Support
The GCD is open-source freeware and there are a variety of ways that you can get help and training on its use. The first thing to identify is what type of help you need. We have tried to make sure that there is a free, self-supported way to get trained up and get done most everything you might need to do in the software. However, if you want some help getting up to speed quickly, you might want to take a workshop, or get support from the GCD community, or hire a professional to help you if your problems are more complicated.
Free Support
Workshops & Courses
We have taught five bespoke GCD workshops for specific groups and over 10 public GCD workshops in the United States, Italy, Australia, Spain, New Zealand and Japan. Joe Wheaton also teaches a semester-long class on Geomorphic Change Detection (WATS 6850) at Utah State University for graduate students.
Discussion Forum & Issue Board
We use GitHub Discussions as a forum for asking questions and getting help as well as reporting bugs. You can search the forum for past issues without a login, but to post to the forum you will need to create a free GitHub account.
If discussion issues raised turn out to be bugs or turn into feature requests, we post them in our GitHub Issue Board.
Example Datasets
There are lots of ways to get your hands on repeat topographic datasets even if you don't have your own. Through our tutorials we provide a number of repeat topographic survey datasets from around the world for you to play with.
🗂 Repeat Topographic Datasets & GCD Projects
Paid Support
While the software is free and reasonably well documented, it is not perfect, and you get what you pay for. If you have sponsored the development of specific features or hired us to carry out research, we make sure you get exactly what you need. If you've downloaded the free software and find a bug and report it, we try to fix it to the extent we can and we have funding support to do so.
If you're interested in seeing new features added to GCD or having our development team build custom features or apps to meet your needs, please get in touch.
None of the GCD development or support happens without someone paying for it. When we are lucky enough to have secured research grant funding (from NSF or NERC), they provide temporary financial support for us to provide technical support to users at no additional cost. However, everything else is on our personal time and personal dime. If you want to ensure you get the help you need when you need it, you can hire an USU ET-AL analyst.