What's New — nPoles

What's new in nPoles

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

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The full story of the last 3 months.

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.

3D views Bridging insulators as the drawings place them nPoles 1.4.204

A strain's bridges go over its crossarm unless the circuit's "Bridges under the arm" is ticked, each over its own bridging insulator in line with its strain insulators. A strain under another circuit is bridged as the company's drawing has it: on AusNet's 22 kV subsidiary strain the inside phase's bridging insulator lies out of the crossarm's end and the centre phase's on a bracket 700 mm above the arm.

3D views Crossarms sized by voltage nPoles 1.4.204

A crossarm the survey does not record, where no standard construction fits, is drawn at the length the companies use for its voltage - 2.1 m up to 22 kV, 2.6 m at 33 kV, 3.2 m at 66 kV - so its phases are their normal distance apart at the pole.

3D views Extreme offsets drawn from the remark nPoles 1.4.204

A circuit whose remark says it is on an extreme offset - EX OS, EXT O/S and the like - is drawn on the company's extreme offset construction, every phase on an arm reaching to one side of the pole.

3D views Centre phases strained with their circuit nPoles 1.4.204

A centre phase recorded on a string of its own, set in String Properties as the same circuit as its crossarm's string, is strained and bridged with the other two phases where the circuit is strained, on its own bridging insulator.

Clearances Each phase on its own side in the Clearances 3D View nPoles 1.4.204

At the middle pole of a check, a circuit ending there or strained each way keeps each phase on its own side of the line, where its conductors crossed through each other in the span.

3D views A string back on its pole runs no span nPoles 1.4.204

A conductor string recorded again on a pole it has already reached - as on a junction point copied from its pole's point - runs no span back to that pole in the 3D views, Pole Load and Clearances. Pole Load counted that span twice.

General Toolbars back at every start nPoles 1.4.204

The File, Point, Tools, Design and View toolbars show at every start, and are back for anybody who had lost them after a start that ended without the window being closed.

Pole Load Reports fit their window nPoles 1.4.204

Pole Load's Summary and Detailed Reports wrap their longest sentences - the wind conditions among them - where they ran past the right of the window.

3D views The measurement box closes with its window nPoles 1.4.204

Closing a 3D window with Measure still on, or leaving it with Esc, takes the measurement box away with it.

3D views Junction poles drawn as built nPoles 1.4.204

A line ending or starting at a pole where a junction point stands has its crossarm square to its own span, and the Clearances 3D View draws two lines leaving a pole on one arm, or a line turning a sharp corner there, as the Route View does.

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 Poles drawn at their real size nPoles 1.4.203

The 3D views draw each pole at the size Pole Load works it - its record in the company's pole database for its material, length and strength, and what was measured of a pole that stays - where every pole was drawn at one default size. Crossarms, insulators, stays and equipment sit on the pole's surface as drawn.

3D views Junction poles and corners drawn as built nPoles 1.4.203

Where a pole is recorded on two points - the pole's own and a junction point on its spot - the 3D views draw what is built: a line turning a corner on one arm on its bisector; two lines leaving the same way on one strain arm, each dead-ended toward its own span; a line turning 90 degrees or more as a strain, its slack side too. A junction point is drawn on its pole, at the pole's surveyed top.

3D views Bridging insulators nPoles 1.4.203

Bridges at a strain rest on bridging insulators, as the companies' strain drawings show them: an upright post on the crossarm's end for each outer phase, and on the pole top for the centre phase, strained on the pole.

Point Edit Structure type first, and tee-on nPoles 1.4.203

A circuit's Structure window asks the structure type first and lists only the constructions of that type for the circuit's voltage, pole and conductors. T/ON, the tee-on, joins T/O, the tee-off, in the profiles, and the tee-on constructions are filed under it.

Point Edit A crossarm turned as chosen nPoles 1.4.203

A circuit's Structure window asks which way its crossarm is turned - on the bisector of the circuit's spans, or square to the span back or ahead - and every 3D view, and the CAD files exported from them, turn it so.

Point Edit Heights measured from the pole top nPoles 1.4.203

A circuit's Height box takes T-0.6 for 0.6 m below the pole top, beside -1.2 for 1.2 m below the row above and +0.6 for 0.6 m above the row below. A panel under the box shows the height it works out to and what it is measured from.

Point Edit Copy data from Point keeps the strings nPoles 1.4.203

Copy data from Point keeps the conductor strings of a point already in the job, where it took the other point's strings with its circuits; when the two points' strings differ it asks first.

Pole Load A wood pole's long-duration limit from the drawing nPoles 1.4.203

Design Stress takes a wood pole's long-duration (LDL) limit from SECV drawing VX9/7020/105A for its size - 3.3 kN for a 17 m 12 kN pole - where it was worked out from the pole's dimensions, as much as 30 % under the drawing. It is still worked out where the point records the timber species and a measured diameter.

Clearances Clearances easier to read, Edit Point quicker nPoles 1.4.203

Each block's figures sit on the same rows as their captions and can be selected and copied, and Edit Point opens from Clearances as quickly as from the main window after its first press.

3D views Street lights over the road nPoles 1.4.203

A street light with no stay or road edge to go by points away from the property boundary the job surveys, over the road, where its side was guessed.

Plan view Double-click a point to edit it nPoles 1.4.203

A double-click on a point, or on its number, opens Edit Point, and the list of everything under the pointer gives the poles first, each in number order.

Surveying Copy coordinates between two points nPoles 1.4.203

Point > Swap Points copies point 1's easting, northing and RL to point 2, its backups with it, keeping everything else.

General An "&" in a name shows as written nPoles 1.4.203

Menus, buttons and tick boxes show an "&" in a name as written, where it was taken as a keyboard shortcut and not drawn.

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 Insulators drawn as they are made nPoles 1.4.202

The 3D views draw each insulator as the catalogue and the companies' drawings show it: a clamp-top post with the clamp, keeper and bolts on its cap, a tie-top or pin insulator with the groove and neck its conductor and tie sit in, sheds with rounded rims, glazed porcelain, a strain disc with its cap, shell and pin, and polymer insulators in grey. A STEP file has them as solids; a DXF draws them as the view does, so a long route's DXF is more than twice the size it was.

3D views Stays drawn as they hang nPoles 1.4.202

A stay looped round a concrete pole is drawn from its steel band at the back of the pole, round each side of the pole and down to its insulator at one angle, where it was drawn level and through the pole. A footpath stay's strut is bolted through a wood pole.

3D views A pole too short for its conductors is flagged nPoles 1.4.202

A pole whose surveyed top is too low for the conductors recorded on it keeps its surveyed top, its conductors are drawn at their recorded heights, and it is marked in red with both heights. Its crossarm was pulled down under the top with its conductors - on one job a new 66 kV line's end was drawn 1.5 m low among the 22 kV.

Pole Load Pole Load with ISD three times as fast nPoles 1.4.202

Pole Load with ISD, Clearances by ISD, the ISD window and Chart Finder find each conductor tension in about 11 steps where it took about 800 - a 201-pole job is worked through in 35 s rather than 108 s, with the same figures.

Pole Load A pole with no coordinates is named, not worked out nPoles 1.4.202

Pole Load, Clearances and the MES Calculator leave out a pole with no coordinates, and the spans to it, and name the pole to survey. Its spans were measured from 0, 0, thousands of kilometres long, so its tip loads, its clearances and the MES read like results, and one such pole on a string put the string's MES at millions of metres.

Surveying Point On Line offsets go to the side they name nPoles 1.4.202

In Point On Line an offset of 2.5L goes 2.5 m to the left of the line and 2.5R to the right; every offset went to the right, whatever its letter.

Import Inserted points take their places by number nPoles 1.4.202

Points brought in by Insert File or File > Import go into the job in point-number order, where they went in after its last point, so the Surveying Calculator listed them last. A job already saved that way is put in order by saving any point in Point Edit.

Help Pictures with a bug report or idea nPoles 1.4.202

Help > Send Bug or Idea takes up to five pictures with a report - a screenshot pasted after Windows + Shift + S or Print Screen, or picture files added or dropped on the window. A large one is made smaller to send, and Save to File saves them beside the report.

Field use The Surveying Calculator fits a tablet's screen nPoles 1.4.202

On a tablet's screen, such as a 1280 x 800 one at 150 %, all the comps' function buttons fit at each company profile's font size, and the Surveying Calculator is only as wide as what it shows. Connect Station shows only with the station panel.

3D views A circuit drawn as one construction at a pole nPoles 1.4.202

A slack span beside a span strung at full tension is strained with it, and a slack span ending at a pole is strained where the pole is stayed against it, else on posts. In the Clearances 3D View a pole strained each way is drawn on one arm; in the route's 3D View a top phase recorded on a row of its own takes its arm's centre insulator and strain, and on a pole substation its lead down to its fuse.

3D views Vibration dampers round their conductors nPoles 1.4.202

In the route's 3D View and the Clearances 3D View a vibration damper winds round its conductor and bends with it, where it sat partly inside the conductor or off it, and in all three 3D views a damper on a sloping conductor is round it rather than flattened.

Surveying & datums An address abroad looked up in Survey Properties nPoles 1.4.202

Look Up of an address in another country than the job's datum no longer sets the job's zone or a survey centre, and the electricity company is looked up for an Australian address only - a Swiss postcode was read as a Victorian one.

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.

Field use The on-screen keyboard stays where it is put, and out of the way nPoles 1.4.201

The on-screen keyboard opens where it was last put, at the size it was given, from one session to the next - at the bottom right beside the total station's readings, if that is where it works best. It no longer comes up for Read Diameter's readings, which are shown read-only, and the Surveying Calculator's comps stand at the top of their column - the inputs, Calculate and the Outputs one under the other - with the keyboard's room left below them.

3D views An arm strained each way on the same face in every 3D view nPoles 1.4.201

Pole Load's 3D View draws an arm strained each way on the face toward the next pole along its string, as the route's 3D View does; it was drawn on one face or the other as the line turned.

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.

Insert File Text files read the right way round, checked before they go in nPoles 1.4.200

Insert File works out a text file's columns - the delimiter, a header line, and which column is the point number, easting, northing, RL and code - so a file written northing first reads the right way round. The Data columns tab shows the file as it will be read: a click on a column's heading changes what it holds, and anything that does not fit is listed with a one-click fix. Point numbers the job already holds are asked about once, in one list, and the Insert Option chosen is kept for next time. Prompt For Point Number can abort the whole insert, leaving the job as it was.

