Totalopenstation

This is a bugfix release for a serious bug in the GUI app that would prevent showing downloaded data in the main window.

This is a bugfix release that removes an annoying bug preventing the app to start correctly.

Total Open Station 0.5 is here!

The application is now based on **Python 3**, which means an improved handling of data transfers and a general improvement of the underlying source code.

An extensive **test suite** based on _[pytest](http://pytest.org/)_ was added to help developers work with more confidence and the documentation was reorganized to be more readable.

There are no visible user changes but this release includes a **large number of bugfixes**, and it is the result of a short and intense development cycle.

If you were using a previous version of the program you can:

- wait for your Linux distribution to upgrade
- install with `pip install --upgrade totalopenstation` if you know your way around the command line on Linux or MacOS
- download the Windows portable app: this release is the first to support the Windows portable app from the start

But there's more. This release marks a renewed development process and the full onboarding of psolyca in the team. With the 0.6 release we are planning to move the repository from the personal "steko" account to an organization account and improve the contribution guidelines so that the future of Total Open Station is not dependent on a single person. Of course we have already great plans for new features, as always listed on our issue tracker.

If you use Total Open Station please let us know and maybe give us a star ★ on GitHub.

The new 0.4 version brings read support for 4 new formats:

- Carlson RW5
- Leica GSI
- Sokkia SDR33
- Zeiss R5

Other input formats were improved, most notably Nikon RAW.

DXF output was improved, even though the default template is not very useful since it is based on an old need from the time when TOPS was developed day to day on archaeological excavations.

The work behind these new formats is in part by the new contributor to the project, Damien Gaignon (find him as psolyca ), who submitted a lot of other code and started helping with project maintenance as well.

The internal data structures for handling the conversion between input and output formats are completely new, and based on the Python GeoInterface abstraction offered by the pygeoif library. This allows going beyond single points to managing lines and polygons, even though no such feature is available at the moment. If you often record linear or polygonal features that you’re manually joining in the post-processing stage, think about helping TOPS development and you could get DXF or Shapefiles with the geometries ready to use (yes, Shapefile output is on our plans, too).

**This version is the last built on Python 2, and work is already ongoing towards a new version that will be based on Python 3: a more mature codebase will mean a better program, without any visible drastic change.**

This is a prerelease of TOPS 0.4 aimed at providing interested users in a working portable app for the Windows platform. That's one file, that is generated with pyInstaller and can run from a USB key, or from your desktop, no install needed. It was tested for data processing, and it works, but there may be issues in data transfer: that's why your support for testing is important! Please download the app and submit any issues you encounter.