nPoles

simplifying overhead design

What's new in nPoles

The last year of nPoles, in plain language. Updated 30.10.2026.

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The headline changes of the last 12 months — choose a shorter window for more detail.

October 2026

Sharing Share a job by a web link nPoles 1.4.204
File > Send > Share a Web Link makes a link to the open job for one person, from your nPoles portal account, opening in Modern style (with 3D) or Classic Windows style (no 3D). It opens only for them, with a code the portal emails to their address, and Shared Links shows who opened each link and when. Email the Job File sends the job file itself.
Import PLS-CADD summary reports imported nPoles 1.4.203
File > Import > PLS-CADD summary (XML) brings a PLS-CADD summary report, exported as XML from its right-click menu, into the job: each structure as a pole with its length, strength and material, its circuits at PLS-CADD's attachment heights and offsets, each section as a conductor string with the profile's conductor, and each sagging tension as a stringing chart. Crossarms, insulators and stays are left to set in Point Edit.
3D views The route's 3D View keeps up with a long route nPoles 1.4.202
The route's 3D View opens, turns and redraws a long route quickly, and rests while nothing in it changes, where it kept redrawing and held the rest of nPoles up. A pole's insulators, fuses, bridges and leads, and the vibration dampers, are added as the view comes near them, and parts alike share one shape - opened on a 259-pole job the view starts with under a quarter of the parts it had. Exports still write every part.
3D views Crossarms drawn on the face of the pole they were built on nPoles 1.4.201
A crossarm fitted to the other face of the pole from the one the 3D views draw it on can be ticked "Arm on the other face of the pole" on its circuit row in the Structure window - any arm, an intermediate or a strain strung alike both ways included, not only a strain arm that ends its line. Where the row's left and right conductors were shot with the total station, the arm is drawn on the face the shots show, ticked or not. The CAD files exported from the 3D views draw the arm and its conductors where they are built.
3D views The 3D views draw the company's standard constructions nPoles 1.4.200
Where a circuit's rows record no crossarm and no construction, the route's 3D View, Pole Load's 3D View and the Clearances 3D View draw the construction the company's standards give for its voltage and pole - in the AusNet profile the cruciform on the pole top for 66 kV and 22 kV, and the subsidiary arm on the face under another circuit - where what the rows do record fits it. A structure the survey shows is built otherwise is drawn as recorded, and a construction picked in the Structure window is drawn as picked.
Clearances A leaning pole is checked as it leans, and a new pole stands vertical nPoles 1.4.199
The clearance check takes a leaning pole's conductors where its lean puts them, in the object, ground and phase checks, and the Clearances window, its report and the clearance list name each leaning pole of the spans. A new pole, or one replacing another, stands vertical in Pole Load, the clearance check and the 3D views, and a pole the design straightens can be ticked Stands Vertical on the point's Pole tab. The surveyed lean stays on the point and counts again when the pole is set back to existing or the tick comes off.
Point Edit Standard constructions for Powercor and United Energy, and AusNet's as it builds now nPoles 1.4.198
A circuit's Structure window offers Powercor's 444 standard pole constructions, CitiPower's among them, from the CitiPower and Powercor construction standards, and United Energy's 93 from its UE-ST-2000 standard. AusNet's follow its current Standard Installation Manual and carry its STND drawing numbers; a job that recorded the older EVX number still finds its construction. Each company's crossarm and insulator lists carry the parts it builds with, checked against its own standards, and parts it no longer uses but which are still on poles stay, marked existing lines. A construction is offered for the circuit's voltage - one drawn for 22 kV or 11 kV at both - its pole's type and the number of conductors its string carries.
3D views The 3D views draw poles as the standard drawings build them nPoles 1.4.197
Pole Load's 3D View, the Route 3D View and the Clearances 3D View place every crossarm, its conductors and their insulators by one layout, from the company's crossarm and insulator lists and its standard drawings: post insulators with their rods and sheds at their listed sizes, strain discs 255 mm across, a steel crossarm on the pole top on its mounting brackets, the posts of an arm built for them lying out of its ends, bridges over the arm at a strain and a lone strain crossarm on the back of the pole. Drop-out fuses, street lights and footpath stays are drawn where the survey records them. The DXF and STEP exports follow.
