The information below is intended for existing customers. If you are evaluating HOOPS/3dAF, you would typically be working directly with a TS3D Consulting Engineer who provides direct assistance.
Support Website
When reporting a bug or a problem with any of the Tech Soft 3D products, we encourage you to submit the information via our Support Website, located at:
If you are accessing the site for the first time, you should contact Tech Soft 3D Support (support@techsoft3d.com) for username/password information. After logging in, select the Create Issue link to create and submit your question or description of your problem. Tech Soft Support will log your issue, and an ID will be included in the subject line of related emails, and be displayed in the following format: [#<issue_id>]. We encourage you to include the issue ID (and maintain it's original formatting) in the subject of any further correspondence on the matter. You can also use the support website to track the status of your issues, submit test files, etc...
Electronic Mail
You can also submit issues by directly emailing us at support@techsoft3d.com. All email content is automatically routed and tracked by our technical support system.
Phone
You can also contact our support group through either phone or standard mail using the contact information below.
Tech Soft 3D
931 Ashby Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94710
U.S.A.
PHONE: +1.510.883.2180
A. If you have a question, have you:
B. If you have found a problem that you believe to be a bug, it may already be resolved in a HOOPS/3dAF maintenance release. Active customers can obtain the latest maintenance release from the downloads section of the HOOPS Developer Zone. Before reporting a problem, you should consider the following questions:
Once these questions have been considered, please contact Technical Support.
We will be prepared to work with you, and to gather other pertinent information
that will help us resolve your issue.
If you choose to submit information via email instead of logging into the support system, you should use the following info template:
A. SUBMITTER INFORMATION:
NAME: <Your Name>
ORGANIZATION: <Your Company or Institution>
PROJECT: <Project within your Company - Optional>
PHONE: <Your Phone Number>
SUPPORT LEVEL: <Priority, Developer>
B. PRODUCT INFORMATION:
PRODUCT: <HOOPS/3dAF, Interop, PDF SDK, Parasolid>
VERSION: <Your Product Version, Including Maintenance Release (e.g. 3.22)>
PLATFORM/OS: <e.g. WinXP, Solaris 3.21>
DEVICE DRIVER<e.g. X11, Windows GDI>
C. QUESTION OVERVIEW, OR BUG PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:
<A one line description to be used as the title of the issue>
(45 characters or fewer, please)
D. DETAILED DESCRIPTION:
<self-explanatory >
E. TEST CASE:
<If the issue is a problem or apparent bug, you should include a small testcase which demonstrates the problem. It has been our experience
that the smaller the program, the quicker the resolution. Test programs
and / or metafiles can be sent to Tech Soft using standard utilities such
as GZIP or PKZIP. Please do not send self-extracting executables. The maximum allowed attachment size is 20MB.>
F. SAMPLE DATA:
<An .hmf or .hsf file demonstrating the problem>
The template for this information may be cut and pasted from this document, or may be found in in the <hoops>/demo/common/test directory as a comment block within the program "bug.c"
The HOOPS/3dAF installation contains a set of Reference Applications and a suite of stand-alone test programs that can be used to verify and isolate problems with the various components of HOOPS/3dAF.
When problems occur within applications using the HOOPS/3dAF C++ toolkits (such as HOOPS/MVO or HOOPS/MFC ) it is useful to write out a HOOPS Metafile from the application using HC_Write_Metafile() and then to load the metafile into one of the Reference Applications. These applications are precompiled on all platforms in the [installation]/bin directory and provide an easy preliminary check for ruling out usage errors or verifying bugs.
When problems occur--or are suspected to occur--within HOOPS/3dGS, the suite of stand-alone test programs in the [installation]/demo/common/standard directory often can provide useful tools for problem verification. In general, application problems with text, drivers, library confilcts, geometry, rendering, system settings, etc... can be checked against a single stand-alone program in less than a minute. The stand-alone test programs can be compiled easily using the supplied makefile.
In addition, the stand-alone programs can often be modified slightly to create test programs and these can be submitted with bug reports. This is perhaps the most efficient way of demonstrating bugs and problems to our Technical Support team.
Tech Soft 3D has 2 different levels of support available, and organizes it's customer support services into two groups. The Technical Support group assists developers in optimal usage of TS3D products, distributes products and product information as well as manages bugs/problems and basic usage questions. The Consulting Engineering group provides developers with design assistance and training courses, evaluates feature requests and bugs, and assists the Technical Support Group in handling more complex issues.
