Aquaveo & Water Resources Engineering News

Have you been wanting to make a direct graphical comparison of observed time series water-level data with computed time series water-level data? Have you been hoping to use data observed in the field to help calibrate your 2D hydraulic model in this way? While not officially supported yet, we have a workaround that could potentially help with this. This post will review how to plot both observed and computed water-level data onto the same time series plot.

There is no direct method for plotting observed data onto a computed time series graph. However, the following workflow should be able to suffice as a solution:

1. From within SMS, bring up the File Import Wizard by using File | Open to select the file for your observed time series data.
2. On Step 2 of the File Import Wizard, set the SMS data type drop-down to "Scatter Set", and once properly configured, click Finish to close the File Import Wizard and import the observed time series data into SMS as a scatter set.
3. Once the data has been imported, interpolate the scatter set to your mesh by right-clicking on the scatter set and selecting the Interpolate to... command to bring up the Interpolation Options dialog.
4. Select the scatter set data you would like and the mesh you would like to interpolate the data to, and click OK to close the dialog and interpolate.
5. Click the Plot Wizard macro to bring up Step 1 of the Plot Wizard dialog.
6. Select "Time Series" from the Plot Type list and click Next > to move on to Step 2 of the Plot Wizard.
7. Select "Use selected datasets" and then click the All Off button underneath it. This will now allow you to select which specific datasets you would like to appear on the graph.
8. Click Finish to close the Plot Wizard and bring up the Plot Window. The graph you have specified should appear.
9. To further modify the graph, right-click on it and select Plot Data... to bring up the Data Options dialog. This will allow you to get back to the previous options and change your selection of datasets.

A future version of SMS may incorporate a more direct method for this process. But don’t let that stop you from trying out plotting observed data onto a computed time series plot in SMS 13.1 today!

Are you an IT administrator needing to perform a silent install of GMS, SMS, or WMS in a classroom or office? We have gone over the process to do this in the past. However, our licensing methods have changed since those instructions were first written. Because of this, we have felt it would be useful to update our users on the new method of configuration so they will be able to properly set up their silent installs. This post will review registration for the new licensing method and how to perform silent installs with it.

This silent install (or quiet install) workaround requires each user to have the rights to modify the registry. If registry access is restricted, a network administrator can do this by opening the Group Policy Management Editor and creating a startup script that automatically runs the batch file whenever the computer is restarted.

Note: Editing the Registry in Windows is a very advanced administration step. Please always create a backup of the Registry before making changes.

It can be a burden to manually update the local code in HKEY_CURRENT_USER for each user on each computer. The silent install process is simplified by creating a Windows Registry file that contains the license information and a batch file that can be executed to insert the registry information and launch WMS. The batch file automatically updates the registry for the user and then opens the WMS application. This is the safest way to edit the registry key, as well. The batch file can then be placed on each computer that needs to be updated, and the individual users can execute it as needed.

This workaround uses WMS as an example. This information also applies to GMS and SMS. You can see an example of a registry file in step 1 and the batch file in step 2, below.

1. Create a file, "Netenble.001.reg", as follows:
   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00M
"ALS"="1"
"ALSHost"="127.0.0.1"
"ALSPort"="56789"

   ALS = 1 specifies the new registration wizard, with new "Local" codes beginning with L, F, or E, instead of 0 for the old network lock. ALSHost = 127.0.0.1 because the code is being located on the local machine. And ALSPort = 56789 should be the default - you can alternatively specify your own port if you would like. You could also specify an ALSCode (license code) as well if you don’t want registration to be required when first launching WMS.
   Note: This information was created using Windows 10. Because different Windows versions can have different REG file formats, we recommend you install WMS on one machine, register it to the correct local code, then export the registry key. Open the registry file in the text editor and remove every line except those similar to those shown in the image above, and save the file as "Netenble.001.reg".
2. Create a file, "wms11.bat", that will update the registry and start WMS:
   reg import Netenble.001.reg
wms.exe

3. Place these two files in the WMS folder in the image that will be distributed to the affected computers. For example, for the 64-bit version of WMS 11.1, the default location for the folder is “C:\Program Files\WMS 11.1 64-bit\”.
4. Create a desktop shortcut to the batch file for the convenience of the user. If doing this via a startup script in the Group Policy Management Editor, this step can be skipped.

This silent install workaround can save you significant time as a network administrator. If you experience issues while performing a silent install, feel free to contact Aquaveo for assistance.

Have you wanted to incorporate the TOB package while running MT3DMS in GMS? We have a workflow that can help with this, as part of building an MT3DMS model in GMS with a conceptual model approach. This post will review how to incorporate transport observation points into your MT3DMS model in GMS.

To do so, use the following steps:

1. With your MT3DMS model already open in GMS, right-click the conceptual model and select New Coverage... to create a new coverage and bring up the Coverage Setup dialog.
2. While in the Coverage Setup dialog, turn on whichever options you want to be observing for in the Obs. Data column of the Observation Points section.
3. Once done with the Coverage Setup dialog and with a new coverage created, create some points within the coverage.
4. Using the Select Points\Nodes tool, select the points you have just created, right-click on one of them, and select Attribute Table… to bring up the Attribute Table dialog.
5. Set the Type drop-down in the All row to obs. pt in the Attribute Table dialog to set the BC type to Observation Points for the points.
6. Once done with the Attribute Table dialog and with the points set as observation points, right-click the new coverage and select Map To | MODFLOW/MODPATH to map the new coverage to MODFLOW.
7. Now select MT3DMS | Basic Transport Package… to bring up the Basic Transport Package dialog.
8. Select the Packages... button to bring up the MT3DMS/RT3D Packages dialog.
9. Turn on the option for Transport observation package.
10. Now select MT3DMS | Transport Observation Package... to bring up the Transport Observation Package dialog.
11. Now you will have the ability to turn on the option to Compute concentrations at observation points and select coverages with concentration observations to be used.

Try out incorporating transport observation points into MT3DMS models in GMS 10.5 today!

Do you want to know more about what happens when SMS completes post-processing for SRH-2D? When running SRH-2D, it helps to understand what exactly is happening during the post-processing phase of the SMS model run. This post will review how post-processing uses interpolation as it goes through SRH-2D.

To understand how post-processing fits into the SRH-2D process, first we need to look at what comes before it. When creating an SRH-2D model in SMS, the data is assigned as nodal data. This means that the boundary conditions, materials and other data is assigned to the nodes of the mesh. SRH-2D requires that the data be assigned to the center of the mesh elements (the centroid).

To allow the nodal data to be used by SRH-2D, SMS uses a pre-processing step that utilizes linear interpolation to interpolate the data that has been modelled in SMS into centroidal data for SRH-2D to use. After SHR-2D has finished processing the data, it creates results that use centroidal data. This is where the post-processor comes in.

The post-processor for SRH-2D takes the SRH-2D results and interpolates the data from centroidal data and converts it into nodal data. This allows SMS to import and display the solution data.

If the post-processor fails in its attempt, this usually means the centroidal data generated from SRH-2D is not valid. In this case, it could be possible that the model failed to converge even if SRH-2D managed to completely finish its model run. It could also be possible that SRH-2D was made to run an invalid model that resulted in empty solution sets.

For more information on how to use SRH-2D with SMS, see the XMS Wiki article on SRH-2D in SMS. Future versions of SMS may make use of centroidal data without the need to interpolate data.

Now that you understand a little more about how SMS handles post-processing, try out SRH-2D in SMS 13.1 today!