• What are MAAT Hydro, MAAT Hydro Demo, MAAT Hydro + and MAAT Hydro ++ ?
• How to get a MAAT Hydro license ?
• Why may your license ordering cryptogram be refused ?
• How to Install MAAT Hydro on your system ?
• How to activate your Maat Hydro license ?
• How to update MAAT Hydro on your system ?
• Why does a 'xxx60.bpl missing' warning box (or similar) popup at MAAT Hydro's startup ?
• What are the points to check if MAAT Hydro remains in Demo mode after localizing the license file ?
• Why does MAAT Hydro sometimes have an unstable behavior ?
• Which hardware configuration is best for MAAT Hydro ?
• Which operating systems are compatible with MAAT Hydro ?
• How to customize Maat Hydro colors ?
• How to customize Maat Hydro initial settings ?

MAAT Hydro is a new generation professional hydrostatic  solver designed for 'marinizing' most of the existing 3D modeling software.

MAAT Hydro allows simulating and analyzing in real-time the behavior of the virtual ship you have imported as well as calculating its approval reports (see the RINA 2013 presentation).

Used by well known professionals, its results are acknowledged by most of the classification societies.

MAAT Hydro Demo is a free and totally operational version of MAAT Hydro (certain reports just have a 'For Demo Only / No Commercial Use' mention) and can be downloaded from the homepage, after having created an account and logged in.

MAAT Hydro Demo therefore provides freely a professional, user-friendly and acknowledged hydrostatic solver to students, home-users and casual professionals.

In order to install MAAT Hydro Demo on your system, just create an account an login this website, and install the latest MAAT Hydro version with its complete file system from the installation page (as MAAT Hydro grows quickly, don't forget to visit this webpage as often as possible in order to dowload the latest updates as soon as available !).

Moreover, an online license* system allows transforming immediately the installed demo version into a commercial version for the period of your choice (from 1 to 12 months, see online purchase procedure), for example as soon as the project you have designed with the demo version must be approved by a classification society.

This ‘à la carte’ license* system allows the steady users to take out yearly licenses, and the casual users to remain free to take out short licenses according to their needs.

Immediately available online, the MAAT Hydro + licenses are intended for yacht designers and,the MAAT Hydro ++ licenses for professional design offices, an additional ‘Turbo’ option allowing to speed up calculations by 4 to 50 (average between 7 to 10).

Moreover, this flexible license system allows discovering MAAT Hydro without any risk and using it freely, according to your needs, without any heavy investment. 

* The Sistre licenses include software, updates and a basic support, a more specific support being available on demand if necessary.

MAAT Hydro’s "à la carte" license system is extremely flexible, offering a wide range of solutions, starting from 1 month up to endless transfers.

The basic functions needed by students and amateurs are freely available in MAAT Hydro Demo, in which float modeling and basic analysis are fully operational.

The MAAT Hydro + / MAAT Hydro ++ operating licenses can be purchased online (minimum transfer: 1 month).

To get this operating license, you must first install MAAT Hydro on your system and run it:

1°) Open MAAT Hydro’s license purchasing page on Sistre’s web site.
2°) Select a USB memory key dedicated to MAAT Hydro’s license and connect it to your system.
3°) Select "/Help/Order License" in MAAT Hydro’s menu bar.
4°) Enter the user name which has to appear on MAAT Hydro’s outputs.
5°) Enter the E-mail address towhich the license file must be sent.
6°) Select a granting period.
7°) Select MAAT Hydro’s version.
8°) Locate the USB memory key dedicated to MAAT Hydro’s license (click on [Browse] button and enter name of license file.
9°) Click on [Copy License Ordering Code] to copy your ordering code in Windows clipboard,.
10°) Paste your ordering code in purchasing page’s corresponding field (alternatively, the purchasing code can also be pasted and mailed to Sistre). This code must look like this (less than 150 characters):

Í«íקåÕ³çïáó±Ùð¡ÝíÛêÛØç”Òä”ÊáÎÞŠÌÛ‘ÉØ•ÂÕ‚½ÒŒ¼ÏŠÀÌx¦É»³Æ€³Ãt±Àx¾½s»ºk¸•qµ´n²±^¯®d¬«\©¨`¦¥–£¢^ ŸOœNš000017947

11°) Pay the purchased license (notice that VAT will be charged if no valid VAT identifier is entered. Contact us for VAT exemption in non european countries).
12°) Your license file (LIK extension) will be returned to you within 24 hours.

Once you shutdown the license ordering dialog box, a license ordering cryptogram is copied by MAAT Hydro in the Windows clipboard and a 'KPT' file containing it is stored on the license support you have selected.