3D views Staggered centre phases and slack strains drawn as built nPoles 1.4.200

A centre phase out on the pole's side changes side from one pole to the next down the line, as staggered lines are built, or stands on the side its row records. A strain with a slack span one way has its crossarm square to the full-tension span, on the back of the pole from it, and a strain pole whose top phase is on a row of its own one way is drawn as one structure.

3D views Insulators drawn as their records give them nPoles 1.4.200

A porcelain post insulator is drawn with its sheds all one size, and a post on the pole's side - a centre phase's or a lone conductor's - is drawn as a post like an arm's own. An arm that mounts only on the pole top, such as AusNet's SL2, keeps its place there in Pole Load's 3D View.

Insert File Blank lines, headers and leading zeros nPoles 1.4.200

A text file no longer stops at a blank line or a line without the delimiter, a header line is no longer inserted as a point, and a LandXML, Topcon or MAXML point numbered with leading zeros, such as 035, is the job's point 35.

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.

Pole Load A replacement pole is analysed as the new pole nPoles 1.4.199

A new pole, or one replacing another, is analysed as its pole record draws it. The tip, ground line and girth recorded on its point were measured on the pole it replaces and are no longer taken as the new pole's; the replaced pole's backup is still analysed with them.

Pole Load Footings rated on the pole the wind load uses nPoles 1.4.199

The footing is rated on the same pole record as the wind load, with the pole's measured diameters where they were recorded. In several profiles the common 12 kN concrete poles had been rated at 0 kN. The window and the summary report say which record the rating used and what was estimated, and a Brinch Hansen rating takes the pole's ground line, a measured girth included.

Pole Load Wood poles rated on what was measured nPoles 1.4.199

A wood pole that stays is rated on its measured tip or ground line, so a large pole marked 8 kN is rated on its own size and timber.

Company data The standard concrete poles in the pole lists nPoles 1.4.199

AusNet, JEN and Jemena list only the 300 mm tip 12 kN concrete poles under 20 m that the standards give. Generic Rocla records with no dimensions are gone wherever the same pole has a full record, and JEN's 14 m 8 kN concrete pole is back.

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.

LiDAR The LiDAR import fits each crossarm to the company's constructions nPoles 1.4.198

Each circuit a scan puts on a crossarm comes in with what the company's own lists say of what the scan shows: its structure type, the crossarm of the length and material measured, each insulator and whether it stands or lies, and the standard construction that agrees with nearly every measurement. The measured heights and offsets are kept, and the import says what each circuit was given and why.

LiDAR Pole type and stays from the scan nPoles 1.4.198

A pole comes in as wood or concrete, read from the shape of its shaft - wood where it shows a tree's marks, concrete only where it is round, straight and tapered as a spun pole is. The stays holding a pole up come in too: each one's height, bearing and angle, and a footpath stay's strut. Anything the scan cannot show is left to be set by hand.

LiDAR A scan that is not classified comes in nPoles 1.4.198

nPoles finds the ground in a scan that carries no ground class, so the ground under each span, and a new job's terrain, come in from it; the import window ticks "nPoles finds the ground itself" for such a scan and says so. Poles, conductors, trees and buildings still come from the scan's own classes.

Import A new job takes the company where its data is nPoles 1.4.198

Importing a LiDAR scan, LandXML, a Topcon job or Insert File into a new job looks up where the data is and switches the job to the profile of the company whose network it is on before the import, so its parts and constructions are used; the address goes into Survey Properties. Looking up an address in Survey Properties now switches a new job's company too.

3D views The Clearances 3D View draws each voltage as one structure nPoles 1.4.198

Each voltage at a pole is drawn as one structure, as Pole Load's 3D View draws it: the crossarm from the row that carries it, the top phase on the pole top or a pole-top crossarm, each phase strung on a string of its own where its row records it, and the check's first and last poles from their own rows.

Plan view Symbols and lines the same size on screen nPoles 1.4.198

The plan's symbols and lines can be kept the same size on screen as it is zoomed, as the point numbers are - User Settings > General > Plan View. A pole seen closely on an aerial photograph is no longer hidden under its own symbol, and with a whole job in view every point still shows its symbol.

Point Edit The insulator words of the Victorian field books nPoles 1.4.198

AusNet's insulator list carries the insulators of AusNet's Insulator Identification Manual found on its network, and the field book's words - 4 SH or 4SI, CYCLO, CYCLO PIN, BRN FOG and WHT FOG - reach the 22 kV posts, pins and fog pins they name in the AusNet, JEN, United Energy, SECV, Jemena and Powercor profiles, where they reached LV pins and fog discs.

Point Edit The construction picked, summarised in the Structure window nPoles 1.4.198

Under the Construction box a line or two gives the construction's name, its drawing and the line deviation it takes, and More information... shows the whole of its entry, the parts it fills and its drawing's notes, to read and copy.

Point Edit Centre insulator side nPoles 1.4.198

A circuit's Structure window records which side of the pole the centre insulator is on, for 66 kV and 22 kV lines whose centre insulator changes side from pole to pole; Generate ends the circuit's description with an arrow for it.

Point Edit The parts for the circuit's voltage nPoles 1.4.198

The Structure window's Arm and Insulator lists offer the LV parts for an LV circuit and the HV ones for an HV circuit, read from its conductor string, as the Construction list does.

3D views AusNet's clamp-top posts where no insulator is recorded nPoles 1.4.198

In the AusNet profile a circuit that records no insulator is drawn on the clamp-top posts AusNet builds with now - the vertical one standing, the horizontal one lying out of the crossarm's end - where it was drawn on the 9-shed tie-top.

Plan view A drag on a symbol or a line pans the plan nPoles 1.4.198

A drag begun on a point's symbol, a line, a survey mark or inside a property boundary pans the plan, as one on open ground does; a tap still opens the menu of what was tapped.

Plan view An edited point keeps its symbol's size nPoles 1.4.198

After a point is edited its symbol is redrawn the same size as the others; it was drawn a quarter bigger until the plan was next redrawn.

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.

Point Edit Pick a standard construction for a circuit nPoles 1.4.197

A circuit's Structure window lists the company's standard pole constructions - from Jemena's and AusNet's design manuals, 66 kV to LV - for the circuit's voltage and the pole's type. Picking one fills the structure type, crossarm, insulators and whether each stands or lies, and names its drawing and page; the circuit keeps the construction picked, and the 3D views build it as its drawing does. Each construction's whole title shows as a tooltip.

3D views A click in the Route 3D View opens a menu nPoles 1.4.197

A click on a pole, a crossarm, a stay or a conductor in the Route 3D View opens a menu of what can be done with it: Edit, Pole Load, Describe, Photos and Files, Street View and Fly to, a crossarm's Structure window, a conductor string's properties. After a change made from the menu the view is redrawn where it was.

3D views Street View from the 3D views nPoles 1.4.197

Pole Load's 3D View and the Route 3D View have a Street View button that opens the pole in Google Street View in the browser, the nearest panorama turned to face it. The pole is placed by the job's datum and zone; a job on a local grid or AGD cannot be placed, and the button says so.

3D views The Route 3D View opens again in a second or two nPoles 1.4.197

Opening the Route 3D View again after a change to the job, and its Pole Tilt and T-Off Poles buttons, take a second or two. The view was rebuilt piece by piece, which took a minute or more on larger jobs and up to 15 minutes on the largest, with nPoles not responding meanwhile.

Pole Load Angle structures are taken as intermediates nPoles 1.4.197

A circuit whose structure type is an angle type - AT1, AT1A, AT1B, AT2 or AT3 - is taken as an intermediate in Pole Load, the 3D views and Fill offsets, its conductor running on over the pole. It was taken as a termination: Pole Load took a stay to hold the conductors on one side alone, and the 3D views drew a strain crossarm.

Pole Load Pole Load names the conductor strings it leaves out nPoles 1.4.197

A red line under Pole Load's results names each conductor string the loads leave out, and why - no conductor chosen, no stringing chart, a conductor or chart not in the company's lists, or a string number the job has no string for. Such a string's wind and tension were left out without a word.

Help Reports carry the open job, and a hang is reported nPoles 1.4.197

Help > Send Bug or Idea sends the job that is open with the report, unsaved changes included, unless its tickbox is cleared. When nPoles has not answered for 15 seconds it notes where it is stuck; closed from Task Manager while stuck, it offers to send a report at the next start, as it does after a crash.

LiDAR The LiDAR import brings in drop-out fuses nPoles 1.4.197

The LiDAR import finds the drop-out fuses on a pole, measures their tops and records them as an HV FUSES row of the pole's circuits, which the 3D views draw with their leads. Fuses or insulators side by side at one height are no longer read as a crossarm.

3D views A strain each way where the stringing chart changes nPoles 1.4.197

Where one conductor string ends at a pole and another, strung to another stringing chart or MES, carries the line on, Pole Load's 3D View draws the pole strained each way, as the Route 3D View does, every phase at the crossarm's height. A span is drawn slack, on post insulators, by its stringing chart alone.

3D views Footpath stays drawn with their strut nPoles 1.4.197

A footpath stay is drawn with its strut out of the pole at the recorded height and length, the stay wire down to the strut's end and then straight down to its anchor. It was drawn as a plain stay, its wire reaching the ground well out from the pole.

3D views An ABC drawn on its own clamp nPoles 1.4.197

Where bare LV conductors end at a pole and an aerial bundled cable (ABC) begins, the Route 3D View draws the bare conductors on a crossarm of their own and the ABC on its clamp on the pole. They were drawn as one run, on a crossarm each way.

3D views The line post where no insulator is recorded nPoles 1.4.197

An HV insulator the survey does not record is drawn as the company's line post for the voltage - the 485 mm 9-shed post at 11 and 22 kV, the 785 mm 17-shed post at 66 kV. A 0.35 m post was drawn at every voltage.

3D views No database error from the 3D views nPoles 1.4.197

The 3D views read the company profile's own pole, crossarm and insulator files, so the "Database loading incomplete" error no longer appears, and the Clearances 3D View draws the profile's crossarms and insulators without another 3D view being opened first.

Point Edit Two switches for a circuit's crossarm nPoles 1.4.197

A circuit's Structure window has "Arm on the front of the pole", for a strain crossarm ending its line that is on its span's side - such arms are drawn on the back of the pole - and "Bridges under the arm", for a strain whose bridges hang under the crossarm. Both are saved with the job and drawn by the 3D views.

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.

3D views Pole substations drawn where the survey records them nPoles 1.4.196

Pole Load's 3D View, the Route 3D View and the Clearances 3D View draw a pole substation's transformer between the rows of the point's circuits that name its top and bottom - TOP OF TX, BOT OF TX and the like - or hung from a top, or stood on a bottom, recorded alone. A pole substation's description code (S1, S2, SS and the like) with no such rows draws it 60 % up the pole, paler, as an estimate. A transformer was drawn only where the point's Sub Station records one, which is still the one Pole Load counts.

