Questions (and answers)
- Why did you write this program?
- I needed it to fill some needs that I could not find existing software to suit. I couldn't find a flexible point cloud + value analysis program that fitted my needs, so I built one. Seeing as I needed to do it quickly, free components were the order of the day.
- Are there any instruction manuals?
- Yes, you can download one from the documentation page.
- Are there any screencasts
- Yes, you can also find them on the documentation page.
- This project is terrible, it doesn't work! What can I do?
- Try asking for support; it might be fixable.
- Report a bug (complain). These will be prioritised to be fixed, if I can reproduce them. Remember that to solve the problem, I need to make the same problem happen on my computer, and if I can't then I might not be able to fix it.
- This project is great, can I donate?
- Not really. Small donations are not particularly useful, and small donations are not going to make me work on this any more than I currently do. However, there are several things you can do.
- Use it -- Knowing that people are using the program is good motivation to keep working on it.
- Email the author to say how this has helped you. If you are from an academic background, doing this in a formal manner is helpful too.
- Report bugs, or
- Work on something that the program needs, such as documentation, artwork, foreign language translation, web design or programming.
- If you need a particular feature, you could fund a project to develop it, either independantly, or by contacting the author. This could be quite expensive though, and would require some level of computational skill and more importantly, familiarity with the code.
- This program doesn't do what I need -- can you still help me?
- Maybe.
- You can request a feature. I do not promise to get these things done, but you might find that it is quite easy to create a change.
- I might be able to propose a work around, or suggest alternate, or combinations of tools that can help.
- If there are modules that might benefit the community, or you are using this for a specific academic need, it might be possible to construct a problem-specific solution
- Just remember that there are many, many analysis tools out
there.
- How much does this program cost? How much did this program cost?
- Nothing.
- Well, at 8 months development, 2 days a week that comes to about 50 days work, roughly 10 working weeks. At US$50k/year, that comes to about USD$12,800 equivalent cost. Software development is cheaper than you think, it is just that few people are willing to do it, and experience is only gained by trying. But no-one was paid for this work anyway, so the number is somewhat academic.
- Is the program any good?
- I don't know. I'd like to think so. That's not for me to decide.
- My question is not listed here.
- Can you put that in the form of a question?
- What if my question is not listed here?
- Well, try to contact the author. These questions were written in a speculative fashion, and are not technically "frequently asked".