Aquaveo & Water Resources Engineering News

May 2011 Sprint Highlights

By mkennard on June 8, 2011
Some of the more interesting accomplishments from the May 2011 sprint:

  • Added three new GMS videos on the YouTube channel.
  • Fixed 24 bugs
  • Created an installer for GMS 8.1 for 32 and 64 bit
  • Created 64 bit versions of MODFLOW
  • Got 64 bit tests of MODFLOW running
  • Added a preference for 64 bit MODFLOW
  • Made good progress on restoring ability to contour and block fill at the same time
  • Finished fixing the annotation bugs to be included in 8.1
  • Created a local help page, similar to the online learning center, which will direct users to the tutorials installed locally
  • Created a table of contents for the wiki and got PDF generation of the wiki working. A locally installed PDF version of the wiki will be available with GMS 8.2.
  • Added code to MT3D model checker to look for missing species in the conceptual model
  • Almost finished basic raster implementation (raster objects coming in GMS 8.2)
  • Wrote a design for MODFLOW-NWT
  • Changed some MODFLOW dialogs to conform to the standard for variable names
  • Made lighting dialog display changes instantly in graphics window

GMS Resources for Educators

By mkennard on June 7, 2011
We recently created the GMS Resources for Educators page at aquaveo.com. There you can find sample lectures, in-class exercises, and homework assignments for a one semester, college level course in groundwater modeling. The course teaches groundwater modeling principles with an emphasis on MODFLOW and MODPATH. GMS is used as one of the software tools in the course and a lot of time is spent building real models on the computer. From the course description, "This course is application oriented. We cover the fundamental equations and the modeling theory but the emphasis is on teaching you how to solve real world problems. At the end of the semester, you should feel confident in your ability to develop and calibrate a complex 3D groundwater model."

Dr. Norman L. Jones has taught this class for years at Brigham Young University as CE 547 - Groundwater Modeling. He continually updates and improves the material. To obtain the entire curriculum with a syllabus, tests, and answers to the homework assignments and the tests, email Dr. Jones njones@byu.edu.

At the end of the course students complete a case study of the Woburn site described in the book A Civil Action. If you are familiar with the book or the case, you might be interested in the excellent Woburn Hydrogeology Data page maintained by Dr. Jones which includes all sorts of raw data for use in building a groundwater model, as well as photos of the area and even photos of many of the key players in the book. The case study is designed to be done with the students divided up into small teams - some teams working for the prosecution, and some for the defense.

MODFLOW and More 2011

By alemon on June 6, 2011

Members of the GMS team recently attended the MODFLOW and MORE 2011 conference in Golden, Colorado. The conference was great. There were many presentations related to MODFLOW modeling and groundwater in general. One interesting development was the announcement of MODFLOW USG (Unstructured Grid). This version of MODFLOW is not yet released but it looks quite different from current versions of MODFLOW.

It was good to meet current GMS users and get feedback on improvements that can be made to GMS. Thanks to all those that came by our booth.