There is plenty of help on every aspect of working with the program. In addition to this very comprehensive help file, which is really a complete book on producing noise models with PEN3D, the program also has extensive context-sensitive help that you can access in every situation.
Using this help file:
This help is designed to be used on-screen. It is extensively cross-linked so that you can find more relevant information to any subject from any location. If you prefer reading printed manuals a PDF version of the entire help is available from the Noise Mapping Australia website. This may be useful as a reference but you will probably find that the active hyperlinks, cross-references and active index make the on-screen electronic version of the help much more useful.
Getting started
Start by studying the Introduction, The User Interface and Quick Start Tutorials sections.
Using the help while you're working
As far as possible the help separates instructions and background information. This makes it much easier to refer to the "how-to" instructions when you are in a hurry and need to get your work done.
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To learn how to do something consult the two working procedures sections, Basic Working Procedures and More Advanced Procedures. |
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To learn about something consult the Reference section. |
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When you're frustrated use the Index and Search functions and check out the Frequently Asked Questions section. |
All sections have extensive links to the other relevant sections so it doesn't really matter where you start.
Context-sensitive help:
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Virtually every element and control in PEN3D has a popup context-sensitive help topic that describes what it is for. Just right-click on the control and select What's This? from the popup menu. |
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All dialogs have a HELP button that displays the relevant section of the online help. |
Tutorials:
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See Quick Start Tutorials in the help for some basic tutorials to get you started with using PEN3D |
Getting a printed user manual:
Please don't try to print the HTML Help version of the help from the Microsoft help viewer, it would look terrible. You can download a formatted PDF version of the entire documentation designed for printing from our download page at:
http://www.noisemapping.com.au/download.htm
As mentioned above, however, you will probably find that the on-screen version of the help is much more useful because of the hyperlinks and cross-references.