Quick Pole software can be installed on your Windows computer by downloading an installer program from our server. Please contact us for MacOS and Linux computers. Run the Installer program with the end user logged in. If necessary, the user's admin rights can be temporarily elevated to complete the installation. The first time that Quick Pole is run, it will ask for a license file to be installed. Otherwise it will not function. If you need a license file, you will need to purchase or rent one via our website.
Based on feedback from our users, it is. Even with combining more functionality than most similar programs into one, most users require very little guidance before becoming efficient. Some users ask for no assistance at all and figure it out by themselves.
Sonideft provides support for any question you have, during normal business hours and sometimes beyond. We want to help you get the best value out of Quick Pole. Sometimes it is a simple question and sometimes you have a difficult pole and seeking an acceptable solution. We're here to help.
Yes. Classroom or online training sessions are available through Sonideft accredited training partners.
Quick Pole can run on any 64 bit version of Windows (other than Windows 8) that has at least 2.0GB of RAM. Performance will be best on computers with at least 8GB of RAM.
Quick Pole is also available for MacOS and Linux machines. Contact us for the required installer program.
Mainly Java, which is bundled with Quick Pole as part of the installation process. This version is only used by Quick Pole and will not interfere with anything else on your computer. It also uses web services to communicate with our server over the Internet for software updates, database updates and license validation.
1995 - Sonideft developed a "one-pole-at-a-time" pole line analysis tool called Autopole. It was based on Finite Element Analysis and performed a Linear Structural Analysis, some on-pole and mid-span separation tests. It did not calculate sags & tensions itself and relied on a database of pre-calculated values.
2004 - Sonideft incorporated.
2013 - Quick Pole was created to replace Autopole, perform its own sags & tension calculations, addressing non-linear effects and many poles in a geographic area at the same time.
Corporate headquarters based just outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
The founder and Principal Engineer has over 40 years of experience designing pole lines with Bell Canada and has practiced as a professional engineer in multiple provinces of Canada.
He has also contributed to the development of national standards in Canada and has sat on several CSA technical committees:
- C22.3 No.1 overhead systems
- C22.3 No.7 underground systems
- C22.3 No.60826 reliability-based design
- C83 pole line hardware
- C22.3 No.5 electrical protection-electric contact, overhead supply and communication lines
- CSA 015 wood utility poles and reinforcing stubs
Proud supporter of:
- American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
- Canadian Standards Association (CSA)
- Association of Professional Engineers of Nova Scotia
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
- National Electrical Safety Code (NESC)
- Professional Engineers of Ontario
- Dalhousie University Engineering Department
Sonideft's focus is solely on our customer needs in North America. Our customer base includes many power utilities, communication utilities, railways, the defense department and their supporting design consultant companies.
Quick Pole is not focused on long-haul long-span power transmission lines, even though some of the same required capability will be present. Urban and non-urban power/communication distribution lines typically have spans less than 100 meters. This is not a restriction, just a statement of what project types where Sonideft will seek to optimize the user experience.
Yes. The founder and principal engineer stays involved in the utility industry and national standards development, while also paying close attention to the needs of our customers. Quick Pole software updates are delivered automatically once or more a month and incrementally provide new features and functionality that customers have been requesting.
Easy – just send an email to Support@Sonideft.com describing your question or issue. We will contact you within 24 hours with either a recommended solution or to get more information.
Quick Pole is usually updated once a week with incremental feature additions, or more often if we find a user-impacting issue that should be addressed sooner.
All the documentation on Quick Pole is available online. You can browse through a variety of topics or search for whatever you like.
If you do a software update, you will not have any of your data or settings impacted. If you do a re-install, you will loose your preferences that you set under the Tools->Options menu item. If you need to re-install, simply go back to this menu option and reset them the way you want once again. You will lose your list of recent project files you opened, but that will build up once again as you use Quick Pole. Your databases or project files are not impacted under any update or re-install scenario.
We will certainly try. Start by describing what you would like to do in an email to Support@Sonideft.com and we will follow up with you (likely by phone) to discuss further. If it requires a new feature in Quick Pole, we will add it to our development queue.
Quick Pole uses Web Services to communicate with our server for software updates and license validation. It works over the same Internet ports as your Browser. Newer corporate firewalls and Group Policies may need to be configured to allow Quick Pole, as an application, to access our server/website over the Internet.