This cryptogram is a character string encoding all the necessary data for creating your license file and it looks like this:

ɨ鷶奤㪩ڮ­Û§¦ØœÔæ×Ô¼›Ë·–É«ŠÃ¹˜À¢¿¨‡Â|½Î­»Ëp¼Èx´Å€­Âx¨¿}¥¼xº¹«·¶g´³q±°Z®­X«ª`¨§c¥¤•¢¡]ŸžNœ›M™˜—–400017020

In certain circumstances, this cryptogram might be transcoded behing your knowledge, by example when your system uses a non-standard character set (Asia, eastern Europe, Scandinavia, ...) or when the cryptogram has been copied / pasted in text editors like  MS Word, MS Outlook or similar.

Normally, once copied by MAAT Hydro, this license ordering cryptogram just has to be pasted in purchase page's input field but, nevertheless, it might be rejected if it has been altered for one of these reasons.

In this case, you can try one of these alternative procedures:

• Always paste the cryptogram directly after having got it from MAAT Hydro,  without using any intermediary text editor. 
• Open (with NotePad) the 'KPT' file created by MAAT Hydro on the license support you have selected, copy its character string in the Windows clipboard and re-try pasting it in purchase page's input field.
• If possible, purchase the license from another computer using a standard character set.
• If none of these alternative procedures work, you can paste this void cryptogram (00300000096) in the purchase page in order to access the payment platform and finalize your order. But, in this case, as the pasted cryptogram has no content, you will also have to send us the 'KPT' file created on the selected license support by a separate E-mail, in order to allow us creating your license file.

By default, MAAT Hydro runs in demo mode. This mode is fully operational, but simply overprints "For Demo Only, No Commercial Use" on the non-free outputs.

Real time hydrostatic simulation, basic hydrostatic analysis, and intact stability for one compartment / basic criterion are freely available in the demo version (an operating license is necessary for using the other functions fully).

After having purchased and installed an operating license, MAAT Hydro’s corresponding functions become fully usable for the granted period.

MAAT Hydro’s installation procedure is the following:

1°) Login to access MAAT Hydro’s downloading page.
2°) Download the setup file.
3°) Uninstall the previous MAAT Hydro if present on your PC.
4°) Run the downloaded setup file and follow its installation statements.
5°) Run the newly installed MAAT Hydro.

6°-a) When no license file is available, directly click on [Cancel] button in the license file location dialog box, in order to run MAAT Hydro in demo mode.
6°-b) When a license file is available and installed on its USB key, you must locate this “*.LIK” file with the license file location dialog box and click on the [OK] button. You must then shut down MAAT Hydro and restart it in order to allow this license to be taken into account.

The license file location dialog box won’t reopen as long as the license file remains accessible and the granting period hasn’t expired (a warning message will pop up one month before license expiry).

Remark: Interferences have sometimes been noticed between MAAT Hydro’s license management system and Crypkey servers. In such cases, the Crypkey server must be deactivated before running MAAT Hydro.

Important: With Windows Vista and higher, random errors may occur when the software is not running in XP-SP2 compatibility mode (See this topic in the "Installation" FAQ ).

Attention: Any non compliant use of MAAT Hydro will expose the user to a progressive and random degradation of software's proper operation.

Please, visit MAAT Hydro's Installation / Update page frequently, in order to keep your software up to date.

Contrary to software's full installation, which creates the complete file system necessary for running MAAT Hydro thanks to a 'Setup.exe' program, MAAT Hydro's executable update is a routine operation which consists in downloading the latest executable from the Installation / Update page in order to replace the previous version by the downloaded one.

After having decompressed the downloaded file, you must:

- Store the new executable in MAAT Hydro's file system (generally "\Program Files\Sistre\MAAT Hydro"), beside the old one.

- Copy the old executable's name before renaming it for archive.

- Rename the new executable by pasting the previously copied name, in order to preserve MAAT Hydro's shortcuts.

Warning: If you try running the downloaded executable directly, without having installed it in its file system, an error message will be displayed ("The program can't start because vcl60.bpl is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix the problem"). The new executable will simply have to be installed as explained above to solve the problem.

Please, notice that MAAT Hydro may have an unstable behavior if it is not turned into the 'Windows XP Compatibility mode' (select the exécutable, right click, select 'Properties', 'Compatibility' tab).

First of all, retry the license localization procedure after having loaded a MAAT Hydro File:

- Run MAAT Hydro
- Open any MAAT Hydro file
- Localize the license file(/Help/Find License)
- Shutdown MAAT Hydro
- Run MAAT Hydro again: it should then work normally

If this alternative license localization procedure fails, check the following points:

- Isn't the license file obsolete (i.e expired or linked to an obsolete revision (< 6.0) ?
- Is the license file stored on the key it matches with ?
- Don't you try running a 'non Turbo' license ('Hydro +' or 'Hydro ++') in 'Turbo' mode ('Turbo' button pushed) ?
- Isn't an antivirus or license server disturbing MAAT's access to the license key ?
- Do your access rights allow reading in / writing on the license file ?
- Is the software ran in "Windoxs XP SP2 Compatibility" mode (for Vista and Seven) ?
- Your system's timedate is it correct ?