3D views The 3D views export to CAD as drawn nPoles 1.4.196
Pole Load's 3D View, the Route 3D View and the Clearances 3D View - which gains an Export button - write DXF, STEP and 3D Web files holding exactly what the view draws: every pole, crossarm, insulator, conductor, stay and surveyed object, in its own colours. Conductors and stays follow the view's curve to within a millimetre, so a stay's clearance on the structure can be measured in CAD, and a conductor's to an object in a span from the Clearances 3D View's files, which hang each span as the clearance check does. The DXF opens in AutoCAD with a layer for each kind and passes its AUDIT; the STEP model suits FreeCAD, Inventor and SolidWorks, in grid co-ordinates or local ones less an origin the job remembers, so the files of every view line up. Each export's window says what its view's conductors are.
Pole Load A staked pole is rated by its stakes nPoles 1.4.195
A pole recorded with stakes in Point Edit is now held to what its stakes take at the ground line: its limit is the lesser of its own and its stakes' rated bending moment, and the B.M. Plot's capacity follows the stakes over their length. The ratings come from a new stakes database with each company profile that offers stakes - Powercor's published stake ratings, used for AusNet, JEN, Jemena, SECV and UED too and flagged for those companies to confirm, and TasNetworks' - and Limit State takes 0.9 of a stake's failing moment. Pole Load gives the stakes, their rating and where it comes from, and says when a rating had to be assumed: a stake with no rating, or a number of stakes not recorded. Stakes to be removed, and a new or replacement pole, are not counted.
Clearances Where LV spreaders must go in Victoria's fire areas nPoles 1.4.195
Clearances checks every bare LV span against the company's own rule for LV spreaders - SECV drawing VX9/7020/150 A's table, as Powercor's ES051 has it, United Energy's UE9/7020/150 A, or CitiPower's every span - chosen in User Settings and set for the Powercor, SECV and UED profiles. Fire areas are CFA's high bushfire risk areas, from CFA's own map, now installed with the map data and shown on the plan view by Layers, Show Bushfire Risk (CFA). A span short of what the rule asks says so on its Phase cell - "needs 1 spreader" - and its hover and What's This give the rule, the fire area and the spreaders recorded.
Clearances Spreaders in a span, and the phase separation they allow nPoles 1.4.195
Interphase spreaders - LV spreader rods and HV inter-phase spacers - can be recorded in a span: how many, and where. The phase separation check takes each one as a conductor support, as AS/NZS 7000 does, so a span with spreaders is checked stretch by stretch between them; one spreader at mid span quarters the sag the separation is worked out from. Right-click a span's Phase cell in Clearances to give it spreaders - evenly spaced, or each at its own distance, joining every conductor or one pair of phases - and see what the span needs with them and without them before they are kept; the cell then says how many are in play, and its hover the separation they save. String Properties lists them span by span on its new Spreaders tab, and a span short of separation on its crossarm says how many evenly spaced spreaders would give it enough.
3D views The 3D views follow the mouse, and large jobs move smoothly nPoles 1.4.194
In Route View, Pole Load's 3D View and Clearances' 3D View the view now moves by as much as the mouse does: a drag carries the view along the ground under the pointer, the wheel zooms in on what is under the pointer, and a double-click brings it - in Route View, the pole - to the middle of the view. The views had moved by the mouse's movement times the time since the last picture, so the first drag after a pause threw the view far away. Route View also turns, pans and zooms smoothly on a large job: it drew every piece of every pole on its own, more than 17,000 draws on a 111-pole job, and now draws about 60.
Clearances Clearances on steep spans worked as they hang nPoles 1.4.193
Steep spans are now worked as they hang. By the stringing chart method each span is hung at the chart's tension between its own two supports, which on a slope of 1 in 3 sags about 5 % more than the level span it was worked as, and an individual span no longer comes out tighter than it is on steep ground. On a steep line compared with PLS-CADD, nPoles' individual spans now match PLS-CADD's to within 0.2 %, and the chart method's clearances fall by up to 0.27 m. Clearances on steep spans checked in earlier versions should be checked again.
Pole Load Stays worked together, and a One side only check nPoles 1.4.193
