1.0 Contacting Support

2.0 Levels of Customer Support

3.0 Support Issue Tracking Process


1.0 Contacting Support

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.

1.1 Methods of Contact

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:

developer.hoops3d.com/support

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

1.2 Required Information

Before Contacting Customer Support

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.

Information required Via Email

If you choose to submit information via email instead of logging into the support system, you should use the following info template:

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"

1.3 Standard HOOPS/3dGS Test Programs

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.


2.0 Levels of Support

Tech Soft 3D has two 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.

2.1 Priority Support

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.

2.2 Developer Support

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.


3.0 Support Issue Tracking Process

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.

Issue Types

Issue Statuses

Issue Priorities

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.