Over the last year, SES has gone through considerable restructuring of its approach to software development, making it faster and more flexible. This has allowed us to deliver, more quickly, the features that our users want. This restructuring has also provided for the greater reliability in our software products demanded by our users.

Across the board, the software industry is trying to bring the same degree of rigor found in other engineering disciplines to software development. This philosophy requires a considerably different approach to software development, involving design by components, standardization, continuous automated testing, thorough documentation, etc. SES has committed heavily to this approach. In 2001, CDEGS has been subjected to many design and testing tools.

This philosophy has also been applied to the CDEGS documentation. The help files for all the CDEGS modules have been extensively reviewed. A key focus of this review has been to improve the integration of the help files with the user interface. The entire on-line help has been restructured and is being rewritten. The first version of this work will be available at the users' group meeting. The “How To…” engineering manuals have been updated and simplified. In the very near future, all our technical papers will be linked to our documentation for in-depth technical information, if needed by the user.

Many CDEGS users have expressed their preference for simpler interfaces that expose only the concepts that are most important for the engineering tasks at hand. SES has taken this on board and development is underway of several simplified tools. These tools will not impede the many users who are creating complex models, requiring the computational powers of all the CDEGS modules. Instead, these simplified tools could be run in parallel with or separately from the fully featured modules.

Amidst all of these technological and philosophical changes, software development has nevertheless continued. Bug fixes and improvements to the software have been made available regularly on our Web site, the latest being in December 2001. This mode of software delivery is becoming the preferred method of distribution, both by our users and by SES. It will become a standard way of delivering our software in the future, although we shall continue to provide annual CD-ROM releases to licensees who wish to have them.

For a more detailed description of the new features incorporated in the latest release of CDEGS please refer to the feature articles in the newsletter. Other developments that we are presently working on and that should become available in the near future include:

• A simple, integrated package for the computation of line parameters, electromagnetic fields and inductive interference near power lines (see the TLC software package description in this newsletter).
• A utility that integrates HIFREQ and FFTSES for the study of transient phenomena.
• Enhancements to the calculations of radio noise in TRALIN, and introduction of audible noise calculations.

In the longer term (over the next year or so), we hope to release the first version of an automated grounding design utility: you specify the grid perimeter, the soil model, the grid injection current, the fault clearing time, the crushed rock resistivity and thickness and other such data and the software designs a grounding grid for you. We are also considering a multilayer version of HIFREQ and, of course, even better graphics!

SES would like to thank all CDEGS users who have shared their ideas and concerns and thus helped us to constantly improve our product. Thank you also to all those who have continued to sponsor our R&D work by maintaining support, we hope that we have made it worth your while and that you will be pleased with the Year 2002 release offerings!