Pole Load works a pole's stays together, each a prop holding the pole straight, so stays pulling against each other - as at a termination each way - both hold their conductors and leave a side wind to the pole. They had been shown at several times their real load, or left slack. A new One side only check, on by default and turned off in User Settings, checks each stay, and the pole, with only the conductors that stay holds erected - the case the SECV overhead line design manual requires, since the conductors balancing a stay may not be up during construction or maintenance. Stayed poles calculated in earlier versions should be calculated again.
Pole Load Pole Load works only the circuits ticked Active nPoles 1.4.192
In 1.4.191 Pole Load worked every circuit with a span whatever its Active tick, so unticking a circuit did not change the results, and a circuit whose string is marked REMOVE was counted in the tip loads, diagrams and reports. A pole whose REMOVE circuits balanced the others could read well within its rating while over it. Poles carrying a REMOVE circuit that were calculated in 1.4.191 should be calculated again.
Pole Load Stays rated from each company's own ratings nPoles 1.4.192
Pole Load rates a stay from the company's own ratings where its profile holds a stay database: Powercor's EG031, AusNet's tables, the SECV ratings JEN and UE use, and Ausgrid's, Horizon Power's and TasNetworks' standards. A stay is held to its weakest part - its stay wire, its anchor in the soil recorded at the pole, or a fitting such as the GY3 insulator or an eye nut - and its tooltip names the part and the document. An AusNet aerial stay is now one within 15° of horizontal, as AusNet's tables have it; a stay between 15° and 30° had been rated as aerial, up to a third high. The Database Editor's new Stays tab edits the ratings, and Edit Point's stay lists offer them.
Clearances In-span clearances on a chart drawn for another conductor are right again nPoles 1.4.191
From 1.4.187 to 1.4.190 the ISD method converted a conductor to the sag of a stringing chart drawn for a different conductor once at every step of the calculation, so the error compounded. A conductor heavier than the chart's own was worked at many times its tension and hung almost straight, reading ground clearances up to 2.5 m too high and showing object clearances that fail as passing; a lighter one sagged far too low, putting clearances up to 4.6 m under the true figure. Anyone who checked clearances in ISD mode on such a chart in those versions should check them again.
Pole Load A conductor past its breaking load is reported, not worked out nPoles 1.4.191
A condition in which a span's conductor would be at or beyond its breaking load is no longer given a result: it reads NO RESULT / BREAKING LOAD and names the string, the span, the conductor and the tension, and is left out of the diagrams and the worst loads recorded on the pole. The same guard covers every clearance. From 1.4.187 to 1.4.190 the ISD fault above put some spans at many times their breaking load and Pole Load printed tip loads in the meganewtons.
Surveying Calculator The Surveying Calculator opens as it did before nPoles 1.4.191
In 1.4.190 the calculator's contents were put inside a scrolling panel so the window would fit a small screen, and inside one the points list stops growing with the window - so it showed a handful of rows where it should show the job. The panel is gone: the survey points sit to the left of the total station and GNSS, the computation functions beside those, and the points list takes whatever height the window has.
LiDAR scans A LiDAR scan can start a job nPoles 1.4.191
A classified scan brought into an empty job now gives a job rather than a set of measurements. The poles are found by shape and by the conductors they carry rather than by a classification number, and each takes the code for what it holds. The conductors are grouped into circuits, with the height and offset each attaches at and its measured position. The job's own conductor strings are created ready for a conductor and a chart. The road edge comes in as lines, with the gaps that are vehicle crossings. And the job's survey centre, date and datum are set from what the scan says about itself. What a scan cannot say - a pole's length or material, a conductor's type, the time of observation where the file carries none - is reported as missing rather than guessed.
Pole Load Stayed poles are checked to the standard chosen nPoles 1.4.191
The wind check of a stayed pole now follows the standard set in User Settings > Pole Load: AS/NZS 7000 (the default), the VESI method of the SECV overhead line design manual, or EN 50341. Since 1.4.127 every wind direction was worked with each span at the tension of the wind across it - the EN 50341 approach - so an angle pole terminated on both sides carried a tension difference across its bisect stay. One such pole read 18.8 kN with its stay; under AS/NZS 7000 it reads 6.3 kN. Reports name the standard used.

