GMS

Tips for Finding Information on the XMS Wiki

By aquaveo on September 25, 2019

The Aquaveo XMS Wiki contains over 8000 pages of information and images about SMS, GMS, WMS, and other Aquaveo products (collectively called "XMS"). While we try to make the information as easy to find as possible, sometimes the sheer volume of available information can make a particular search term harder to locate. Here, we discuss a few ways to find the information you need using the XMS Wiki.

Help Button

Most dialogs in SMS, GMS, and WMS contain a Help button at the bottom of the dialog window. Clicking this button will generally take you directly to a page on the XMS Wiki about that dialog. This is the quickest way to find information about a dialog.

Navigation Links

When you visit any page on the XMS Wiki, an "XMS Projects" menu is found at the top left of the page. Click on any of the products listed there to be taken to the main page for that product. Once there, click on any of the links in the Wiki Sections section on the lower right to be taken to a table of contents listing all of the pages discussing the features of that product.

At the bottom of the main page for the product, there is also a navigation template listing main topics for that product. This allows you to quickly navigate to any of those main topics.

Search Field

Directly below the "XMS Projects" menu is a search field. If you start typing in that field, the XMS Wiki will attempt to locate a page containing what you type. To find a page about a particular product, preface the search term with that product's abbreviation, followed by a colon and the search term. For example, if you are searching for information about the bridge scour features in SMS, type "SMS:Bridge Scour" and a list of articles will appear below the search box. Simply select the desired article to be taken directly to it.

You can also enter only the search term and select the "containing…searchterm", where "searchterm" is the term you entered in the search box. This will bring up a list of pages containing the term you entered. This can be useful when you don't know what the page might be named, but you know a term that might be used on that page.

Google

One option that is often overlooked is to use the power of the Google search engine. To search for pages or information on the XMS Wiki, enter "searchterm site:xmswiki.com", replacing "searchterm" with the word or words you are seeking. This tells Google to provide results only from the XMS Wiki. Click this link for an example.

Page Prefixes

Most pages on the XMS Wiki are prefaced by a product abbreviation. When reviewing search results, make sure the page you are on has the appropriate abbreviation at the beginning of the page title (e.g., "SMS:Display Options", "GMS:Display Options", "WMS:Display Options"), as similar pages may be found for various products.

Page Notices

Sometimes when searching for information or a feature, you may find pages that document obsolete or future features. These pages will have notices at the top indicating this status. There are other types of notices that may appear at the tops of pages, as well, so always be sure to read any notices that appear.

Try out these search methods today by visiting the XMS Wiki today!

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GMS

SMS

WMS

Using Display Options with Multiple UGrids

By aquaveo on September 11, 2019

Have you experienced setting display options for an unstructured grid only to see those settings not take? In GMS, each unstructured grid (UGrid) uses its own set of display options. A common reason for display settings not appearing is selecting the wrong UGrid when you have multiple UGrids.

Changing the UGrid display settings will only affect one UGrid at a time. So it is important to make certain the correct UGrid display options are being changed.

There are three ways to reach the Display Options dialog for UGrids:

Display Options macro
Display Options command in the Display menu
Display Options command in the UGrid Data right-click menu in the Project Explorer

Display Options list showing multiple UGrids

Once in the Display Options dialog, check to see which UGrid is active. This is done by looking a the list on the left side of the dialog. The list on the left will indicate which By default, the display option will be set for the active UGrid. So one method to make certain you are setting display options for the correct UGrid, it to make certain that UGrid is the active UGrid in the Project Explorer before entering the Display Options dialog.

The Display Options dialog can be used to change display settings for a UGrid that is not active. This is done by selecting the desired UGrid from the list on the left in the dialog. It should be noted that selecting a UGrid in th Display Options dialog does not cause the UGrid to become the active UGrid in GMS. So when you exit the Display Options dialog, you may need to change which UGrid is active in the Project Explorer to see the display setting changes.

It should be noted that which UGrid is active also matters when accessing the Dataset Contours Options dialog.

Hopefully, this helps clarify how to set display options in projects that have multiple UGrids. Make use of Ugrids disaply options in you project using GMS today!

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GMS

Converting a 3D Dataset to a 2D Dataset

By aquaveo on August 21, 2019

It sometimes happen where you have a fully developed 3D model in GMS and need to transfer a dataset from the 3D model to a 2D model. GMS provides a way to convert a dataset on a 3D grid to a 2D grid. From there the dataset can be exported as 2D data for use in a 2D model.

To acquire a 2D dataset from a 3D dataset, you need the following:

3D grid
2D grid
3D dataset

To convert a 3D dataset to a 2D dataset, do the following:

In the Project Explorer, select a dataset under a 3D Grid.
Use the Grid menu to select the 3D Data → 2D Data command.
Select option in the 3D Dataset → 2D Dataset dialog.

The 3D Dataset → 2D Dataset dialog allows choosing which dataset to converted. By default, the dialog will use whichever 3D dataset is active in the Project Explorer. If another dataset is desired, from a MODFLOW simulation for example, you can make the change in the dialog..

The dialog also allows creating the new 2D dataset using one of the following parameters:

Maximum value in ij column
Minimum value in ij column
Average value in ij column
Sum of values in ij column
Highest active value in ij column
Value from k layer

K represents the layer number with 1 being the surface layer, and J and I representing the x and y locations of a cell (or column of cells) in the grid.

Keep in mind that one of the grids could be covering the other so if you want to observe specific data, you may need to turn off other data.

Additional additional information about converting 3D grids to other data can be found on our wiki.

Try out converting 3D datasets to 2D datasets in GMS today!

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GMS

Common Installation Issues with XMS

By aquaveo on August 14, 2019

Are you having trouble installing GMS, SMS, or WMS? Here are three common installation issues, and how to overcome them.

Virtual Machines

The main issues when using virtual machines is selecting the correct type of installation. Single-user locks are not compatible with virtual environments. If you are trying to install XMS with a single-user lock and a virtual machine is detected, XMS will not install. You will need a network lock to get around this issue. Network locks are designed to be used with virtual machines. Single-user locks are not capable of being used as a network lock.

Firewalls and User Permissions

Sometimes, a good password will fail to install XMS, This is because your computer actually needs to contact our servers to verify the authenticity of the password. When an internet error comes up, it's typically related to a firewall, user permissions, or antivirus software blocking the connection to our servers.

Try one of these solutions to resolve this issue:

Whitelist which ever XMS program you are trying to install and the registration wizard.
Temporarily disable the firewall/antivirus software.

Note that firewalls are typically something each company's IT department handles.

If you are running Windows 8 or 10, and you are not running in a virtual environment, then the issue could be caused by a Windows feature called Hyper-V. Disabling Hyper-V can resolve the problem. You can find instructions on how to disable Hyper-V by reading this article.

Hardware locks

When installing a hardware lock, be sure to have your drivers installed and running before attempting to register the lock. Additionally, please also ensure that the lock is plugged into the computer at the time you are attempting to register. (Note that as a security measure, the reburn cannot take place remotely.) For instructions on how to install your specific type of hardware lock please visit our page here.

Feel free to contact our technical support team at support@aquaveo.com for more individual help in troubleshooting any of these problems. Please recognize that Aquaveo technical support can only help troubleshoot individual machine issues to a certain point.

Blog tags:

GMS

SMS

WMS