No. License files can only be used once and are registered against the User and the computer. If you need a replacement, simply email us at Support@Sonideft.com. If you need more licenses, please contact us at Sales@Sonideft.com.
Quick Pole is the lowest priced total solution that we are aware of. It is difficult to compare some solutions as they only provide one of several pieces of functionality that Quick Pole provides; yet at higher or equal cost. This means you typically need to acquire more software to do the same job and then transpose information manually between them.
- Sonideft has spent considerable effort to ensure that the loads assumed to be applied to the pole(s) are as accurate as possible. Since the tensions, weights and wind forces from wire/messenger attachments are the most significant of all loads on a pole, we accurately modeled these with nonlinear sags and tensions to within 1 or 2 percent of what leading programs would suggest.
- Other tools either assume wires/messengers don't stretch permanently (only elastically at a fixed rate), or they assume that a wire's tension is the same all along a pole line, even if the span lengths vary considerably. This can result in mis-representation of true attachment loads that should be applied to the pole.
- Engineering Due Diligence is a significant focus at Sonideft.
Yes. Simply load your requirements data, share it with others and use it in any project.
Many requirements for your projects that exceed code requirements have been implemented into Quick Pole, based on customer feedback about what they require. This minimizes the amount of manual effort required before submitting your project to ensure it will be accepted. These requirements are easily saved into project template files so that projects in different regions or jurisdictions can be implemented in a repeatable fashion.
The base code compliance tests in Quick Pole cover strength/load aspects, ground clearance, Joint Use mid-span and at-pole separations for NESC, CSA and GO95. To request a detailed clause-by-clause information sheet, please send an email to Info@Sonideft.com.
Quick Pole has been tested against other leading Civil Engineering software tools and has always posted these tests, plus others, on its website for anyone to critique, since 2015.
Quick Pole is based on fundamental engineering principles and leading research created by others and Sonideft.
Verification documents are available for Quick Pole by requesting them at Info@Sonideft.com.
Sonideft's quality assurance program is supported by automated test scripts run against code changes in specific areas. These cover a wide range of scenarios designed to pick up any anomalies that might inadvertently get introduced. These tests are broken down into "Unit Tests" of specific object classes and "Suite Tests" which address multiple program areas working together.
Yes. Many areas of calculation or functionality (algorithms) required for leading Pole Line Design software are not documented in text books nor existing research papers. Sonideft needed to perform its own research and testing/verification of results in many different areas. In many ways, Quick Pole is an industry-specific solution to common Civil and Mechanical Engineering problems with many aspects of nonlinearity and stability that needed special attention. Universities and leading consultants have been engaged with Sonideft to help address this need for research, where required.
Yes. Quick Pole got its name based on how fast it can perform its function. This requires careful tuning of analysis algorithms and use of multi-threading. We pay special attention to recalculating values only when and if they are required. Where many calculations require iterative procedures to arrive at the required answers, special attention is paid to how many iterations each calculation takes under a variety of scenarios to arrive at the best overall user experience.
Engineering Due Diligence is very important at Sonideft. We understand the need for professional engineers and other designers to be completely comfortable with what calculations are being made, why and generically how. We understand that it is important for the user to be comfortable with the results and how to perform a "Sanity Check" on what they see. From time to time we often see structures performing in ways that may not be obvious as to "why?" We would be happy to review any specific cases with you to help explain them. To start the conversation, simply email us a small sample project (you can copy an area of structures from an existing project and paste into a new project and design) with some of the results you are trying to rationalize. We fill follow up with you shortly.
Trials of Quick Pole usually run a couple of weeks, but can run up to a month maximum. The intent of the trial is to give you time to see if Quick Pole meets your needs. We can extend this period based on your situation, when necessary. We will often contact you near the end to see how the trial is going. It is a good time to get better acquainted to your needs and possibly highlight some feature sin Quick Pole that you may not have been aware.
Yes. Quick Pole will not function without a valid license key installed.
The first time Quick Pole is run, it will ask you for a valid license key. This would have been sent to you via email. Simply save the license file to your computer somewhere. In the Dialog that opens on first run, browse for the license file on your computer. Then hit the Install License button. After that, Quick Pole should open.
Yes. You will get the same level of support as any other client. We welcome the opportunity to help you understand how powerful and capable Quick Pole is to fulfill your needs.
No. All features are enabled in Quick Pole.