September 2026

Map layers An installed map data download is found again nPoles 1.4.190
Every map data component - survey marks, the interstate cadastre, the ACT, New Zealand, Switzerland - unpacks into a folder of its own, and nPoles had never looked there, so a machine that had downloaded the packs could not see them. From 1.4.189 that had a second effect: with no pack found the layer came over the internet instead, which looks right at a desk and draws nothing in the field where there is no signal. nPoles now looks in every folder a component can unpack to.
Dialogs Every dialog opens whole on a small screen nPoles 1.4.190
On a 1280x800 tablet the bottom of User Settings and of Insert Points From File fell below the screen edge, taking the OK and Cancel buttons with them, so the dialog could be closed but not used. Dialogs are now kept within the screen they open on, and the larger ones scroll within themselves rather than growing past it. Every dialog is checked against a tablet screen before each release.
Map layers Map layers draw without the download pack nPoles 1.4.189
The property boundaries, survey marks, road casements, street names, cadastral points, coastline and contours under a job now draw on a machine that has not downloaded the map data for that state. Where the state publishes the layer as a live service nPoles reads it from there; where no government publishes one - Victoria's cadastral points, South Australia's, Queensland's and Tasmania's survey marks, New South Wales' easements and road centrelines, the ACT's road reserves, the whole of New Zealand and Switzerland's fixed points - nPoles serves the layer itself. The download packs are still the right answer in the field: they need no signal and they are faster.
Map layers A map layer can be added to the survey wherever it is drawn nPoles 1.4.189
Add as survey point, Add boundary as survey points and the lasso used to work only from an installed download pack, so on a machine without one the cadastre could be looked at and nothing taken from it. They now work from a layer drawn by either route, and a boundary added carries the same provenance and the same note about the datum it was converted from.
Pole load Every company profile has its own pole types nPoles 1.4.188
Ten profiles were reading the same generic pole file, so no pole ever matched a real one and a pole load came back with no wind on it. Ausgrid’s thirty-five wood poles come from Network Standard NS220, and TasNetworks’ nine from its Distribution Overhead Line standard — the file with TasNetworks’ name on it had held two hundred and fifty-nine of AusNet’s. The Rocla spun concrete and Dulhunty Titan poles are manufactured products sold across Australia rather than any one network’s design, so all eighty-nine are now in every profile. What each profile still wants is its own timber range, which only that company publishes.
Clearances Phase and circuit separation now answers for every company nPoles 1.4.188
Thirteen of the seventeen Australian profiles had no separation method switched on, and the Phase column read "999.00m" on every span — the starting value of a comparison that never happened. Where a company has set no method of its own, AS/NZS 7000 clause 3.7.3 now answers, and the column names the method behind the figure. Circuit to circuit is the same: a pair of voltages missing from a company’s table used to be skipped in silence, which outside Victoria is most pairs. The Victorian minimum separations are deliberately not applied elsewhere — AusNet’s own drawing labels them a SECV requirement — but they are named beside the answer.
Company data nPoles carries a profile inside itself, and asks for the rest nPoles 1.4.188
A machine with no company data installed now opens a job on a built-in SECV profile: its conductors, circuits, pole types and plan symbols, written out on the first start that finds nothing. It carries no stringing charts, because a chart is a distributor’s own design and nPoles will not guess one. nPoles also says so when it starts and finds no company data, or data from a release old enough to be missing the pole, crossarm and insulator databases, and Help > Install company data opens the Maintenance Tool at the component list. The installer now checks that the data actually arrived, rather than reporting success on a component that extracted only part way.