3D views The Route 3D View draws every pole nPoles 1.4.196

A pole whose tee-off (T-off) record is numbered before the pole's own record is drawn in the Route 3D View. The two records took each other as the pole's T-off, so the pole was not drawn at all - no pole, stays, label or transformer - and on some poles the crossarm was missing, the conductors meeting in the air.

Plan view The Lasso picks up surveyed points nPoles 1.4.196

A loop drawn with the Lasso now takes in the job's own points as well as map features. They are listed, ticked and ringed on the plan, to delete in one step that Undo brings back, or to copy to a new job file with the conductor strings they carry, the custom charts those strings use and their photos and files. The open job is left as it is.

Import Insert File reads LandXML, Topcon and MAXML files nPoles 1.4.196

Point > Insert File reads LandXML, Topcon Field jobs (.mjf) and MAXML files (.mxl) as well as nPoles jobs, text files and DOS POLES surveys. The file type follows the file chosen, and a controller's file is checked as File > Import checks it - its datum, its ground scaling and string numbers the job already uses.

Conductor strings Duplicating a string keeps everything nPoles 1.4.196

Duplicate in String Properties' Points Tools makes the new string what the original is on each pole - its insulator positions and conductor offsets, crossarm, structure, insulators, remark and recorded weather. It kept only the heights, so a duplicated phase of a circuit strung a phase to a string came out on the pole's centreline. A new With its phases option duplicates such a circuit whole, and Split, Delete and the height sort now carry or clear a circuit completely.

Field use Both keyboards on screen no longer close nPoles nPoles 1.4.196

On a touch or pen tablet, closing the Windows touch keyboard while the nPoles keyboard was up could end nPoles without warning. That is fixed. A Windows keyboard already on screen is closed when the nPoles keyboard appears, and while the nPoles keyboard is on, Windows no longer offers its own keyboard or handwriting panel for nPoles fields.

Files Save As and Quick Backup take the photos and survey log nPoles 1.4.196

File > Save As offers to copy a job's photos and files beside the new file, or says that they stay with the old one, and takes the survey log to the new name so its history carries on. File > Quick Backup backs up the photos, files and survey log with the job, bringing a changed photo up to date.

Pole Load Pole Load's 3D View hangs conductors as Pole Load works them out nPoles 1.4.196

Each conductor in Pole Load's 3D View hangs on the stringing chart's catenary for the condition shown, between its attachments as surveyed, the span's rise or fall included, and its DXF and STEP carry that curve. The view had drawn a sag of its own from a fixed conductor weight, and on a strain pole the conductors past a change in tension came out nearly straight.

Exports DXF drawings open in AutoCAD 2014 nPoles 1.4.196

Export to DXF drawings open in AutoCAD with the company profile's symbols and pass its AUDIT with no errors - AutoCAD 2014 had discarded any drawing carrying the symbols, and every company profile adds them. Pole Load's stick diagram passes AUDIT too, and a DWG saved in AutoCAD from any nPoles DXF now opens.

MES Calculator Conductor length follows the pole heights again nPoles 1.4.196

The MES Calculator works each span's conductor between its two attachments, so a height changed on a pole changes the length strung and unstressed. In 1.4.193 to 1.4.195 every span was worked as though level, which left lengths on sloping ground short - about 0.5 % where the spans average a 10 % slope.

Chart Finder Point B follows Point A nPoles 1.4.196

Picking Point A in Chart Finder moves Point B to the next pole on the conductor string, so the pair is always a span; from the string's last pole, Point B is the pole before it. Point B can still be picked on its own.

3D views Pole Load's 3D View and the Route 3D View agree on a structure nPoles 1.4.196

Both views take a structure's crossarm, type and insulators from whichever circuit row records each one, and draw a circuit on a strain crossarm (SL22, SL26...) with no structure type as a strain. A crossarm whose conductors were shot is drawn along the shots, and an intermediate crossarm at an angle pole lies on the bisector of the line's deviation. A conductor string running through a pole is drawn as an intermediate in both unless a strain is recorded there, and a recorded strain on it is drawn toward each span. The Route 3D View had strained such a string wherever its spans differed by more than 2:1, with insulators on one side only.

Help The log says how the last run ended nPoles 1.4.196

After a run that did not close normally, the nPoles log records what Windows saw - a crash, or not responding and closed - so a report sent with Help > Send Bug or Idea shows what happened.

Map layers Survey Plans and Field Records say when LASSI added each plan nPoles 1.4.196

An Added to LASSI column gives the day LASSI put each plan's label on its map - the plan is at least that old - or old for one LASSI held before it began keeping those dates in 2003, and for plans of the series that closed in 1990. LASSI keeps no date for applications and field notes.

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.

Sharing Share a job by email with anyone nPoles 1.4.195

File > Send > Share by email (web link) sends the open job to anyone by email, through the nPoles portal, with its photos and PDFs. They open the link in a web browser, with nothing to install, to view and print the job - not to change it - for 30 days, its photos in the job's point details. The job goes as it is saved, so changes not yet saved are saved first when asked; a large picture goes smaller and the right way up, and files a browser cannot open, such as Word and Excel documents, stay behind, as the dialog says. File > Send > Shared jobs lists the jobs shared, how many photos and PDFs went with each and when each was opened, and revokes a link at once. Sharing needs a registered nPoles; nPoles opened from the portal in a browser shares a job too, without its photos.

Registration Registering behind a company firewall, and leaving without a connection nPoles 1.4.195

Manual Activation, for a computer whose network blocks the registration service, now opens the activation page in the computer's own browser - which often gets out through a company proxy when nPoles cannot - with the name and email from User Settings filled in, and on a computer already registered it brings the licence up to date, a renewed support contract for example, without a connection. A computer that cannot reach the server can now be de-activated too: nPoles clears its licence and shows a release code that frees the key from any phone or browser. A proxy that asks for a user name and password is now asked about, the password never stored, and a failed attempt always says what went wrong and offers the way round it.

Jobs A start screen, and File > Close nPoles 1.4.195

With no job open - when nPoles starts without one, or a job is closed - the main window shows a start screen: New job, Open, Import and the recent jobs with their folders, a double-click opening one. File > Close is new: it closes the job, asking to save it first if it has changed. A new job opens its Survey Properties first - its details, datum and zone, an address to look up - offers the instrument's first setup as point 1 on a LOCAL datum, and starts on an empty plan, where the last job's points and strings had been left on show. The start screen can be turned off in User Settings, General.

Reports Print Scaled prints at its scale nPoles 1.4.195

File > Print Scaled asks the scale, from 1:100 to 1:10 000, and prints the survey at exactly that scale: one sheet where it fits, otherwise as many sheets of the printer's paper as it needs - only those the survey runs through, each framed and captioned with the job, the scale, the sheet's number and the date. It used to print far smaller than the scale it named, on one sheet.

Pole Load A transformer's wind counts in Design Stress nPoles 1.4.195

A pole-mounted transformer's wind load now counts in Design Stress by default, as it already did in Limit State, so a substation adds its wind to the pole's load as well as its bending moment. Before, it counted only when ticked in User Settings, under Pole Load, Design Stress, Wind load on transformer. The company profiles that come with nPoles take the change with this update; a profile of your own keeps its setting.

Pole Load A transformer's height says where it was measured nPoles 1.4.195

Some transformers hang from brackets at the top of the tank, others sit on a platform under it, so the Sub Station height in Point Edit now says what it is measured to - the top of the tank, its bottom or its centre. Pole Load puts the transformer's wind at the centre of its tank and the 3D views draw it there, at its size in the transformer database. A transformer is also matched by the description it was picked by, so a 25 kVA or 50 kVA 3-phase unit no longer takes a single-phase unit's figures, and the AusNet, Powercor and SECV transformer weights and heights follow CitiPower/Powercor's current standard.

Pole Load Every company profile has its own transformers nPoles 1.4.195

Ausgrid, Endeavour, Essential, Evoenergy, Energex, Ergon Energy, Western Power, Horizon Power, NT Power and Water, SA Power Networks, TasNetworks, JEN, Jemena and United Energy each have a transformer database of their own, with the ratings the network's standards list, so Point Edit offers that network's transformers and Pole Load and the 3D views use their weights and sizes. Where a network publishes masses, sizes or wind areas they are its own; elsewhere they are estimated from other networks' published figures, and each transformer's notes say which. The AusNet, Powercor and SECV databases gain the ratings their networks list and the sizes of published units.

Pole Load A transformer measured where it hangs nPoles 1.4.195

A reflectorless shot on the middle of a pole-mounted transformer's face, with Point Edit's Sub Station height focused, records where its tank's centre is - halfway between the pole's surface and that face - and Pole Load then takes the transformer's weight at that measured offset from the pole instead of an estimate. The report says which it used, and the 3D views draw the tank where it was measured.

LiDAR scans Transformers found on their poles nPoles 1.4.195

A LiDAR scan import finds a transformer hung on a pole and records it on that pole: the Sub Station fields, with the height to the centre of its tank and the side of the pole it stands on, and the tank's measured centre, which Pole Load takes the weight's offset from. A scan shows the tank's size but not its nameplate, so the transformer recorded is the heaviest of that size in the company's transformer database for the phases its line carries, and the point says so - check the rating against the nameplate. The import lists what it found on each pole before anything is added, and a transformer's own tank, boxes and bushings no longer come in as crossarms.

Pole Load Pole Load and Clearances open with room to work in nPoles 1.4.195

On a screen with room, Pole Load and Clearances now open at most of the screen nPoles is on - centred, short of the whole screen so the main window still shows round them - instead of at a field tablet's size, so they no longer need dragging bigger every time. With nPoles on a second or third monitor they open on that monitor, sized for it. On a 1280 x 800 tablet they still fit the screen, and Pole Load opened again keeps the size it was left at.

Pole Load A transformer's weight counts on every pole nPoles 1.4.195

Pole Load now counts a pole-mounted transformer's own bending moment - its weight hanging off the pole - on a pole without stays as well as a stayed one, and the B.M. Plot draws it from the transformer down. A transformer whose centre is measured bends the pole toward the side it hangs on, adding to the load on that side and taking from it on the other; one not measured is taken at its full moment in whichever direction the pole is loaded most.

