Windographer FAQ

How much does it cost?

Individual licenses cost US $1000 each. Multi-user licenses and academic discounts are available. For details, please see the Pricing page.

Can I try it before I buy it?

Yes, you can download it from this website and use it for free for 14 days. You will need to purchase a license to continue using it after that.

Do you provide technical support?

Yes, you get two hours of free technical support with the sale of each license. Beyond the two hours, we provide support at US $100/hr.

Does the price of a license include upgrades?

No. Until now, all existing customers have been able to upgrade to the latest version for free, but we reserve the right to start charging upgrade fees in the future. The upgrade fee will be 50% of the full price. Minor upgrades such as bug fixes are always free.

Do you give student discounts?

Yes, if you promise you will use it for strictly academic and not commercial purposes, we give a stupendous discount. Please contact us for details.

How can I buy it?

Just send us an email saying how many licenses you would like to purchase, and we will send you a PDF invoice with complete payment instructions. We will send you a permanent license code once we receive payment. In the meantime, if your license is about to expire we can send you a temporary license code.

How can I pay for it?

You can pay via wire transfer, bank draft, or PayPal. We can also accept cheques from within North America. You can also pay by credit card through PayPal. Your Windographer invoice includes instructions on how to make a payment using PayPal.

Do you provide Windographer on a CD?

No. You can burn a copy to CD if you wish, but you will still need to obtain a license code from us each time you install Windographer to a new computer. Windographer will have a unique serial number on each computer even if you use the same install file every time. You need to send us that serial number so that we can generate the corresponding license code. We apologize for the hassle, but without this licensing system we would not be able to offer free downloading of the software with the initial 14-day license.

The only way to avoid the license code requirement is to buy an enterprise license, which entitles you to a custom version of the software that eliminates the need for license codes and that displays your logo instead of the Windographer kite as a watermark in the graphs.

What do I receive when I buy a license?

When you make a purchase request, we email you an invoice. When we receive your payment, we send you a permanent license code for each license. To receive the permanent license code(s), you send us the serial number of each installed copy of Windographer, which you can find under License Management on Windographer's Help menu.

What happens if I replace my computer or re-install Windows?

Just re-install Windographer and send us the new serial number. We will send you the corresponding license code.

Can I install Windographer to a second computer?

Yes, just install Windographer on the second computer and then send us the serial number for that copy of Windographer. We will send you the corresponding license code. Each copy of Windographer has a unique serial number, so you will need to send us the serial number from each computer on which you wish to license Windographer. As the license agreement states, you are welcome to install Windographer to as many computers as you wish, provided you have no more users than licenses.

Can I transfer a license from one computer to another?

Yes, just install Windographer on the new computer and send us the new serial number. We will send you the corresponding license code. Windographer will have a unique serial number on each computer, so you will need to send us a serial number for each computer on which you want to license Windographer.

Can I transfer a license from one person to another?

Yes. We just ask that you count the number of people using Windographer within your organization, and buy that many licenses.

Can multiple people share a single Windographer license?

No. Please purchase a license for each person who will be using the software.

Do you use USB keys or dongles to regulate licenses?

No.

Can we install Windographer on a network server?

Only if you purchase an enterprise license.

What data format does it read?

Windographer does not require any particular data format. It opens text files, Excel files, and RWD files, and it tries its best to interpret the file by itself. For example, it tries to figure out the date format, the time step, and the type of data that each data column contains. If it has trouble opening your data file, please send us the file or a piece of it, so that we can either change Windographer to make it capable of reading the file, or else suggest a change to the data file to make it readable. (We treat all customer data as confidential.)

Can it really open any data file?

No, but it can open a lot of different data file formats. It still gets stumped by certain things, such as multiple lines of data for a single time step.

Can it read high frequency data?

No, the minimum time step it can accept is one minute.

Can it read RWD files?

Yes, provided you have the SDR software installed on your computer, and provided the SDR software can find the corresponding site file.

Can it read SoDAR data?