Plan view Survey notes for the marks around the job nPoles 1.4.187
Layers > Survey Notes Nearby lists the survey marks around the centre of the plan view, or around a spot right-clicked on the map, nearest first, with the distance and bearing to each, its status and published height, and the notes its register publishes - the SMES sketch plan and mark report in Victoria, the sketch plan in New South Wales, the locality plan in South Australia, the SurCoM site summary in Tasmania, Landgate’s mark report in Western Australia, the point protocol for a Swiss fixed point and the Geodetic Database page in New Zealand. A note fetched once is kept on the computer, so a sketch plan looked at in the office opens in the field without a connection.
Point Edit Every point carries its photos and its files nPoles 1.4.187
Point Edit, and the point’s own menu in the plan view, open a Photos and Files window: the photos taken in the field and any existing photos, documents or other files attached to the point, in any mix of formats. Attach Files... copies what is picked into the job’s photo folder beside the job file - the same folder nPoles Field mini keeps its photos in - so the files travel with the job, and a push to a linked device now takes all of them. Before this the desktop could only look at the two named pole shots and never saw the other photos a phone had taken.
Company profiles Western Australia: Western Power and Horizon Power nPoles 1.4.187
Horizon Power, regional Western Australia, is now a company profile of its own with twenty-eight stringing charts, and Western Power has forty-one - the rural and urban AAC, AAAC, ACSR, copper and steel charts of the Distribution Construction Standards Handbook Part 10. Every Western Power chart is checked against the handbook at every span and every temperature it publishes: 9644 readings, all agreeing to within 50 mm. Western Power’s conductor, chart and symbol files were not being found at all before this, so the profile had no charts and no conductors.
GNSS GNSS heights: the antenna phase centre comes off nPoles 1.4.186
A receiver reports where its antenna is, not the base of the unit, so every GNSS height stood high by the phase centre's height above the base - 58.3 mm on a SparkPNT FPM-T. The figure now comes off with the antenna height. It is a setting of the receiver, in User Settings under GNSS beside the receiver model, filled from the maker's calibration; each point's height basis names it and the survey log records it.
Point Edit Name your point strings nPoles 1.4.183
The word String beside the string number in Point Edit is now a link: click it and a small box takes a name for that string - William St, kerb, road edge, the pole line - and the box's underlined word lists every string in the job with its name. The name belongs to the string, so every point on it shares it, and it shows wherever the string number does: the string boxes in Point Edit and the Add Point dialogs, the Surveying Calculator's points table and its new String box beside the description code, Clearances Check, the plan view's point description and the tooltip on the string's line. The same link sits beside the string number in the plan view's Add Point dialog and the boundary dialogs. Design > Point String Names lists them all for editing in place. Saved in the job file; nPoles Field mini shows and edits the same names.
Point Edit Total station reads land in every circuit and every box nPoles 1.4.183
Circuits 17 to 24 now take total station readings exactly like 1 to 16: the crossarm height, the three insulator boxes, the three offset boxes and the remark, for a reflectorless read and for a height from the vertical angle. A reflectorless read taken with an offset box selected fills that side's insulator height and offset from the one shot, and the centre conductor offset now carries its side, negative to the left of the line and positive to the right. The boxes that turn green for a stored observation keep the User Settings font, and every job's conductor strings start with Not Active and 0 - Non String on every circuit.
