Flood visualization - step by step in 3D

Finished with your flood model and now it is time to see the results! Would it not be nice to overlay your model directly on a map – or even better do it in 3D?

This is in fact possible with the DHIFlooding plug-in made for NASA WorldWind. This plug-in shows the results stored in a dfs2 file and uses the geographical information in the file to place it on a map.

So how is this done? First you need to install NASA WorldWind (see below). NASA WorldWind is Open Source and free of charge. Close NASA WorldWind after the installation and install the DHIFlooding plugin (see below). When NASA WorldWind is launched again a new menu item (DHI) will appear in the menu bar and a new layer (DHI Flooding) is added to the Layer Manager.

Within the DHI menu you will find the following items:

• Flooding, where you can select the dfs2 file, the time steps and the items to show (note that only one time step is selected as default)
• Animation, where you control the speed of the animation.
• Movie, where you can record a movie and make an AVI file.

Select your favourite high resolution map and select the dfs2 file you want to show. When browsing for the dfs2 file you can also select which type of result you want to show and the time step. You can choose to show only one time step (default) or all time steps if you want to make an animation. For instance if you want to show every fifth time step this can easily be achieved by typing 5 in the time step selection dialog and push the “Select every” 5 time step button. Once you have selected a dfs2 file and closed the dialog, the Flooding plug-in starts processing the dfs2 file and adds the item to the DHI Flooding layer. In the lower right hand corner the date and the time for the current time step is shown.

Note that the plug-in will read the geo-referenced information from the dfs2 file. This information is the key when geo-referencing the results on Earth. Therefore a projection must be associated with the dfs2 file. Thus ‘NON-UTM’ projections cannot be handled.

If you right click on the item in the Layer Manager you can select properties for the item. For instance you can set the opacity on the fly for the item.

A very useful feature here is the “Move to location” where the plug-in will centre the flooding. Hereby you only need to zoom-in or -out to see the details of the flooding.

When you have found your favourite viewing position of the flooding you can capture the screen from within the NASA WorldWind main menu (or simply press Ctrl-S) or if you want to make an animation you can use the DHI Movie creator. The movie is created in three steps: First you start recording which will store all movements on the fly until you select stop recording. Then you can see a preview of your recording and if you are happy with the results, you can finally create the movie. For both the screen capture and movie, the width and height corresponds to the size of the window. Thus what you see is what you get.

Want to try all this on your own? Just go ahead - both NASA WorldWind and the DHIFlooding plug-in are for free. To download them please click here

http://www.dhigroup.com/software/NASAWorldWind.aspx

For further information please contact Claus Bjørn Sørensen at cbs@dhigroup.com

Quick Access to your Asset information

If you need to have quick access to your asset data and have the asset data in an ESRI Geodatabase (or have them exported to e.g. shapefiles) you can simply add the asset data to the map window as background layers. Then you can use the info tool to access the information just by clicking on the pipe. To enhance the results do as follows: Set the asset layer as selectable as well as the MIKE URBAN layers you want to see, then set the top box of the info tool to <selectable layers> and click the elements. You should get a box as shown below with the asset information listed together with the MIKE URBAN information. Exactly the same procedure can of course be used if you need to see the MIKE URBAN information from your ESRI based asset information system.

You can use this method even if you don’t have a common identifier (although you should always strive to have one) as it is the location that joins the two set of information together.

Quick Access to your Asset information

If you need to have quick access to your asset data and have the asset data in an ESRI Geodatabase (or have them exported to e.g. shapefiles) you can simply add the asset data to the map window as background layers. Then you can use the info tool to access the information just by clicking on the pipe.

To enhance the results do as follows: Set the asset layer as selectable as well as the MIKE URBAN layers you want to see, then set the top box of the info tool to <selectable layers> and click the elements. You should get a box as shown below with the asset information listed together with the MIKE URBAN information. Exactly the same procedure can of course be used if you need to see the MIKE URBAN information from your ESRI based asset information system.

You can use this method even if you do not have a common identifier (although you should always strive to have one) as it is the location that joins the two set of information together.

Alternative access to mode data

MIKE URBAN editors are used to edit and review the model data. These editors (dialogs) are customised to provide not only list of the data records and attributes but also many specific functions such as reporting to XML files, recalculating pipe lengths, copying to clipboard and others.

If you need to access your model data without using these specialised editors, you can click the data layer in the Table of Contents (TOC) and select "View attribute table".

New MIKE BASIN Tutorial is available

This time the tutorial addresses water quality in MIKE BASIN. It is shown how to calculate pollution loads with the LOAD calculator and the effect of including water quality in the baseflow component is illustrated.

The tutorial is available for download at MIKE BASIN Tips & Tricks

January this year the DHI Shanghai Development Centre (SDC) for software product development was established. The centre is seen as a significant step forward towards increasing the volume of software development.

Now nine months later and with the release 2007 of the DHI Software products very imminent it is a good time to step back and look at the centre and what has been accomplished. Has it lived up to the expectations? Indeed and more so. The centre was launched with a core group of software developers and a Danish manager. Since then the SDC has tripled in size and substantial expansions are planned again in 2008.

In its just nine months long life the SDC has undertaken a number of development projects of which 2/3 will be part of the DHI Software 2007 release. A few examples of the development projects, which have been carried out by the SDC are:

• The Workgroup Support in MIKE Zero is a feature, which takes Marine and Water Resource modelling into a new era. With the Workgroup Support feature, the focus is now on the economy and quality of projects which involve modelling. Until now the focus has been the scientific quality of the computational engines and providing user-friendly interfaces. The Workgroup Support is targeted at project execution economy, data sharing within project teams, audibility etc.   
• The Simplification wizard in MIKE URBAN is a feature that reduces the complexity of the network, thus improving efficiency of the hydraulic simulations without compromising the integrity and accuracy of the model. With this feature it is much easier to get started using MIKE URBAN. The feature includes tools for data scrubbing, trimming and merging

The SDC model as adopted has proved to be most successful with deliverables on time and to specification. Strong ties have quickly been established between the various product managers based at DHI headquarters and the Shanghai developers. This has contributed to the success of the centre – success users of DHI Software will benefit from in the future.

Upcoming Events

New Technologies for Improvement of Urban infrastructure

Modern technologies in urban infrastructure will be presented on the New Technologies for Improvement of Urban infrastructure Seminar in Warszawa.

Date: 24 October 2006

Place: Warszawa Novotel Hotel Conference Centre

Organized by: Organised by the Royal Danish Embassy in Warszawa and DHI Polska Sp. z.o.o

This seminar is open for researches, practitioners, and utilities working in the field of water distribution and wastewater systems.

Specific topics areas include:

1. New technologies in urban infrastructure
2. Modern software tools
3. Practical experience and case studies

The presentations will be delivered in Polish or English with polish simultaneous translation. DHI Software including the latest version of MIKE URBAN will be presented on the Seminar.

For more information and for your registration, please contact Ms. Rita Stafejeva, E-mail: R.Stafajeva@dhi.dk