Pole Load AusNet poles worked by the SECV manual's wind method nPoles 1.4.195

Pole Load on the AusNet profile now works the wind conditions by VESI - the method of the SECV Overhead Line Design Manual, which AusNet's design manual 4104A copies - instead of AS/NZS 7000. Each span takes the tension of the wind it sees, and a stayed pole is checked with the wind in line with and across each stay, so results in the wind conditions can change. AS/NZS 7000 can still be chosen in User Settings, Pole Load.

Pole Load A Construction load type for One side only nPoles 1.4.195

A test condition's Load Type can be Construction as well as SDL or LDL, in Design Stress and in Limit State: a short-duration condition with only one side's conductors erected, as during construction or maintenance. One side only is worked out in Construction conditions, and only in those; it had been worked out in every condition, the full wind and the long-duration one among them. The JEN, AusNet, UED, Powercor, SECV and Jemena profiles have Design Stress condition 4 as a Construction condition at 15°C and 100 Pa; in Limit State, and in a profile without one, a condition is made Construction in User Settings, Pole Load.

Map layers Victoria's power lines on the plan nPoles 1.4.195

Layers > Show Power Lines draws Victoria's power lines on the plan view, from the Victorian government's open data (Vicmap Infrastructure), each as what it is: low voltage teal, high voltage distribution orange, SWER orange and dashed, 66 kV sub-transmission dark red and transmission purple, the higher the voltage the heavier the line. A tap on a line gives its voltage, the network it belongs to and when it was recorded. Its publisher has not verified the data, so it is a guide to check on site. It needs the map data download "Victoria power lines".

Survey plans Field records listed with the survey plans nPoles 1.4.195

Survey Plans and Field Records lists the field records LASSI holds around a place beside the plans - applications, strata surveys, boundary plans with their abstracts of field records, re-establishment records, the Crown survey field notes and VicRoads' survey and control plans - each named for what it is, and keeps them on the computer to open again without a connection. Only plan labels had been searched, so an application or a boundary plan beside a pole was never offered. It opens from the Layers menu and from a right-click on the map as well as from a property boundary. Open in LASSI opens the selected document, and a survey mark's Open in LASSI (SMES) the enquiry on that mark; each had opened on the whole state. The document viewer turns a page a quarter turn either way.

LiDAR scans The road by its surface, in a scan and in Route View nPoles 1.4.195

A LiDAR scan import brings in the road by its surface: each edge of the seal as a line under the company's road-edge code, found where the seal meets the verge, and each gravel area joined to it - unsealed road, driveway, shoulder - as an outline under a new code, K2 Gravel Surface, which the plan view shades. It had looked for kerbs as steps in the ground, and on a rural road with none found one at every seal edge, driveway lip and verge. Route View draws the road as its surfaces, surveyed or scanned - the seal between its two edges and gravel inside its outlines, at their surveyed levels - where an edge of road had been a grey kerb bar and there was no road surface at all.

LiDAR scans VicGrid scans land where they belong, and more of the line comes in nPoles 1.4.195

A LiDAR scan on VicGrid, Victoria's own grid, is brought onto MGA as it is read; its points had come in with their VicGrid coordinates read as MGA, some 2,000 km from where they belong. A scan that names its grid only in its coordinate system's text is read as that grid, and a new job takes the datum and zone the scan declares, where it had stayed on LOCAL. More of the line comes in: conductors a supplier files under its own class numbers, found by how they hang; a lone conductor, flagged as a possible SWER line; a pole whose voltage the scan does not show, under the profile's HV pole code; and poles and strings with their status, Existing. The ground comes in as spot levels along the spans, and a tree is measured from the ground it stands on.

Surveying Calculator A cancelled overwrite keeps the point, and GNSS points go on their string nPoles 1.4.195

In the Surveying Calculator a reading that overwrites a point and is then cancelled in Point Edit leaves the point as it was; it had been deleted, with its pole, its circuits and everything else recorded on it. A point shot again takes the code and string the calculator shows. A GNSS point goes on the string in the String box, and a position is not accepted once the receiver has sent none for three seconds - the last one received had been kept however old, so a point could go where the pole had been. Peg Bisect puts the stay peg on the outside of the angle at the stay pole, where a line turning right had put it inside, between the conductors, and Create job from log file recovers GNSS points as it does a total station's.

Exports Pole descriptions reach CAD line for line again nPoles 1.4.195

Pole descriptions are saved in the job file in the form nPolesPPE reads, so its AutoCAD scripts show each description line for line again. Descriptions saved by versions 1.4.187 to 1.4.194 came out as a single line of text; saving the job again puts them right. Point Edit shows and edits the description as before.

Reports Schedules say when there is nothing to schedule, and lists fit the paper nPoles 1.4.195

Report > Conductor Schedule and Joint-Use Schedule say when a job has nothing to schedule - they need conductor strings and spatial data - where they had offered an empty report to save, and a report that cannot be saved says so, naming the file. File > Export > Export Current List to PDF writes the list on show; with the Circuits view on show it had written the Points List. Export Current List to PDF and Print fit a list to the paper's width, so a list wider than the page no longer loses the columns past its edge, and each of these messages can be selected and copied.

Files File dialogs keep up with USB sticks in the field nPoles 1.4.195

With the nPoles keyboard on, a folder of Topcon jobs on a USB stick is listed at once, without nPoles freezing; a stick plugged in while a file dialog is open is added to its side panel within a second; and a folder opened from My Computer while an office drive cannot be reached is listed straight away. Each file had been opened to name its type, and every drive checked again first - about 20 seconds for each office drive out of reach in the field.

Exports DXF exports carry every symbol nPoles 1.4.195

Export to DXF defines every symbol in the company profile's symbol file in the drawing once, drawn as it is in the file, its solid fill whole. After the first symbol whose name did not start with SEC the export had lost its place, leaving symbols empty or out - SECC1, SECL1 and SECL6 among them - so a point coded C1 or L1 inserted a symbol the drawing did not have. The symbols also go in when the symbol file is in a folder whose name holds a letter such as é or ü.

Import Insert File finds every clashing point number nPoles 1.4.195

Insert File's Replace points that Conflict, Ignore Conflicting Points and both prompting options find a point number the job already holds wherever it is in the job. Only the job's first point had been checked, so a clashing point went in beside the job's own and the job held the number twice. A backup point comes in only with its own point, Cancel leaves the job as it was, and the Data columns tab is set out in four columns, so the dialog fits a field tablet's screen.

User settings User Settings keeps what it does not show nPoles 1.4.195

A change in User Settings keeps what the dialog does not show - the clearance and Pole Load reports' heading choices and the conductor schedule's reference column - which any change had lost. A company profile with no value for a tick box takes the one the profiles nPoles ships hold, where it had taken whatever was in memory; the ground clearance pop-up's Point RL and Sag @ Point are saved as shown, no longer swapped; and a profile with automatic saving off shows Auto-Save Disabled ticked. On the Pole Load page each setting has a short line under it, with a Manual... button opening the full explanation in the manual's new Appendix J, and closing User Settings leaves the main window as it is.

Clearances Phases of one circuit checked as phases nPoles 1.4.195

Two conductor strings of one phase set - phases of one circuit, linked with Phase of conductor string - are checked phase to phase only. They had also been checked against each other circuit to circuit, as two circuits, so a stack of phases on a pole could read under; the Circuit cell now says why the pair is not checked. In String Properties, hovering over Phase of conductor string explains it, the box offers conductor strings only, and a new string can be made a phase straight after New.

Plan view Aerial markers on their spans nPoles 1.4.195

The plan view draws aerial markers on the spans that carry them: orange markers spaced along each span, within the First and Last Support set on the conductor string's Additional Weight tab, and none for a string marked Remove. Hovering over them, or a span's menu, gives the string, the number per span, the mass and the diameter.

Pole Load Finite element or SECV props, chosen in the window nPoles 1.4.195

An F.E. tick box beside ISD chooses how Pole Load works a stayed pole in that window - ticked, by the finite element model, the pole on its own tapered section and each stay stretching from its installed tension; cleared, by the SECV props. It starts each time at the choice in User Settings, Pole Load, and a report worked by the finite element model says which chose it. The left-hand column is a little wider, so ISD, F.E. and Limit State show their names in full, and on a stayed pole the B.M. Plot's full moment runs on below the ground line.

Dialogs Every dialog fits a field tablet's screen nPoles 1.4.195

Every dialog but the Surveying Calculator fits a 1280 x 800 field tablet's screen, and can still be dragged larger: Pole Load had opened 828 pixels tall, Point Edit, User Settings, Circuit Settings and the Conductor Calculator up to 808, and the LiDAR scan import could not fit at all. A page that scrolls to fit the tablet scrolls down only, so Clearances' circuit pages and Insert File's Data columns are no longer cut off on the right.

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.

LiDAR scans Buildings as outlines, and crossarms measured nPoles 1.4.194

A LiDAR scan import brings in a building or other structure - a house, a shed, a shade sail, a sign - as its outline: a closed string of corners with their heights, and a ridge where the roof rises, so the 3D views draw it as walls and a roof. Vegetation comes in as trees; everything that was not a pole had come in as a tree. Each pole's crossarms are measured from the scan - height, direction, length, and steel or timber - and the conductors on each arm come in as one circuit at that arm.

3D views Houses drawn whole nPoles 1.4.194

A house surveyed as a closed string of corners is drawn in Route View as one building: its walls down to the ground and its roof through the eaves and any ridge recorded inside it, as a second string of the house code. Each corner had been drawn as a 10 m block of its own. Walls with no recorded height stand 3 m and are drawn paler, as an estimate.

Pole Load One side only where it applies, and strain poles without a stay nPoles 1.4.194

Pole Load works out, shows and reports One side only for a strain structure only, and only where it differs from every conductor up; a stay shows its One side figures only where something pulls toward its anchor. A strain pole without a stay is now checked with only one side's conductors erected, as during construction or maintenance: its largest moment against its capacity, where, and which side.

3D views Strain poles and pole tops as recorded nPoles 1.4.194

Route View draws a strain pole recorded a direction to a row as Pole Load's 3D View does, with each centre phase's strain insulators at the height its rows record and its conductors ending at their tips. A pole whose top is surveyed is drawn to that height, with what is recorded just above it taken as conductor heights, and every bare conductor stands on an insulator clear of its pole. Pole Load's 3D View strains a centre phase near the pole top each way.

3D views Save Image, and Measure on stays and conductors nPoles 1.4.194

Route View and Pole Load's 3D View save the view as a PNG, JPEG or bitmap picture in one step, named for the job, pole and point. In all three 3D views Measure picks a stay or a conductor on its centre line from a click a few pixels away, and measures to its nearest point - from a crossarm's end to a stay, the clearance.