Company data Company data updates keep your edits nPoles 1.4.182
A company data update no longer overwrites the databases and settings profiles a business has edited. nPoles brings the new data in file by file on its next start: new files arrive, untouched files are brought up to date with the old copy kept, and an edited pole, crossarm, insulator, transformer, description-code, timber-species or abbreviation database is merged record by record so your changes and the new shipped entries both survive. Settings profiles merge the same way, field by field, so a shipped profile change now reaches every install for the first time. nPoles says once where the previous data was kept, and warns when the company data installed is older than the program.
Plan view Draw buildings off the aerial image, and the view stays put nPoles 1.4.182
A description code can shade a footprint: a house drawn as a rectangle on the aerial image fills as one shape with an outline, in the colour, pattern, opacity and line width set in the Description Code editor, and an edit saved there shows at once. The drawing tools show the string number a shape goes on, a spacing of 0 keeps only the corners, and a Snap to points tick lets corners land exactly where you click. The view stays where you left it as points are added or edited, a job frames on its survey when opened, and Zoom to survey brings the whole job back.
Plan view Draw, add and level points on the map nPoles 1.4.181
The plan view gains a tool box: measure (now with area), line, arc, circle, rectangle and square tools that generate surveyed points along a shape, on a bearing where the work needs it, with a reduced level looked up for each point as it is made. Right-click blank map space for Add Point Here, with the ground level found from the state's elevation model or contours - Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and Switzerland's terrain model - and Point Edit's Spatial tab has a Look Up RL button for any point. The map can be panned and zoomed 50 km around the job, and the basemap stays exactly on its ground.
Undo Undo for point changes nPoles 1.4.181
An Undo button on the toolbar reverses point-changing actions across nPoles - edits, clones, deletions, point-number swaps, file imports, points added from the map, and whole-survey coordinate changes from Transform Datum, Tie to Control and Re-base Survey - with a history of recent actions that shows exactly what undoing each one will change before it is undone.
Going international Switzerland nPoles 1.4.181
nPoles now works on Swiss jobs end to end. Coordinates are on the LV95 national grid, and GNSS heights are reduced with swisstopo's CHGeo2004 geoid onto whichever height datum the job is set to — LN02, still the official frame and what published fixed-point heights are on, or the modern LHN95, which differ by up to half a metre with elevation. The plan view draws all 32,125 published Swiss fixed points, with heights on 96 per cent of them, as a 13 MB download. A canton's own cadastral survey can be added as well — property boundaries and the communal fixed points that are the marks actually found in a street. The plan view can also draw swisstopo's own maps underneath: the national map in colour or grey, the topographic map, 10 cm aerial imagery, and the 1946 national photograph, which shows a route as the ground was before most of what stands on it now.
Map layers Add map data you are licensed for nPoles 1.4.181
Some survey and cadastral registers are licensed to the surveyor rather than to nPoles, so they cannot be supplied with it — Landgate's Western Australian data, and the Swiss cantons that require a login. Download the GeoPackage under your own licence and add it through Layers, Map Data, and it draws like any other layer. The file stays where you keep it: nPoles neither copies it nor sends it anywhere. Map Data also shows every dataset nPoles can draw, where each came from, and whether its file is on the machine.

