of commands and procedures (most of which are tricky and unforgiving). It would take me several months working with these programs before I could do any real work. Not only is "HUMUNGOUS-CAD" difficult to learn, it is awkward to design with. To use "HUMUNGOUS-CAD" systems you must follow a specific set of steps, i.e. create a DTM, define a horizontal alignment, cut cross sections, define and assign templates, define the vertical alignment and calculate volumes. If you want to make a design change to one of the initial steps you must re-do all the subsequent steps. This is painfully slow.

If you know in advance exactly where your road should be located, "HUMUNGOUS-CAD" systems will help you create a drawing. However, if you have real engineering design work to do, such as evaluating different alignments, templates, earthwork costs, or drainage structures you're better off with RoadEng.

For those of you who haven't used RoadEng you are probably thinking how can this be? "HUMUNGOUS-CAD" company has plenty of resources and certainly many good software engineers. How can a small company, like Softree, develop a better product? The answer is that "HUMUNGOUS-CAD" is intended for general purpose drafting and can be applied to anything from mechanical widgets to printed circuit boards. Despite all the options, features, bells and whistles that are included, "HUMUNGOUS-CAD" remains a clumsy tool for road design. RoadEng on the other hand is focussed; it is quick, easy and interactive. It provides the designer with immediate visual feedback as he designs. When the design is complete, RoadEng can produce quality drawings or export to CAD for the drafting.

The Status Window in Terrain will display the total area of all features in a file. By default, the area of each feature is included (added). However, using the Edit | Modify Selected Features | Properties menu you can set the Negative Area property of a feature. With this property set the area is negative and is thus subtracted from the total.

UK
Corsair Maritime
Contact: Mr. Bryan Dillon 
Tel: 1304-330562 
Email: cmu@btinternet.com 
Bryan is working with Softree to apply Terrain Tools - 3D to hydrographic surveying.

Malaysia 
Top Optics Sdn Bhd
Contact: Rozli Yusof 
Tel: 603-4142 5723 
Fax: 603-4149 3342 
Email: topoptics@po.jaring.my 
Web: http://www.topoptics.com.my/ 

Slovenia 
Contact: Robert Robek
Phone: 386-1-7542015 
Mobile: 386-41-776782 
Fax: 386-1-2573589 
E-mail: robert.robek@guest.arnes.si

ROADTRAK is designed to streamline and standardize the tracking of resource information associated with roads, harvest areas, and drainage structures.

The USDA San Dimas Research Center in California is also reviewing ROADTRAK. 

This problem is almost always because the Rainbow security drivers have not been installed correctly. Here is how to resolve the problem.

1) Make sure security key is attached to the computer

2) Go to Windows Explorer

3) Select RoadEng directory

4) Double click on Drivers

5)

For Windows 98 or 95
Click on WIN_9x
Double click on sentw9x.exe

For Windows NT, 2000 or XP
Click on Win_nt
Double click on setupx86.exe

6) Rainbow Technology window will appear

7) Select functions

8) Select install sentinel driver

9) Reboot when completed.