Plan view Dark themes, close-set points and shapes nPoles 1.4.194

The plan view's tool box takes the desktop theme's colours, so it reads under a dark theme. A tap reaches a point's symbol where it is drawn, not anywhere in the 11 m square around it, so close-set points such as a LiDAR import's ground points can be picked apart. A double-click that finishes a shape keeps it, and points generated along a shape are named for that shape.

Pole Load Condition columns follow the pole opened nPoles 1.4.194

A pole's condition columns follow that pole as soon as it is opened in Pole Load. Until Calculate they went by the pole shown before it, so a concrete pole opened after a timber one showed long-duration columns it does not have. The summary report lists a transformer only for a pole with a substation.

Reports A circuit's phase strings as one schedule item nPoles 1.4.194

In the conductor schedule, a circuit strung a phase to a conductor string is one item where its phases share the main string's stringing chart, its conductor count that of all the strings combined. Each phase string had been a row of its own.

Import Imports open in the job's folder nPoles 1.4.194

LiDAR scan, LandXML and Topcon Field imports open in the job's folder - the open job's, else the job folder in User Settings - as File > Open does. They opened wherever the last file dialog had been, the first in a session in the Windows temporary folder.

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.

Database Editor The Database Editor keeps what it does not edit nPoles 1.4.193

A save in the Database Editor now keeps everything in a database file that the editor does not show, and changes only what was edited. A save had rewritten the whole file through the editor's own record types, dropping what they do not name - among it the bending moment and shear values of over 800 pole records - and Save Changes rounded values it had not changed. Opening it for another company profile no longer carries the previous profile's abbreviations or stays into the new one's files.

Pole Load A string with no MES is worked out nPoles 1.4.193

A conductor string with no MES recorded is worked at the MES its own spans give, as the MES Calculator works one, in Pole Load and Clearances alike, and Pole Load's report and the plan view say so. Such a string's tensions had come out as not worked out, with Pole Load reporting its conductor at or beyond its breaking load.

Plan View A span's conductor strings at a tap nPoles 1.4.193

Tapping a power-line span in the plan view lists the conductor strings it carries - the conductor, stringing chart, MES, voltage and status of each, with String Properties a tap away - and says outright where a conductor or a stringing chart has not been assigned yet.

3D View Strain poles drawn as they are recorded nPoles 1.4.193

Pole Load's 3D View draws a strain pole recorded a direction to a row - the top phase on one row and the crossarm's phases on another, each way - with one crossarm for each voltage, as a strain, using the crossarm, structure type and conductor offsets the rows record. It drew a second crossarm beside the first, which showed as an intermediate on a default crossarm. A pole description line such as "AE ST" now applies to the aerial earth, and the 3D views find the company's crossarm database however nPoles is started.

PLS-CADD Compare with PLS-CADD nPoles 1.4.193

A PLS-CADD profile exported as a DXF opens in nPoles beside the job: nPoles' clearances next to PLS-CADD's at every point the drawing labels, and nPoles' catenary next to PLS-CADD's on every span. A drawing can also be brought into a job, its structures as poles at the heights its wire meets them, and a job can be written out as tables for PLS-CADD's own imports, so the two programs can be compared on the same line point for point.

Pole Load A pole's ground-line diameter from where it stands nPoles 1.4.193

Pole Load works out a pole's ground-line diameter where the pole actually stands - at its surveyed top height, down the pole's taper - instead of taking it from the pole database at the standard planting depth, which poles are seldom set to. The pole's own wind, its deflection, the long-duration deflection limit and Limit State timber strength all use it. Concrete poles recorded by their tip alone had their own wind counted on half their real area, and now take Rocla's standard taper.

Pole Load A finite element model of the pole and its stays nPoles 1.4.193

An optional finite element model, chosen in User Settings, works a stayed pole on its own tapered section and each stay stretching with its cable's stiffness from the tension it was installed at. A stiff pole then leaves more of the load to its stays and a flexible one less, and two stays nearly on one line hold a load across that line only as far as their stretch allows. The stay's tooltip gives the tension it was installed at, and the results and reports say how the stays were worked. The SECV props remain the default.

String Properties Phase Separation Override nPoles 1.4.193

A conductor string's VESI Minimum Separation is now its Phase Separation Override: set, the Phase column and the phase set checks require that separation in place of the one VESI or AS/NZS 7000 works out.

String Properties String Properties keeps what is entered nPoles 1.4.193

String Properties saves a description or asset owner as it is typed, keeps a line marker's shape and drag for a string that already exists, shows an AS/NZS 7000 K or U the string does not record as not set, starts Add String with nothing carried over, never gives a new string a number the job still uses, and its Points Tools take the two supports picked either way round.

Pole Load The full moment on a stayed pole's diagram nPoles 1.4.193

On a stayed pole the bending moment diagram draws the full moment - including its part across the stay, which the utilisation is judged on - dashed beside the moment in the stay's plane, so a pole over its capacity no longer looks under it on the diagram.

Clearances Line markers' sag, and phase sets as the strings record them nPoles 1.4.193

A span's ground clearance details say how many line markers hang in it and how much sag they cause. Phase set checks follow the Phase column's rule, hold a pair to the requirement of the string that records its own K, and leave out a circuit unticked for the span; and a string with an uplift temperature of 0, or none, is checked at its circuit's uplift temperature.

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.

Pole Load Limit State ratings for concrete poles and stays nPoles 1.4.192

In Limit State, a concrete or Titan pole whose record holds its working load was rated at half its strength - a 12 kN pole at 10.8 kN instead of 21.6 kN - so loads well within it showed red. A No.5 or No.8 stay is rated at 0.7 of its stay wire's breaking load where the company holds no limit-state rating, the factor set in User Settings. A result shown red now says in its tooltip what it is over.

GNSS More GNSS receivers work without setting up nPoles 1.4.192

Topcon and Sokkia receivers now give positions: nPoles switches on the NMEA they send only when asked. Javad, Spectra Precision, NovAtel, Hemisphere, Juniper Geode, Carlson and Unicore receivers are asked the same way. The receiver list in User Settings names the mainstream makes, Leica, Trimble, Emlid and CHCNAV among them, each with its own setup steps, and when a receiver connects but sends no position, or ignores the corrections sent to it, the status line says why and what to set.

Pole Load Stayed poles show their bending moment nPoles 1.4.192

The results with stays have a Moment row: the bending moment's share of the pole's capacity where it is largest, and where on the pole, red over 100 %. The summary report and its PDF and spreadsheet versions give the same.

GNSS A Leica's RTK float is named nPoles 1.4.192

A Leica reports RTK float with the same fix quality as DGPS, so its float read as DGPS. It now reads DGPS or RTK float. A Leica's points are still accepted at RTK fixed only, as the two cannot be told apart.

Clearances Edit Point from Clearances lists every description code nPoles 1.4.192

Opened from Clearances, Edit Point listed only the company's common description codes, without their meanings. It lists every code with its meaning and symbol, as it does everywhere else.

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.

Import and export Topcon jobs in, stakeout points out nPoles 1.4.191

File > Import > Topcon job reads a Topcon Field controller's job file (.mjf) or its MAXML export (.mxl) straight into a job, with each point's code and the code attributes a LandXML export leaves out: the String a pole is on, and its status, length, strength and type. File > Export > Topcon MAXML sends points back for stakeout in the controller job's own codes and coordinate system, and both point exports can now send only the points the controller's job does not have or has somewhere else.

Pole Load A stay is rated at the largest load it carries nPoles 1.4.191

Each stay is now rated at its largest load over the wind directions checked, and its tooltip names the direction. It was rated at its share in the direction worst for the pole, which on an angle pole can be far less: one stay showed 28.6 kN and carries 45.2 kN with the wind in line with it.

Registration A licence is kept even where nPoles cannot write to its own folder nPoles 1.4.191

Registration survives a restart on a machine whose data folder will not take it, and a licence that cannot be saved anywhere is now reported - naming the folder to open up - instead of being lost quietly.

Pole Load A pole length finds a pole of its own kind nPoles 1.4.191

A pole length typed in feet is matched only to the imperial poles in the pole database, and a length in metres only to the metric poles. A length near a pole of the other kind could be taken for that pole.

Pole Load Stayed pole loads are worked as the design manuals work them nPoles 1.4.191

A load below a stay now gives the stay less than its own force, as the SECV design manual has it, and no longer leaves the pole bending the wrong way at the ground. Conductor wind acts at right angles to each span (AS/NZS 7000 B5.4), the utilisation of a stayed pole includes the bending across its stay, and a stayed pole with no match in the pole database gets a result instead of 0.000 kN.

Pole Load The result columns match the conditions shown nPoles 1.4.191

On a concrete, steel or stobie pole the results with stays no longer head a column for a long-duration condition that is not shown, and the wind direction without stays shows its degrees at the size the window opens at.

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.

Pole Load Footing strength is shown for every load condition nPoles 1.4.190

After Calculate, the fourth and fifth load conditions both showed the third condition's required footing strength. Each condition now shows its own.

Files Exporting to DOS POLES leaves the job alone nPoles 1.4.190

The export renamed the open job, so the next Save wrote a separate file ending .pts.pxml and the job itself never received the changes.

Points Point backups and undo stay with their own job nPoles 1.4.190

A point's tenth backup was filed under the same number as its first, so a pole with ten or more backups lost one whenever a point was added. Undo history and conductor string backups are also cleared when a job is closed, so they can no longer reach into the next job opened.

Stringing charts A chart's base conductor is named in full nPoles 1.4.190

The message offering to work out a chart's strength for its base conductor left the conductor's material out of the name.

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.

Map layers Survey marks in their register's own symbols nPoles 1.4.189

A mark drawn from a live service now uses the symbol its register draws it with - SMES's in Victoria, SCIMS's in New South Wales - struck through where the register records the mark destroyed, removed, not found or disturbed, and with the symbol's meaning on hover. Street names carry their names and contours their heights, with the 10 m index contours drawn heavier.

Plan view Everything under the finger is offered, whatever took the tap nPoles 1.4.189

Tapping where several things sit on top of one another lists all of them: the survey's own points, the strings running past, and every map layer drawn there. A survey point is found by its number as well as by its symbol, so a point drawn only as a number - because its description code is not one that is plotted - is reachable even with a cadastral point drawn over it.

Plan view The tool box stays where you put it nPoles 1.4.189

The floating tool box in the plan view used to travel with the map as it was dragged, a little further each time, until it sat half off the edge of the window. It now stays where it is put, and can still be dragged anywhere that suits; double-clicking its grip sends it back to the corner.