August 2026

Registration Registration through work firewalls nPoles 1.4.180
Registering now works from behind company firewalls and proxies: nPoles first uses an ordinary secure web connection — the same kind a browser makes, through the system proxy where one is configured — and only falls back to the classic direct connection if that fails. When a network blocks everything, the new Manual Activation finishes the job with a code from any phone or browser: scan the QR code nPoles shows, receive a short activation code on screen and by email, and type it in. The computer being activated needs no internet at all.
Point editing Reflectorless reads keep the full 3D position nPoles 1.4.180
A reflectorless read on a cross-arm, stay or conductor now stores the shot's full easting, northing and level with the job, not just its height. Heights measured this way show with a light green background, a long press pops up the stored coordinates, and shooting a wire fills in both the insulator height and the conductor offset automatically once the pole face has been shot — in either order. Typing over a green field clears its stored shot, so the colour always tells the truth.
Reports Job Change Report and point backups with notes nPoles 1.4.180
A new Report menu entry lists every point and conductor string that has changed since its earliest backup — what moved, what was re-specified, and by how much — headed with the job, its location and who prepared it, and saved as PDF or spreadsheet. Backups themselves gain a note asked for at the moment they are made, and a Diff button beside each backup shows exactly what differs from the point as it now stands.
Job files Job files that survive anything nPoles 1.4.180
Saving is now crash-proof: the new file is written completely and only then swapped over the old one, so a power loss, crash or full disk mid-save can no longer destroy a job — and a failed save says so instead of pretending. Job files also accept the full character set, stringing chart %MBL limits stop vanishing between sessions, and every file now states its format version and the EPSG code of its map grid so other software can identify the coordinate system at a glance. The same protection covers nPoles Field mini's save-after-every-point on the phone.
Surveying & datums Tie a job to supplied control nPoles 1.4.179
A job surveyed on a local datum can now be tied straight onto supplied coordinates: pick the job points the control belongs to, type the supplied values beside them, and apply the best-fit transformation — rotation, scale and shift fitted over every pair, with each mark's residual shown live so a wrong value stands out before anything moves. The classic hand-over problem, solved properly from the Spatial menu.
Surveying & datums Mine grids as MGA references nPoles 1.4.179
Local site grids that are really a rotated copy of MGA — the Latrobe Valley mine grids — are now first-class: pick the site in Survey Properties and scale factors compute at the true MGA position. Hazelwood and Loy Yang ship as presets, any other site grid can be defined from control pairs, reviewed, edited and saved for future jobs, and a GNSS localisation measured in the field can become a saved site grid in one press.
Point editing Description codes that explain themselves nPoles 1.4.179
The description code list now shows every code with its plan-view symbol and its meaning — wherever points are added or edited. The Database Editor gains a Description Codes tab with symbol previews and a printable symbol legend, and about forty code meanings per utility were recovered from the Victorian distributors' own drafting standards.
Data exchange LandXML points in and out nPoles 1.4.179
Surveys now travel by LandXML in both directions: import a controller's export — Topcon, Trimble, Leica, 12d — with numbers, codes, remarks and the coordinate system checked from the file's own metadata, and export design points the same way for stake out with any brand of field kit. Verified against real Topcon Field controller files.
GNSS surveying Survey with a GNSS receiver nPoles 1.4.178
Live GNSS has arrived: connect an RTK receiver over the network or Bluetooth, feed it corrections over NTRIP with the free caster networks preset, and accept fixed positions straight into the job — with stake out, site calibration onto local coordinates, short-occupation averaging and heights on real AHD. A total station is no longer the only way to survey with nPoles.
Coordinates Ground coordinates for title work nPoles 1.4.178
Survey Properties can nominate an origin mark and nPoles then shows ground coordinates scaled about it — in the points list, the point editor, the Measure tool and the CAD exports — exactly the way a field controller's grid-to-ground switch works. The job file stays on the grid, and every exported drawing now states its coordinate basis.
Going international New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa and the world's UTM zones nPoles 1.4.178
Jobs can now be surveyed on NZGD2000 with full New Zealand map layers, on Ireland's ITM grid, on South Africa's LO system, and on plain WGS84 UTM zones north or south of the equator — the modern grids of much of Asia and Africa.
Plan view Lasso map data into the survey nPoles 1.4.178
Drag a loop around an area and everything inside it from the layers switched on — survey marks, cadastral corners, property and road boundaries — is offered for adding to the survey in bulk, with counts and description codes to review before anything lands.
Plan view Measure anything on the plan nPoles 1.4.176
A Measure button chains taps into a run with every leg labelled — distance, grid bearing, height difference and running total — snapping to survey points, marks, spans and boundaries, or measuring to any spot on the street map.
Map layers Map layers across Australia nPoles 1.4.175
The survey marks and property boundary layers now cover New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT alongside Victoria — nearly 700,000 survey marks in all. nPoles picks the right state's data from where the survey is, and a job near a border shows both sides at once.
Coordinates GDA94 and GDA2020, transformed properly nPoles 1.4.175
Surveys transform between GDA94 and GDA2020 in both directions using the official ICSM transformation grid — centimetre level, Australia-wide — so data supplied in one datum can be delivered in the other.
Installing Every version side by side, in one folder nPoles 1.4.174
One nPoles folder now holds every installed version, ticked on and off in a single maintenance tool. Data, settings, registration and the map datasets are shared, so updating never re-downloads or loses anything — and an old version stays installed for old jobs.
Map layers Victorian survey marks and cadastre on the plan nPoles 1.4.173
The plan view can draw the state's survey control marks (SMES) — with each mark's sketch plan and full report a tap away, readable offline once opened — plus property boundaries, road casements, street names, cadastral corner accuracy, contours and the coastline. Marks, corners and boundary lines can be added straight into the job as survey points.

