RE: What happen to support ?

[Stuart Nixon]

Alfonso,   It is unfortunate you have concerns with respect to support, as it is an area ERM places a great deal of emphasis on.   First, with respect to your original question regarding use of the free ER Mapper SDK:     Have a look at the supplied examples, which should help. In general, canvas area is the area to paint, and the output area is the original zoom area (which might be different, based on different zoom aspects).  You need to call the rethink extents routine to sort all this out when changes are made. The examples should show how to do this.  I am not sure from your email if you are using the C++ class or the C algorithm structures, again there are examples for both (and as I recall, the source to the C++ classes are also provided).   Be prepared to spend a bit of time sorting this out.  The whole area of view area versus requested area is a fantastically complex aspect of ER Mapper (or any imagery product), as things like device DPI, device pixel aspect ratio, canvas aspect ratio, input pixel aspect ratio, original zoom extents, and the like all have to be taken into account.  This is why ER Mapper does so much work in this area - it has to handle odd sized pixels, layers with different cell sizes, and so on.  Anyway, the examples show how to handle all this.   If you are just trying to display images, have you considered using one of the simpler SDKs, such as the ActiveX one, which handles all this for you? We have a range of SDKs, ranging from simpler interfaces "just give me an image" to more complex ones "you can do anything you like" ones like the ER Mapper SDK.       On the more general question of support for free products:     Please understand that we have two commercial products: ER Mapper and the Image Web Server.  We provide full support & updates to any client who has a current support contract for these products.     We also have a wide range of free downloads.  There are millions of users of GIS/CAD/Office/Imaging applications who have access to our technology when it is built into their favorite applications like AutoCAD, MapInfo, Manifold, 3D EDGE, Axis2000, Cadcorp SIS, dlg32, ModelVision, Geo/SQL, GeoMedia, GDAL, Global Mapper, Gothic, MapGuide, MapXtreme, IfranView, Microstation, Motaj, OrthoEngine, PetroSys, PLS-CADD, SmallWorld, SpatialAce, Tera Vista, TTQV and VNS, just to name a few.     In addition, we get over 300,000 downloads per year of various free plugins, applications and SDKs.  Of these, we get something like 6,000 downloads per year of *just* SDK's (ER Mapper SDK, the suite of ECW SDK's, et al).  We provide all these for free, as a service to our clients and the geospatial community as a whole.   We quite simply could not begin to offer free support to all those users and/or developers who take advantage of our technology. And there are a lot of applications using our SDKs that we don't even hear about.     This is not to say we don't pay attention to user feedback.  Some of our plugins and SDKs have gone through multiple version updates as we fine tune them based on user feedback (the plugins for ArcView et al are good examples).  We in particular pay attention to resolving problems with GIS/CAD/Office users who are suddenly able to drop 100GB or even TB images into their applications - which often have poor raster capability to begin with.   We are very proud of our level of support & commitment to users of our technology. For example, most ERM staff, resellers and partners monitor this list, and often respond (as I do too when I can get the time).     However, as I hope you can understand from the above, it is not logistically possible to provide free and extensive R&D support on our free SDK's and plugins, especially as a lot of effort went into creating examples to go with them. Most developers understand that the use of any SDK generally takes some technical effort on the behalf of the developer to sort out issues. Many software companies have praised us for making very easy to use SDKs.     It is true we could restrict SDKs and plugins by charging for them or adding endless complex legal agreements and restrictions. But this would harm everyone. Today, ECW is the popular standard for compressed  geospatial imagery, just as the ERS format is for floating point data in a number of industries. Several data vendors recently noted that they now supply 85% to 90% of their data in ECW format. This enables the community to easily access data on different platforms and under different products. It also helps sales of our commercial products, so we can concentrate on providing high quality technology and support.     I do hope your technical difficulties with the free SDK get resolved to your satisfaction after working through the example code. If not, drop me an email and I'll put you directly in touch with the R&D team to provide assistance.     Kind regards,   Stuart Stuart Nixon Chief Executive Officer Earth Resource Mapping www.ermapper.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Cuenta Sigmap Sent: Saturday, 16 November 2002 1:29 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: What happen to support ? It seems a very poor support on ERMapper side. In fact, this is the worst support for people I have seen.   I sent them two e-mails two weeks ago, asking some technical questions and none were answered.   Also, I sent previously to this list and the same thing.   Alfonso Moreno