source: Innovyze Support Portal

Many Cities around the United States have access to freely available high resolution radar rainfall data. In this article, we’ll have a step by step example on downloading a few months worth of radar rainfall data and see them playing in ICM.

Locate the station

ICM supports the DPR product (Instantaneous Precipitation Rate), the first thing is to find the nearest station with that data. Use the map below, we can see all the NEXRAD stations.

1. search the location of interest
2. check only Level III
3. click on the wrench icon
4. enable the identify tool

Click on the red square…

Source: Innovyze Support Portal

In part 1 we imported rainfall into a TSDB from an existing rainfall event file. In part 2, we will create rainfall in TSDB from scratches.

1. prepare the source data
2. create a TSDB
3. connect to the data source
4. add TVD connectors

A great way for new users to learn how TSDB works is to import from an existing model (see part 1), and then study how the import tool sets up the TVD connectors.

In this example, we will recreate the model in part 1 by connecting to a csv file.

Prepare the CSV files

First, let’s copy the rainfall…

Source: Innovyze Support Portal

ICM provides a wide range of tools to style an inundation map and it could be overwhelming for new users. In this article, we will go through a few typical setup.

Flood theme vs 2D Zone theme

ICM offers two ways to render flooding extent.

• flooding theme: a GIS based approach. A water level surface is generated from 1D and 2D simulation results, and then it is compared to the ground model to calculate the water depth. The rendering is NOT based on the simulated results as it, rather it is calculated from the results. …

Source: Innovyze Support Portal

TSDB (time series database) provides a streamlined workflow for getting real-time data into ICM models. It can greatly reduce the time needed to run a model with real-time data from external sources by automating the data connection, retrieval, conversion and validation.

In this article we’ll focus on the commonly used methods to connect rainfall sources to ICM. We will cover the following 3 scenarios,

1. Bring existing calibration rainfall data into ICM
2. Bring new rainfall data sources into ICM
3. Bring spatial rainfall into ICM

Bring existing rainfall data into ICM

As shown below, we have an existing model using a rainfall event. …

source: Innovyze Support Portal

When modeling storage, entering a depth storage curve seems to be the only option in XPSWMM. What if you need to enter a depth-volume curve instead?

Designed for advanced users, we can overwrite default behavior of the XPSWMM using configuration keywords.

source: Innovyze Support Portal

ICM assumes a manhole has two part, a shaft and a chamber.

The default values works fine for most manholes, just set the “#D flag” for the input parameters, ICM will calculate the parameters for you.

source: Innovyze Support Portal

For an ICM 2D model that takes hours or even days to run, it could greatly impact the schedule of a project. In this article, we’ll discuss a few quick steps to identify areas for improvements.

Below are the common areas to look into,

• Make sure the model is using all the CPUs and GPUs
• Make sure the time step is appropriate
• Identify speed bumps in the model

Check the Simulation Log

The first place to visit is the simulation log,

source: Innovyze Support Portal

XPSWMM has a few “secret” tools for advanced users who really need to look under the hood to see how the engine does its calculations. In this article, we’ll show a few tips for getting very detailed information about river reaches geometry, hydraulic characteristics, and simulation results.

1D Log

1D log has lots of detailed information for each river reach in the model. You can find the geometry summary with length, max. areas.

In Table E15, you can find the water volume.