MAAT Hydro's executable uses several DLLs which must be present in its folder before running otherwise such warning boxes will popup.

This problemn usually happens when the user has installed a new MAAT Hydro executable out of its installation folder and tries to run it there, without its associated DLLs.

This can be simply fixed by moving this new executable to MAAT Hydro's installation folder (usually '/Program Files (x86)/Sistre/MAAT Hydro'). When done, you can rename the old and new executables in order to maintain the shortcut links. 

If this start-up error remains, please insure that all the MAAT Hydro DLLs are present in its execution folder.

Since Windows Vista, MAAT Hydro's executable must be turned in XP-SP2 compatibility mode.

To set the appropriate execution mode, right click on program's icon, select "Properties in the popup menu, select "Compatibility" tab and set the compatibility mode to "Windows XP (Service Pack 2)" in the "Compatibility mode" frame.

Moreover, an error message like "The program can't start because vcl60.bpl is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix the problem" may also be displayed at MAAT Hydro's startup, when trying to run its executable outside its file system (generally located in "\Program Files\Sistre\MAAT Hydro"), which usually occurs when running a dowloaded update directly instead of installing it properly in its file system. See  How to update MAAT Hydro on your system ? on this page for solving this problem .

MAAT Hydro runs on most of today’s PCs and its only requirement concerns the quality of the OpenGL support provided by the graphic accelerator (nVidia accelerators have always provided excellent results)).

Any 2GHz PC with more than 512 Mb RAM and a good OpenGL graphic accelerator with more than 64Mb of graphics memory allow the running of MAAT Hydro in good conditions.

Inadequate graphic accelerators may cause cascading error warnings at 3D display startup.

MAAT Hydro runs under Windows XP and higher.

With Windows Vista and Seven, an error usually occurs at startup (bmpfile problem) when the program is not ran in XP-SP2 compatibility mode.

To set the appropriate execution mode, right click on program's icon, select "Properties in the popup menu, select "Compatibility" tab and set the compatibility mode to "Windows XP (Service Pack 2)" in the "Compatibility mode" frame.

MAAT Hydro’s color management depends on layer settings and it is therefore necessary to display [Ship] tab’s [Layers] page to set layer colors and create the necessary layers if missing.

After this preliminary setting, [Ship] tab’s [Layout] page can be displayed, allowing to set MAAT Hydro’s colors:

Rendering Background: Defines the 3D rendering background color as the "Area Color" of selected layer.
3D Background Layer: Defines the wireframe display background color as the "Area Color" of selected layer.
Major Grid Layer: Defines the major grid lines color as the "Line Color" of selected layer.
Minor Grid Layer: Defines the minor grid lines color as the "Line Color" of selected layer.
Selection Layer: Defines the selected lines highlighting color as the "Line Color" of selected layer.
OX Layer Defines the OX axis color as the "Line Color" of selected layer.
OY Layer: Defines the OY axis color as the "Line Color" of selected layer.
OZ Layer: Defines the OZ axis color as the "Line Color" of selected layer.
Paper Layer: Defines the 2D background color as the "Area Color" of selected layer.
Text Layer: Defines the Text color as the "Line Color" of selected layer.
Text Cell Layer: Defines the alternative color used for text background stepping as the "Area Color" of selected layer.
Curve 1 Layer: Defines the 1st 2D line color as the "Line Color" of selected layer.
Curve 2 Layer: Defines the 2nd 2D line color as the "Line Color" of selected layer.
Curve 3 Layer: Defines the 3rd 2D line color as the "Line Color" of selected layer.
Curve 4 Layer: Defines the 4th 2D line color as the "Line Color" of selected layer.

These customized color settings can be stored once and for all in the "/ProgData/Initial.m2a" initialization file (see "How to customize MAAT Hydro’s default parameters").

When a new project is created, MAAT Hydro loads an empty project file containing all the default settings. It is therefore very easy to customize these default settings (layers, colors, materials…) once and for all:

This empty initialization file is named “/ProgData/Initial.m2a" and MAAT Hydro’s customization can be done according to this procedure:

1°) Backup the original “/ProgData/Initial.m2a" to allow any return to the default settings.
2°) Run MAAT Hydro and open “/ProgData/Initial.m2a".
3°) Click on the [Ship] tab and set all the parameters you want to customize.
4°) Overwrite the original file, taking care to conserve its name and path, otherwise it won’t be read at startup.

Don’t forget to backup your customized initialization file as well, MAAT Hydro’s re-installation resets this file to its initial state.

Moreover, as new parameters will certainly appear in future MAAT Hydro versions, it is also recommended to update your customized initialization file whenever necessary, in order to preset the newly appeared parameters.