Map layers A layer says when it cannot be read, or has more to show nPoles 1.4.189

A publisher being unavailable, a layer that has been renamed and "there is genuinely nothing here" all used to look identical: an empty map with the menu item still ticked. A layer that cannot be read now says so along the top of the map, and one holding more than it is allowed to draw says that too, so a missing parcel is not mistaken for a parcel that does not exist.

Map layers A job on a state border draws both sides nPoles 1.4.189

A job at Albury, Tweed Heads, Mildura or anywhere along the Murray drew one side of the border and nothing on the other, and panning across a border kept asking the first state for the second state's ground. Both sides are drawn now, and crossing a border picks up the neighbour.

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.

Clearances What a span actually has between its phases nPoles 1.4.188

The Phase column has always printed the separation a span requires, worked out from the sag and the voltage. It never read the conductor offsets recorded at either support, so a 1.2 m crossarm and a 0.3 m one reported the same figure and neither was compared with anything. Every pair on a circuit’s crossarm is now measured at mid span by the standard’s own rule — the mean of the spacing at one support and at the other — and the worst pair reads under the requirement as "arm 1.20m", red where it falls short. A conductor recorded at only one support is left out rather than averaged against a guess.

Clearances The VESI separation table gave the wrong horizontal distance nPoles 1.4.188

Against a nominated vertical separation, the VESI table in What’s This worked the horizontal out as the square root of the separation less the vertical — a length subtracted from a length — where the drawing’s own hand-written check makes that separation a radial one. On a 6 m sag it reported 0.89 m where 22 kV needs 1.04 m and 66 kV needs 1.20 m, understating it in the unsafe direction. Powercor’s DC161 and Jemena’s own worked example both confirm the correct form. The AS/NZS 7000 table three lines below it was always right.

Company profiles South Australia: SA Power Networks, with its own data nPoles 1.4.188

The South Australian profile is now titled SA Power Networks, the company’s name since September 2012, and jobs saved under ETSA, ETSA Utilities or the Electricity Trust of South Australia still open on it. Fifty-two conductors come from Appendix A of Technical Standard TS-107 and six more were brought onto its figures. There are now 198 stringing charts where every one before was a cable-television catenary — one for each conductor TS-107 names, in each of South Australia’s three climate zones. Forty-five plan symbols follow SA Power Networks’ own drafting standard, the Stobie pole among them.

Company profiles New South Wales: Ausgrid, Endeavour and Essential nPoles 1.4.188

The three New South Wales profiles carry the names those distributors have had since 1 March 2011, and each holds its own data again. All three had the same fifty stringing charts — every one of them Essential’s CEOM7108 set, because the files had been copied between profiles. Endeavour now has twenty-six conductors from MDI0031 and forty-three charts from its own design tension tables; Ausgrid has the eight conductors NS126 approves for new high voltage construction and eight charts from NS220. Jobs saved under any of the old names still open.

Company profiles Every state and territory finds its network from an address nPoles 1.4.188

Western Australia and the Northern Territory were missing from the distributor table altogether, so an address in Perth, Broome or Darwin produced nothing at all. They are in now, split between Western Power and Horizon Power along the edge of the South West Interconnected System, with Power and Water across the Territory. Canberra named a profile that was not there, so the Australian Capital Territory has one: Evoenergy. A new job also starts in the map zone the company’s network is actually in, rather than in Victoria’s zone 55.

User settings Every window uses the font you chose nPoles 1.4.188

Each dialog’s design carried a font of its own — Noto Serif at 11 point — which overrode the User Settings choice, so the dialogs did not match the main window, and in fifteen of them that pinned font was the only one they ever used. The font is now set on the program itself, so every window follows it, including any window already open when it is changed and any dialog added later. Deliberate sizes and weights inside a dialog are unchanged: the large distance readout on the stakeout screen, bold headings and the italics in the line-security table are all still there.

Company data A stalled data pack download recovers instead of hanging nPoles 1.4.188

On a poor connection a transfer can stop without being told, and the pack downloader was the one place in either product with nothing watching for it: the screen sat on "Downloading" for ever, and closing the app and starting again did the same thing. A minute with no data is now treated as a stall, the transfer is retried from exactly where it stopped, and there are six attempts rather than three. Pausing it yourself still says "Paused", and still carries on from the same place. The desktop’s update check and its map tiles gained the same guard.

Conductors Conductor records that could not be what they say they are nPoles 1.4.188

A stranded conductor’s name states its own size, weight and strength, so a record can be checked against its own description. Six wrong records in the Victorian profiles are corrected — a 336.4 AAC whose breaking load worked out at a fifth of what aluminium can carry, a 61/2.75 copper missing a digit, a steel conductor whose weight implied a metal heavier than lead — and the same records sat in eleven other companies’ data, copied from the same source. Every conductor is now checked against its own description whenever the tests run.

Conductors All three stiffness values on a conductor nPoles 1.4.188

Elasticity is still the practical Australian Standard figure that every calculation uses, and the initial and final moduli now sit beside it on the same line in the conductor editor, each reading "not given" until something is entered. A blank means not known, which is not the same as zero, and is saved as a blank. Conductor moduli across the Western Australian, South Australian and New South Wales profiles were brought onto the Australian Standard values the Victorian profiles carry — for aluminium alloy the two kinds differ by about a tenth.

Clearances A phase set with no chart says so nPoles 1.4.188

A phase set member whose conductor string has no usable stringing chart read "set 1000000000.00m" — the starting value of a measurement the missing chart made impossible. It now reads "set -" with the reason on hover: the string has no chart, or it names a chart that is not among those loaded, or a conductor that is not in the database. The Ground and Circuit rows already said so for such a string.

Pole load Pole Load no longer closes on a profile with no insulator database nPoles 1.4.188

Calculating the wind load with insulator wind switched on would end the program outright if nothing in the insulator database carried a wind area, which is what a profile without one looks like. The wind load now adds up the parts it has, and the breakdown names the insulator it actually used rather than a representative.

Conductor strings Phase of conductor string, beside Owner nPoles 1.4.188

Phase of conductor string is on the Conductor tab now, left of Owner, instead of on the Cnd. Schedule Phase tab away from the rest of the string’s set-up. On the circuit’s own string of a phase set it names the phases — "(none - circuit with phases 13 and 14)" — where it used to say standalone circuit. The temperature boxes also show three digits in full: 100 °C read "100.0°(", each box a few pixels too narrow for the widest value it can hold.

AusNet STND drawing numbers on the formalised SC/AC and ACSR/AC charts nPoles 1.4.188

The AusNet SC/AC charts EVX18/25, EVX18/29, EVX18/22, EVX18/26 and EVX18/33 now carry the standard drawing numbers STND-0352224 to STND-0352228, and the ACSR/AC charts carry theirs per conductor ratio: the 3/4 charts EVX18/25 and EVX18/29 as STND-0352207 and STND-0352208, and the 6/1 charts as STND-0352213 to STND-0352217. Every chart keeps its own name, so existing jobs open unchanged, and the drawing number is the title the conductor schedule prints.

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.

Stringing charts A chart drawn for a base conductor answers for the conductor strung nPoles 1.4.187

On a stringing chart drawn for a base conductor, the individual span, the lifting load and the clearances now answer for the conductor actually in the air rather than for the chart’s base conductor. Grape 30/7/2.5 on SECV’s VX18/22 - a chart drawn for 7/3.0 AAC - was worked out as though the 7/3.0 were strung: 1.32 N/m of conductor where Grape weighs 6.64. The chart’s tension limit still belongs to its base conductor, and the conductor strung is then taken to the sag that produced, which is what the stringing chart has always done. Clearance and pole load figures will move on SECV and AusNet charts that carry a base conductor.

Clearances Ice carries through: a conductor is no longer reported higher than it hangs nPoles 1.4.187

A conductor carrying ice was worked out with the ice on it, but the sag was then split into how far it hangs below its supports and how far it blows out sideways using the bare conductor’s weight. On a 450 m span with 10 mm of ice in a 500 Pa wind the conductor was shown 5.1 m below its supports where it hangs 10.9 m below them, and blowing out 11.1 m where it blows out 5.5 m. Reported high is the unsafe direction for a ground clearance. Ice now carries through to both numbers wherever they are worked out.

Point Edit The circuit’s structure: arm, type and insulator in one window nPoles 1.4.187

Each circuit row has a Structure button for that circuit’s Type (INT, ST, TERM, ANCH, T/O), Arm from the crossarm database and Insulator from the insulator database, with how the insulator is mounted - vertical or horizontal - for the whole arm or set apart per position. Those columns now drive the pole sketch, the route and clearance views, the pole schematic, the DXF and STEP exports and the pole load wind calculation, in place of the pole description text. Generate writes the whole description from the point, and a second press replaces only the block it wrote.

Point Edit Saving a point no longer drops what the dialog has no box for nPoles 1.4.187

A point edited on the desktop lost its photos and the files attached to it, the record of how its GNSS corrections stood, a sag shot’s weather, a measured object’s outline, the footing method and the bolt holes - the saved point was built from the boxes on screen alone. Every box still wins over the stored value, so nothing typed or unticked is kept against the surveyor’s wishes.

Plan view A point string has its own menu, and points go down where you click nPoles 1.4.187

Tapping the line of a point string opens the string’s menu - its name, how many points it has and from which to which, its length along them, and the codes on it - with Change points on this string, Change string number, Name this string, Order string along the ground and Copy summary. An area the plan fills, such as a house, gives its perimeter and the area inside. The tool box’s Point > Add point puts a point exactly where the map is clicked, however close it is to a point already there, or at an easting and northing typed in.

Conductor strings Aerial markers: a shape, a drag coefficient, and only the spans that carry them nPoles 1.4.187

Aircraft and line markers can be given a shape - a marker ball, a sleeve, a flat plate or flag, a spiral or damper - which fills in a starting drag coefficient that can be typed over. It changes only how much wind the marker catches; its mass and the ice it gathers are untouched, and 1.00 is the method nPoles has always used, so a conductor string nobody touches is unchanged. A string’s First Support and Last Support are honoured now as well: mark two spans of a twenty span line and only those two are weighed, sagged and cleared as marked.

Conductor strings Right-click a conductor string to edit it nPoles 1.4.187

In the Circuits view, and on a circuit’s conductor string box in Point Edit, a right click offers Edit string 27 - Main St... and opens String Properties straight on that string. The string under the pointer is the one edited, whatever was selected before.

Surveying The instrument’s own height, read off a Leica nPoles 1.4.187

A Leica TS07 or TS10 measures its own height with AutoHeight in the instrument’s Setup. In the Surveying Calculator the Instr. Hgt caption beside the instrument height is now a button that reads that height over GeoCOM, instead of it being read off the instrument and typed in.

