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Background

The WinCan VX software application offers two methods for distributing CCTV inspection data projects into a viewer mode for delivery to customers.

This page outlines the options and features that are available to the contractor who wishes to create a WinCan VX Light Viewer export, also known as Media Distribution. The advantages of this type of viewer over the ‘full’ version of the viewer distribution is that the distributed software bundled in with the data is extremely small in terms of file size, and the final product is relatively easy to navigate for the customer (see here) but not all the WinCan features are included in this product.

The file size of the final product created with this tool is dependant on the media files (photos, videos and scans) included inside the original WinCan VX project, so the larger the original VX project folder is, the larger will be the distributed viewer. But, the amount of space needed for the application software to run the viewer on the customer’s PC is extremely small by comparison with the ‘full’ viewer distribution.

Creating a Light Viewer Distribution

The controls for all forms of data import and export options in WinCan VX are found in the ‘Data Exchange’ ribbon, and to launch the Light Viewer creation tool, we use the Media Distribution button:

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When clicked, we get the Media Distribution Wizard in VX:

Here there are four areas of options that should be considered where some of these areas are dependant on the selections made in other areas:

1. Option to select the media type that you wish to distribute the project data onto - DVD or Blueray disk. The drop down list at the top will list available writeable disk drives if the PC has any so that you can select the drive that you intend to use for creating a disk.

2. Options to limit the amount of data that is distributed to each media object. If the ‘Unlimited' option is selected, then the entire project will be distributed into a single folder, but be careful, this may be bigger than the media type that you are using. For example, standard DVDs can only take 4.7 Gb of data, and maybe if you are distributing to a 4 Gb USB stick, then you may need more than one stick to distribute the data. These options here help you to control how much is saved to each media object.

   1. Note - there is no need to consider these options if you are distributing to a DVD or Blueray disk because we already know how much data they can store.

3. Option to distribute the project into a folder of your choice on your PC. This is commonly used with the ‘Unlimited’ size option in 2 above, where the whole option can be saved for example on your desktop, from where you can then decide what to do with it in terms of distribution to your customer.

4. Distribution type - Normal or Light. Normal gives you the ‘full’ media distribution style which is effectively a full installation of WinCan VX included in the saved data (i.e. very large application data) which when delivered to your customer runs in ‘Viewer’ mode because they do not have a user license. The Light option is where we are interested on this page.

Here is an example of how your settings might look if you wish to create a Light Viewer project in the PC’s public desktop folder in a single distribution location:

When you are happy with the options, click the next arrow to move to the next screen:

Here there are 3 option areas, and we will focus on the ‘More Options’ button in the next section:

1. Here you can select which projects from your current project list (on the left side in the main WinCan VX user window) you wish to distribute to your customer. By default, only the currently loaded project in VX will be selected, but you can add other projects ot the list as well if you wish by checking the boxes on the right side.

2. If you wish to add any other projects that maybe on your hard drive but are not in your project list, then you can use the yellow plus button to add these without attaching them to the VX project list.

Click next:

The final panel of the distribution wizard is a summary of all the options that you have selected so far. There are no user options that you can make here because when you click next here, the process will be started and the distribution file set will be created.

You should review the data presented here and if anything does not look right, then click the back button to go back to the various settings pages where you can edit the values for this distribution.

Click the next button to start and complete the distribution. After the distribution has been completed successfully, you will be notified and that’s it, the job is done.

We will cover what the distribution folder looks like and how the customer uses the viewer product in the partner page for customers here.

The folder created in this example is created as C:\Users\Public\Desktop\20201121.2 where the folder name 20201121.2 shows the date of the distribution in yyyyMMdd format followed by the counter number of the distribution made on this date, so in this case the ‘.2’ part describes the 2nd distribution made on 21st November 2020.

Advanced Options

The ‘Wizard Options’ selection in the File menu of the wizard and the ‘More Options’ in the 2nd page of the export process both take you to the same set of additional choices.

Back to the start page.