Power Line Systems, Inc. 610 N. Whitney Way, Suite 160
Madison, WI 53705, U.S.A.
Phone: (608) 238-2171, Fax: (608) 238-9241
Email: info@powline.com
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Power Line Systems January 2004 Newsletter

In this issue:

  1. Year In Review
  2. Latest Progress
  3. Upcoming User Groups, Training Sessions and Trade Shows
  4. Web Site Additions and Revisions
  5. Current Versions

Year In Review

Throughout 2003 we concentrated on improving PLS-CADD's drafting capabilities and its ability to work with large data sets. Clients continue to tell us that the largest immediate savings in using PLS-CADD comes from the ability to generate construction drawings automatically. Unfortunately, some clients still export their PLS-CADD projects to a separate CAD system to make P&P sheets that match their corporate standards. In 2003 we greatly improved the amount of control you have over the look of your PLS-CADD drawings. As a result, more and more customers are plotting drawings directly from PLS-CADD. If you do not currently do this, a good New Years resolution may be to give it a try.

A few years ago, even hundred thousand point projects were a rarity, but now we regularly see projects with more than a million points and a gigabyte of aerial imagery! Making PLS-CADD scale with ever larger project sizes is a continuing challenge but one that we made major progress on in 2003. Improved XYZ and TIN file I/O makes opening and saving large projects up to 100 times faster. We've also made many other changes to remove bottlenecks that induced delays in large projects. Finite element sag-tension performance is one of these areas where we made massive performance improvements thus opening the door to more wide spread use of this advanced feature. The Engineers at Transpower New Zealand put finite element sag-tension to good use demonstrating a 34% savings on an uprating project as described in this April T&D World article.

The TOWER training class we recently held was a smashing success. We had participants from nineteen companies. Our thanks to everyone who braved the cold to attend (the next one will be held someplace warmer!). For those of you who were unable to attend, you can download a one page TOWER Tips and Tricks document that was distributed at the class.

Our programs truly are the worldwide standard in line design software with 108 new customers in 40 different countries adopting them in 2003 alone. We'd like to thank these new customers as well as all of you who have been with us for years for making 2003 another very good year for Power Line Systems.


Program Progress

As promised in the last newsletter, we are now shipping a version of PLS-CADD that can model multiple alignments. Click here for full image With this feature you can add as many branches, taps, parallel lines and alternate routes as you like. Each one of these gets its own section of profile which is automatically included on your plan & profile sheets. Multiple alignment capability was the most requested feature throughout 2003 and we are pleased to deliver it.

In the last newsletter we also promised a number of LiDAR improvements all of which are available now. A surprise feature to kick off 2004 is integration with TerraServer USA. TerraServer is a service that provides USGS DRGs and DOQs over the Internet. With the new Drafting/Attachments/TerraServer Image Download command you can download, attach and georeference theses images directly from PLS-CADD in a single step. Best of all, this data is free! You can see the new command in action in this video.

Some other improvements worthy of mention include:

Upcoming User Groups, Training Sessions and Trade Shows

Web Site Revisions and Additions

Current Versions

The current shipping versions of our software are listed below.

We strongly encourage you to upgrade to the current release of all the applications you own. To do so please send us email at info@powline.com or use the Help/Download Upgrade command. This would also be a good time to use the Help/Check for Updated Manual command to make sure you have the latest edition of the manuals. As always, we welcome your suggestions and comments on our software.


We wish you the best in the New Year.


Staff of Power Line Systems, Inc.


© 2004 Power Line Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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