GNSS The corrections list lands on the station that suits the job nPoles 1.4.187

User Settings’ Choose for NTRIP corrections opens on the mount point already set when the caster still carries it, and otherwise on the nearest station to the job, named in the heading. Where the station set is materially farther than the nearest it says which is nearer and by how much and leaves the choice alone, and when nothing is close enough to work from it lists what can be done about it. GNSS stake out now opens on the job point nearest the rover.

Clearances Phase set separation measured as the conductors run nPoles 1.4.187

The separation between separately-strung phases is now measured in three dimensions along the span, each conductor at its recorded offset across the line and at its insulator’s height above the attachment. A circuit horizontal on a crossarm at one pole and a vertical stack at the next is measured as it actually runs, where the vertical measure alone read zero at the crossarm end. Clicking a cell that shows "-" now says why there is nothing to show instead of opening an empty box.

Plan view Symbols are back for every company profile nPoles 1.4.187

Eleven of the sixteen company profiles named a symbol folder that could not be found and five named a symbol file that was not shipped, so those profiles drew no plan-view symbol and exported no DXF block - Western Power, Energex, Ergon Energy, Country Energy, Integral Energy, ETSA, Energy Australia, Aurora, Jemena, TasNetworks and NT-P&W. A release check now fails if any profile names a file that is not there.

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 Conductor offsets from reflectorless reads are measured across the line nPoles 1.4.186

The offset derived from a 3D shot on a conductor is now the shot's distance across the line from the crossarm, not the plan distance between the two. A reflectorless beam lands wherever it first meets the conductor, and with the instrument standing near the line that is some way down the span: a centre conductor read as 1.03 m from the pole when it hung 0.04 m from it. The survey log now says how far along the span the beam landed, and the Field mini guide says where to stand.

Help Send a bug or an idea from inside nPoles nPoles 1.4.186

Help > Send Bug or Idea sends a report straight to nPoles support, with the logs of this session and the one before and the last crash report unless their box is unticked. Nothing has to be typed: when support asks for a report, opening it and pressing Send is enough, and the report number shown can be quoted. Without a connection the report can be saved to a file to email instead.

Import The custom stringing charts come in with the inserted strings nPoles 1.4.186

Insert File now brings the custom charts the inserted conductor strings name. A chart the job already holds unchanged is used as it is; one of the same name that differs comes in under a new name, with the file's strings following it. The strings used to arrive naming charts the job did not have, so their circuits showed on the plan and opened with no chart.

GNSS The NTRIP station list says how RTK will go at the job nPoles 1.4.186

User Settings' NTRIP station list now says, for the nearest station, whether any receiver, only a multi-band one, or none will fix reliably at the job, the precision to expect, and when to take your own base. A job with no location yet says how to plan for a site: give it its address in Survey Properties and choose again.

Plan view Survey marks drawn with their register's own symbols nPoles 1.4.186

Victorian marks use the SMES symbols surveyors know from LASSI - the blue triangle for an SCN mark, the arrow for an approximate position, the plus for a PCM, with the AHD status in the colour. Marks in New South Wales, the ACT, Tasmania, New Zealand and Landgate's Western Australian register take the symbols and sizes their own maps use, a destroyed or damaged mark is struck through, and Details says what each symbol means.

Import LandXML string numbers from a text export named with XML nPoles 1.4.186

Import LandXML now also reads string numbers from the controller's text export when the LandXML file's name ends in XML - Survey 12 XML.xml beside Survey 12.txt. Only a text export named exactly like the LandXML file was looked for, so every point came in on string 0. When none matches, the import summary says so and names the file it looked for.

Virtual keyboard The keyboard comes back on a tap, and the restart notice stays in view nPoles 1.4.186

Tapping the field being typed in brings the nPoles keyboard back after it has been minimised or closed; only moving to another field used to. The notice that turning the keyboard on or off takes effect after a restart is now kept clear of both keyboards, so it can be read and closed.

Chart Finder Conductor, not wire nPoles 1.4.186

Chart Finder's messages about the shot taken on the conductor now say conductor rather than wire, and a point matched by its remark reads legacy conductor point.

Import Conductor strings that clash on Insert File are asked about nPoles 1.4.185

When points are inserted from another job and a conductor string in that file uses a number the job already has with a different definition, a box shows what the job has and what the file has, how they differ, and asks: take the file's string under a suggested new number, with the inserted points moved onto it, replace the job's definition with the file's, or keep the job's. The file's conductor and chart used to be dropped without a word.

Import Only the strings the inserted points carry nPoles 1.4.184

Insert File used to bring the whole conductor-string list of the job it read, leaving dozens of strings to delete one by one - and deleting one still carried by the copied points left its circuits drawn on the plan while the string was gone from every list. By default the insert now brings only the strings the inserted points actually carry, with Every string in the file an option beside it. In String Properties, Delete says how many points carry the string before it goes, and Delete Unused lists and removes every string no point carries in one go.

AusNet STND drawing numbers on the formalised SC/GZ charts nPoles 1.4.185

The AusNet SC/GZ stringing charts EVX18/25, EVX18/29, EVX18/22, EVX18/26 and EVX18/33 keep their names, so existing jobs open unchanged, and now carry the standard drawing numbers STND-0352229 to STND-0352233 as their drawing titles, the titles the conductor schedule prints.

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.

Outdoors Marks you can read in daylight nPoles 1.4.183

Radio buttons and tick boxes throughout nPoles are now solid, high-contrast marks: a filled dark disc or square when on, a light one with a dark outline when off, and a little larger. Windows draws them as thin grey rings, which vanish on a tablet screen in sunlight. Everything else keeps the Windows look.

Import Import LandXML keeps the controller's strings nPoles 1.4.183

A controller's LandXML carries no string numbers, so every imported point used to arrive on string 0. When the controller's text export sits beside the .xml under the same name, its string numbers now go onto the matching points; and when the file's strings are numbers the job already uses, nPoles offers to renumber the file's strings to the next free numbers so the lines stay apart. A recorded air temperature of zero or below now reaches the job file, and Import Poles no longer carries the previous job's special stringing charts into the new one.

Survey Properties The job follows its address nPoles 1.4.183

An address looked up now names the electricity distributor whose area its postcode is in and the settings profile that is, and a survey with no points yet is switched to that profile on OK. Addresses in Czechia, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Poland, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg and Sweden choose ETRS89 on UTM like the other European countries; a grid without zones clears the zone field; accepting the suggested datum sets the scale factor to follow the grid; and a job with no points frames on its address every time.

Basemaps Maps for twelve more countries, live boundaries for three nPoles 1.4.183

National maps and aerial imagery for Austria, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Germany, Norway, Czechia, Estonia, the United States, Japan, Argentina and Singapore, each measured against the publisher's live service; Finland and Great Britain against your own free key, and New Zealand aerial imagery now against your own LINZ key. Property boundaries served live for the Netherlands, France and Estonia with the Dutch survey marks, and the Layers menu says plainly what is published where the job is and why a layer is empty.

Plan view The boundary dialog shows all its boxes nPoles 1.4.183

Add Property Boundary Points and Add Road Boundary Points now show their Description code, String number, First point number and Remark boxes; they were never placed in the dialog, so the points always took the defaults. The Remark is written into every point added, ahead of the source note, and the dialog says so. This dialog and Add Lasso Selection to Survey now use the application font like every other dialog.

Surveying Connect Station, the survey mark's order, and the update that retries nPoles 1.4.183

The Surveying Calculator gains a Connect Station button beside Disconnect Station that re-opens the station port so Windows connects the Bluetooth link again, and a port that will not open says why in the status line. A survey mark's record explains what its AHD order means. The virtual keyboard notice now appears above the keyboard and can be copied. A company data file the start-up update could not bring in is retried at the next start, and the AusNet profile's description codes are back after an update from v1.4.179 or earlier.

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.

Survey Properties Set up a job anywhere in the world from its address nPoles 1.4.182

Looking up an address now works out the country and offers its national datum and zone, while the datum box itself stays the Australia and New Zealand list; a datum chosen this way appears only while the job is on it. Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Norway, France, Spain and Austria come on ETRS89, Switzerland on CH1903+, Ireland and South Africa on their grids. Built for nPoles Field mini's wider audience, and it works the same on the desktop.

Basemaps The map sits exactly where the ground is nPoles 1.4.182

Map tiles are now placed on the survey grid corner by corner, so an aerial image no longer sits slightly off the points or shifts after the view is rebuilt. Show Map switches to a source that covers the job when the one last chosen does not, and the Australian credit lines lose a stray character.

GNSS surveying Your own base station, and the check that catches a wrong one nPoles 1.4.181

Corrections can come from your own base receiver instead of an NTRIP caster, for work beyond mobile coverage. The corrections line now says where the corrections come from, how far away the base is and how old they are, and a Base button in the Surveying Calculator compares what the base is transmitting with the position it ought to be on, so a base left running on yesterday's coordinate - which shifts every point in the job by the same amount and looks perfect - is caught. Re-base Survey moves a job onto the right coordinate afterwards.

Chart Finder Phases strung separately nPoles 1.4.181

Chart Finder shows every phase recorded on a conductor string - a vertical or delta construction kept as one string - with each phase's own sag, tension and closest chart, and can split the phases into their own strings linked as a phase set. Clearances Check then measures the phase-to-phase separation between them from each string's own tension.

Reliability nPoles notices when it crashes nPoles 1.4.181

A crash writes a capture file and the next start asks once whether to send a report to nPoles, so the fault can be fixed. Nothing is sent without OK. Every message box can also now have its text selected and copied, so an error can be pasted into an email instead of photographed.

Clearances Every circuit on the pole is checked nPoles 1.4.181

nPoles has offered 24 circuits per pole for some time, but Clearances Check still looked a conductor string up on only the first 16 when working out its heights, and Pole Load on the first 20. A string recorded on a higher circuit came back with no heights, so its ground, circuit, phase, object and uplift checks were quietly skipped with no row and no warning, and Pole Load found no span for it. All of these now cover every circuit. A circuit carrying only a centre insulator height, a single wire on a pole-top pin, is also now checked at its true conductor height rather than at the attachment. In the Clearances Check dialog, the height boxes for circuits 17 to 24 now show and save heights; they showed 0 and dropped edits before. The same sweep then covered Chart Finder, Individual Span, Setting MES, Standards Parameters, the conductor and joint-use schedules, temporary points in the Surveying Calculator and String Properties, so a string on any circuit up to 24 is found everywhere.