Yes, it works nicely with data from the ASC SoDAR and the SecondWind Triton. Please contact us if you have any trouble opening a data file.

Can it read LiDAR data?

Yes, we have tested it extensively with data from the ZephIR by Natural Power. We have not tested it with data from any other LiDAR manufacturer. Please contact us if you have any trouble opening a data file.

Can it read NDF files?

No. You have to run the SecondWind software and convert those files to text files before you can open them in Windographer.

Can Windographer read multiple data files into a single data set?

Yes, you can use the Append command on the File menu to append many data files to an existing data set.

How much data can it take?

There is no hard limit to the size of data file that Windographer can read, although if the data file exceeds about 20 MB it becomes impractically slow. It can easily handle a 50-year hourly data set comprising two data columns -- about 10 MB. A met tower data set with a 10-minute time step and about 30 data columns will take up 6 or 7 MB per year, so Windographer can handle about four years of that type of data. We hope to implement improved memory management techniques to allow Windographer to handle larger data sets in the future.

Does Windographer provide wind data?

No, Windographer does not supply data, it simply lets you analyze data.

Does Windographer let me export graphs for my reports?

Yes, you can right click on any graph or wind rose to copy it to the clipboard or export it to a .PNG or .EMF file.

Does it let me export data?

Yes, the Export Data window lets you export some or all of the data set, and it lets you change the time step so you can export hourly averages, for example.

Can I control the export format?

Yes, you can specify the date and time format, and you can specify any text string to indicate missing data.

Can Windographer export TAB files?

Yes.

Can it export to WindSim?

Yes, it can export to the WindSim .wws format, which contains a frequency distribution, or to the WindSim .tws format, which is a time series format.

Does Windographer calculate the output of wind turbines?

Yes, it can calculate the power output of an individual wind turbine in each time step, and compare the output of different wind turbines.

Does it contain a library of wind turbines?

Yes, the library currently contains about 100 wind turbine models.

Does it account for the effect of air density on wind turbine power output?

Yes, in each time step it calculates the air density and adjusts the power curve accordingly, using the standard IEC approach.

Does it account for the effect of hub height on wind turbine power output?

Yes, it extrapolates the wind speed up to hub height if necessary.

Does Windographer calculate wind flow over terrain?

No.

Can it correct for an error in the offset of a wind vane?

Yes, the Modify Data Columns window allows you to adjust the offset and/or slope of any data column.

Why does the Monthly Statistics table for the wind shear parameter show different numbers than the Wind Shear Analysis window?

You can calculate mean wind shear in two different ways. If your data set covers 1000 time steps, for example, you could find the best-fit wind shear parameter in each time step, and then average those 1000 values. Alternatively, you could calculate the mean wind speed at each height, and then do a single curve fit on that mean wind shear profile. In other words, you could do the curve fit 1000 times and average the results, or average the wind speeds and do the curve fit only once.

In the Wind Shear Analysis window, Windographer uses the second method because we think it is more accurate. But if you create the Monthly or Annual statistics table for the power law exponent or the surface roughness, you are using the first method. We recommend that you refer to the Wind Shear Analysis window for any wind shear calculations.

Does Windographer use all wind speed sensors when it calculates the wind shear?

Yes, although you can choose to use a subset of all sensors in the Wind Shear Analysis window.

Why do the mean wind speeds in the vertical wind shear profile not match the overall mean wind speeds?

Because when calculating the vertical wind shear profile, Windographer considers only those time steps in which all wind speed sensors contain data. This 'concurrency' requirement does not apply to the overall mean wind speeds.

Does Windographer let me fix problems in the data?

Yes, the Quality Control window lets you remove or replace data segments. You can search for problems manually or by defining formal search criteria.

Can Windographer remove tower shading?

Not yet, but we intend to add that capability to a future version. The Tower Shading Analysis window shows the effect of tower shading, and in theory you could use the Quality Control window to remove each shaded data segment, but that would require a lot of work.