July 2026

Plan view The street map under the survey nPoles 1.4.171
An OpenStreetMap basemap can be drawn beneath the survey points, cached so it still shows without an internet connection, with a Street View button to look at any spot from the road. A job can also be started from a street address, framing the plan before a single point is read.
Pole Load Timber pole strength from the timber itself nPoles 1.4.171
A timber pole's rating now follows its species and measured dimensions: the strength group, surveyed girth and diameters drive the short- and long-duration strengths, the deflection limit and the AS/NZS 7000 limit-state capacity — in place of fixed factors.
Job safety Rebuild a job from its survey log nPoles 1.4.170
If a project file is ever lost or corrupted, File → Import can rebuild the job from its survey log. An optional setting logs the complete job on every save, so even conductors, stays and pole data can be recovered.

June 2026

Assistant Ask the nPoles Assistant nPoles 1.4.165
An in-app assistant (Shift+F1) answers questions from the reference manual with its sources shown, and can look at the open job — how many poles, where point 72 is, what conductor runs where — pointing at the plan view as it answers.

April 2026

3D views Inspect and measure in the 3D views nPoles 1.4.153
Click any object in a 3D view to see its real properties — pole dimensions, crossarm code, conductor, stay wire — with every value tagged as surveyed, from the database or estimated; and measure between any two points with the vertical and horizontal components shown.

March 2026

Field use An on-screen keyboard built for the field nPoles 1.4.150
A virtual keyboard made for gloved hands and bright sun: numeric, compact and full layouts with the degree and diameter symbols surveying needs, working on every kind of field — spinboxes, bearings and dropdowns included — without the Windows touch keyboard fighting it.
Pole Load Pole schedule schematics nPoles 1.4.142
Pole Load draws the pole as a schedule-style stick diagram — attachments, stays, crossarm codes and loads — exportable as an image or straight into CAD as a DXF, in flat or semi-3D style.

February 2026

3D views Walk the route in 3D nPoles 1.4.135
A new Route View draws the whole job in three dimensions — poles, crossarms, conductors, stays and the surveyed surrounds along the real route — alongside the single-pole sketch and clearance views.
Pole Load Bending moment and deflection diagrams nPoles 1.4.127
Pole loading now draws the full picture: a bending moment diagram with the pole's capacity envelope — bolt-hole reductions included — and a deflection profile checked against the allowed limit, for timber, concrete and TITAN poles alike.

January 2026

Capacity Room for 24 circuits on a pole nPoles 1.4.126
The point editor, clearance checks and pole loading all now carry 24 circuit attachments per pole, up from 20 — enough for the busiest joint-use poles.

The complete change log — every release, every fix — is at npoles.com/changelog.html. Licences and renewals are on the customer portal.