This program provides maximum support to major commercial development efforts. By using our dedicated consulting engineering resources, training services, and priority response for problem/bug resolution, software developers can best leverage TS3D as a virtual extension of their R&D groups. Priority level customers have the advantage of direct input and influence into our ongoing product development process and future technology direction. Priority Support customers are assigned a dedicated Consulting Engineer, and in certain cases may receive custom maintenance releases with special features and modifications.
This program provides the base-level of support recommended for incorporating HOOPS technology into a new or existing application. Developer support includes direct e-mail and telephone access to our Technical Support group and special consideration during bug fixing periods.
In addition, all customers automatically receive major, minor, or maintenance releases of licensed Tech Soft products as soon as they are available.
After you have contacted customer support, you will receive e-mail notification that your information has been received. If needed, a member of the Technical Support group may contact you for clarification. Otherwise, for Priority and Developer customers, Technical Support will log an issue using your information.
As previously mentioned, your issue's ID will be included in the subject line of related emails, and be displayed in the following format: [#<issue_id>]. We encourage you to include the issue ID (and maintain it's formatting) in the subject of any further correspondence on the matter.
In the issue log, your correspondence will be documented and the issue will be assigned a type, a status, and an initial priority. Priorities reflect the urgency with which the issue is being addressed and is determined based on the severity of the issue and your level of support.
Problem - A problem has been encountered, and it is undetermined whether the problem lies within the customer's product or our products.
Feature Request - A formal request for new functionality within our product, or a problem which is only only addressed via such functionality.
Info Request - A request for information about product usage, distribution, licensing, etc.
Bug - The problem has been confirmed to be an error within our product. Note: a reported problem is not considered a Bug until the Tech Soft Support group has reproduced it.
Open- All issues begin with this designation. If the issue is not resolved immediately (i.e., interactively over the phone or by an e-mail reply within one business day) the issue remains Open to indicate that Tech Soft 3D is still working on the issue.
Open - 3rd Party- we are waiting on a response from a 3rd Party component provider.
Customer - If we require more information/action on your part, a member of our Technical Support group will follow up with an e-mail or a phone call, and the status of your issue will be changed to "Customer" until you respond.
Customer - On Hold - Similar to 'Customer' status, but the Customer has indicated that they will not be able to provide requested information or a testcase in the near term.
Testing - This status is given to a fixed bug which is awaiting customer verification. Generally, bug-fixes that do not have a very high confidence level are given this status, at the discretion of the TS3D support staff.
Work Around - A customer-confirmed workaround has been found for a problem that is not easily corrected. Such issues may be reviewed for formal correction in the future.
Complete - The issue has been resolved and no more work is required. In the case of a confirmed bug, it has been fixed. In the case of an info-request, the question has been answered.
Can't Verify - A reported problem cannot be reproduced by the Tech Soft 3D support staff, and all other measures have been exhausted (the customer cannot reproduce the problem outside their application, etc...) In such situations, the issue may warrant hands-on consulting depending on the customer's support level and severity of the issue.
Refused - This is used to indicate that an unreasonable feature request has been made ('I would like the next release of HOOPS/3dGS to run on my microwave oven's LCD display.') In the case of a reported bug, this means the described behavior has been determined to be correct.
P1 -- Blocker -- A verified bug or reported problem which clearly blocks development, shipping or testing. Such issues are given immediate attention by TS3D staff, and any resulting fix is delivered to the customer via a file patch or special maintenance release.
P2 -- Critical -- Any critical problem or verified bug which involves a crash, loss of data, severe memory leak or severely incorrect rendering result. By default, such bugs are corrected in the next regularly scheduled maintenance release, but can be reviewed for delivery in a custom maintenance release if necessary. The P2 priority is also the default level for all info-requests, but they can be downgraded if the question is not pressing.
P3 -- Major -- A nuisance problem/bug. These are must-fixes for the next scheduled release, but can wait until the release stabilization period at the end of the release cycle. The P3 priority is also used for non-urgent info-requests.
P4 -- Minor -- A problem/bug involving very minor loss of functionality or where an easy workaround is present. Bugs with this priority may be fixed during the release stabilization depending on available resources.
P5 -- Trivial -- A cosmetic problem or extremely low priority issue that is not considered for short-term resolution.
Before each major and minor release of a product, the Consulting Engineering group and development staff reviews the confirmed bugs and assign each issue a final priority. The final priority will determine which bugs are fixed for the upcoming release, with a minimum of all P1 and P2 bugs getting fixed.