Point editing nPoles always opens on a connected screen nPoles 1.4.181

The Point Edit dialog remembers where it was last shown. A tablet that had it on a second or third office monitor put it at the same place out in the field, where there is no screen, so it opened out of sight - and because it must be answered before anything else, nPoles appeared to freeze every time a height was read. The dialog now checks that its remembered position is on a screen that is actually connected each time it opens, from the points list, the Surveying Calculator, Pole Load or Clearances alike, and comes back onto the screen it was opened from when its own is gone. It is never left larger than the screen or hanging off its edge with the buttons out of reach. A dialog kept on a second monitor that is still connected stays there. The main window is checked the same way, so a tablet undocked from an office monitor no longer starts with nPoles on the taskbar but nowhere to be seen, and a window closed maximised comes back maximised rather than as a window the size of the old monitor.

Map layers Choose the basemap nPoles 1.4.181

The map drawn under the survey can now be chosen from Layers, Map Source, rather than being fixed at OpenStreetMap. A map that covers only one country is offered only where the job actually is, so the list stays short. Each provider keeps its own tile cache, so switching back finds what was already downloaded rather than fetching it again.

Map data New Zealand refreshed; Swiss marks and Victoria layers published nPoles 1.4.182

The New Zealand survey marks, boundary marks, parcels, road parcels and roads are refreshed to LINZ's late-August publication, and three components that had never been published are now downloadable from the maintenance tool: Victoria spot heights, Victoria statewide contours and the Swiss survey fixed points.

Surveying & datums Address look-up works anywhere nPoles 1.4.181

Looking up an address in Survey Properties is no longer limited to Australia, so a Swiss or New Zealand job can be placed from its street address like any other. Choosing a datum now also fills in the UTM zone the job is in, and a grid that has no zones - Swiss LV95, New Zealand NZTM - empties the zone box rather than leaving the last job's number showing beside it.

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.

Point editing Centre conductor, treated properly everywhere nPoles 1.4.180

Circuit rows gain a Centre position alongside Left and Right — for the middle phase of a three-wire crossarm or a conductor on the pole's own centreline. A centre conductor carries through Pole Load's structural calculation, Clearances Check and all three 3D views, where a surveyed centre position is drawn exactly as recorded.

Point editing Cycling through points no longer loses conductor strings nPoles 1.4.180

Stepping through points with Edit Point's Next and Previous buttons could silently remove a conductor string that sat on different circuits of neighbouring points. The string lists are now rebuilt for every point shown, however the dialog is reached.

Pole database Pole records with named sources and no gaps nPoles 1.4.180

Every wood pole record now names the drawing its dimensions came from, visible in the Database Editor and in Pole Load's wind-load breakdown. The whole-metre lengths between the standard sizes — 10 through 19 metres — carry proper tip and ground-line diameters in every Victorian profile, and a handful of older records whose imperial dimensions were misread as metric now render at their correct thickness.

Devices Linked devices nPoles 1.4.180

File → Linked Devices pairs this computer with another nPoles install by typing a short code or scanning a QR code. Once paired, the open job can be pushed straight to a linked desktop — no USB stick, no emailing files — and nPoles states plainly whether the incoming copy is newer or older before anything is overwritten.

Updates Shared data now updates with the app nPoles 1.4.180

Adding a new nPoles version through the Maintenance Tool now also brings the shared company and regional data — pole types, crossarms, description codes — fully up to date. Previously only a completely fresh install saw current data, which is why a fix could appear not to have arrived.

Point editing Total-station readings land in the right field nPoles 1.4.180

Three mis-routings fixed: a click on the pole-top height box sent the next reading to circuit 16, tabbing into a remark from circuit 12 onward wrote into the following circuit's remark, and a reading with stay remark 1 selected landed in stay 4's height. Sorting circuit heights also moves the Centre columns with their circuits now, and the description code box drops down the full height of the screen with every code the company profile knows.

Pole Load Every circuit's conductor height nPoles 1.4.180

Pole Load works out the conductor height for every circuit on the pole, not just the first twenty, and the 3D View no longer overstates a pole's lean when the tip diameter has not been measured — the figure is marked approximate instead of hidden.

Surveying Swap Points uses the live record nPoles 1.4.180

The Surveying Calculator's Swap Points takes the live point as the source of a coordinate swap rather than whichever record appeared first in the job file, and a point's backups travel with it. The Default Datum list in User Settings also now offers every datum Survey Properties does.

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.

Pole load Pole wind loads match the published tables nPoles 1.4.179

The pole database was audited against the utilities' published figures: two silent zero wind loads were traced to miscatalogued records and corrected, the complete Dulhunty Titan range is now present with its calculated loads verified against AusNet's published wind loads, and when a wood pole's variant is unknown the calculation now uses the typical catalogue record — matching the published tables — with a worst-case option in User Settings. The wind-load breakdown names the exact record used.

Plan view The tap menu shows which point it means nPoles 1.4.179

With several points under one tap, hovering an entry in the chooser now rings that point out in the plan — and the menu opens beside the tap instead of on top of it. On a touch screen the highlight appears as soon as an entry opens, so identical description codes can finally be told apart.

Field tablets Survey Properties fits the tablet screen nPoles 1.4.179

Survey Properties now fits an 800-pixel-high screen — the field tablets' height — with a compact pop-up calendar in place of the always-open one and its buttons never pushed below the bottom of the screen.

Databases One Database Editor, abbreviations included nPoles 1.4.179

The pole structure editor has outgrown its name — it is now simply the Database Editor, covering poles, crossarms, insulators, timber species, transformers, description codes and a new per-utility registry of standard plan abbreviations seeded from the distributors' drafting standards.

Platform Qt 6.11.2 under the bonnet nPoles 1.4.179

nPoles is now built on Qt 6.11.2, with the charting and spreadsheet libraries rebuilt and updated to match — picking up upstream stability and memory fixes.

Surveying & datums Transform Datum sticks to documented conversions nPoles 1.4.179

Transform Datum now handles exactly the documented conversions — AGD66/84 to GDA94 and GDA94 to GDA2020 through the official grids. Its old two-point local routine, which fixed the scale from a dropdown assumption, is retired; choosing a local conversion offers Tie Job to Control instead.

Conductors Street list untangles itself nPoles 1.4.179

A mistaken street in Conductor String Properties' Street / Reference is now one tap to clear, and unticking an entry in the drop-down no longer gets silently undone.

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.

Pole Load Species selection now truly changes the wind load nPoles 1.4.178

A long-standing fault silently ignored the timber species when sizing a metric wood pole's diameter, always using the largest available — understating the difference between an Ironbark and a Radiata Pine pole by about 25% on a typical 11 m pole. The species picked now genuinely drives the pole's wind load.

Point editor The point editor reorganised nPoles 1.4.178

The tabs now say what they hold: Spatial Data is purely the survey point — the datum named, a live latitude/longitude and scale-factor panel, and the GNSS observation quality — while a new Plant / Equipment tab gathers the sub-station, switchgear, brackets and extra loads.

Coordinates AGD66 and AGD84 conversions fixed nPoles 1.4.178

Converting an old-datum job to GDA94 or GDA2020 now transforms every point with the correct grid shifts — previously only the first point moved. A point outside the grid's coverage stops the conversion with the point named and the job left untouched.

GNSS surveying GNSS quality saved on every point nPoles 1.4.178

Fix type, satellites, precision, antenna height and time are recorded at Accept, shown on the Spatial tab, saved with the job, and importable as CSV columns — along with the air temperature a GNSS receiver can't measure itself.

Plan view Taps reach whatever sits underneath nPoles 1.4.178

Overlapping points, spans, marks and map features under one tap are all offered in a chooser — with each point's remark and its code's English meaning shown — and the action always lands on the entry actually chosen.

Point editor Point backups as a plain list nPoles 1.4.178

Every backup of a point on one line — remark, when the data changed, when the backup was made — with Restore and Delete beside each, and one button to back up the active point.

Exports Seconds no longer round to the next minute nPoles 1.4.178

Latitude, longitude and bearing readouts in degrees, minutes and seconds no longer lose up to a full second to rounding — which for a coordinate amounted to as much as thirty metres on the ground.

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.

Chart Finder Insulator heights read from either column nPoles 1.4.176

The insulator height on a pole is taken from whichever column was recorded — a right-only insulator no longer vanishes from the observed-sag calculation — and when the recorded left and right heights disagree, the pole is named so the records can be checked.

Installing Start Menu entries heal themselves nPoles 1.4.177

Machines upgraded through earlier maintenance tools could be left with no Start Menu entries for new versions. Each version now restores its own entry the first time it runs.

Installing A signed maintenance tool and saner defaults nPoles 1.4.176

The maintenance tool is now code-signed — its administrator prompt names nPoles Pty Ltd — and component selection ticks only the newest version and the default data, never touching what's already installed.

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.

Map layers Layers open instantly nPoles 1.4.175

The Victorian map layers now come from an indexed format that opens in a couple of milliseconds instead of reading whole datasets — drawn identically to the millimetre, holding far less memory.

Map layers Open a property in VicPlan nPoles 1.4.175

Tapping a property or road casement offers the Victorian government's VicPlan planning map centred on it — the official record, planning zones and overlays one tap away.

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.

Field use On-screen function keys press real buttons nPoles 1.4.174

The keyboard's F1–F12 keys now press the active window's matching button — F5 accepts in the Surveying Calculator — and the instrument setup no longer resets between height readings on a pole.

Reliability Dialogs can no longer hide behind the window nPoles 1.4.173

A confirmation window could be left buried behind a maximised main window, leaving the screen apparently frozen until Escape. Dialogs now always stay above the window that opened them.

Point editor Adjust every height when the ground level changes nPoles 1.4.172

Changing a pole's reduced level can now shift every recorded attachment height with it — circuits, stays, transformer, and any tee-offs sharing the location — with a before-and-after table to accept and a backup taken first.

Stringing charts Chart plots straight into CAD nPoles 1.4.172

The sag and condition plots export as an AutoCAD script that needs almost no clean-up — coloured layers, labelled curves, a legend and the chart notes — or as a FreeCAD macro that rebuilds the chart as native objects.

Quality No stray files on customer machines nPoles 1.4.172

Release builds no longer write developer diagnostic files into the nPoles folder. The per-job survey log used for job recovery is unaffected.

Databases The pole database editor behaves nPoles 1.4.172

Unlock for Editing works on the first click, imperial poles are listed in feet and inches, the editor has its own taskbar entry, and the detail tabs scroll instead of squashing their fields.

Exports Export the plan view as an image or PDF nPoles 1.4.172

File → Export saves the plan view exactly as shown — street map included — defaulting to the job's own folder and confirming where the file was saved.

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