I must say I wasn't particularly thinking of upgrading from Rhino3.0 to 4.0, I was more than happy with the capabilities of Rhino3.0. And RhinoCAM1.0 has been brilliant. But then I checked out Rhino4.0 and decided I just had to have it; it was worth it just for the ability to flatten undevelopable surfaces.
Before purchasing the upgrade I had the sense to check whether RhinoCAM1.0 would work on Rhino4.0. The Mecsoft website said:
"RhinoCAM 1.0 is a plug-in that is completely integrated in Rhino 3.0/4.0"
Excellent. But further digging on the Mecsoft forum found a post from Mecsoft Support saying that an upgrade was needed:
"the product was announced on March 1, 2007
To download the product go to:
http://www.rhinocam.com/Downloads/pr...ownloads.shtml"
So an upgrade to Rhino4 was purchased and the RhinoCAM upgrade downloaded and installed. Before running, RhinoCAM wanted a new license code, so that request was made. This was Tuesday. After recieving a few terse emails from Mecsoft asking where I had downloaded this software from (the Mecsoft website!!) I am told this morning that the upgrade has to be purchased (costs $149 in the USA, I have to find out for the UK), which to be fair to them is on a page on their website if you look for it, but wasn't mentioned in all the talk about upgrading on the forum or the product description.
I won't be able to get the upgrade until next Tue at the earliest.
I understand that somebody has to pay for this upgrade work (but Penguin upgraded free), I just wish they had made the situation clear from the start to allow an easy upgrade instead of all this rather suspicious emailing.
I can also undestand the security issue, although most other software doesn't need a dongle (which is an absolute pain for us laptop users), and I do think Mecsoft is a bit paranoid about it. It's great software, but not that much (if any) better than the competition (I bought it for it's 4th axis add on).
I object to being made to feel the guilty party just because Mecsoft haven't got their story straight.
John