Aquaveo & Water Resources Engineering News

Contouring and block fill improvements

In GMS 8.0, the contour options were updated and improved. Most of the changes were behind the scenes in code that results in faster contouring which uses less memory and is more accurate. But the interface changed too. The old and new dialogs are shown below. The new dialog is cleaner and easier on the eyes. It also includes a new option - Block fill - for the Contour method. This option only applies to cell-centered grids and results in cells filled with a single color based on the value at the cell center. Block fill was previously only available for 3D grids as a separate display option and limited range and color ramp options. Now block fill is available for 2D and 3D grids and, because it's part of the Contour Options, the full suite of range and color ramp options are available.

Unfortunately by merging the block fill option in with the Contour Options we lost the ability to do both at the same time - that is block fill one data set and contour another data set. But the soon to be released GMS 8.1 restores the ability to do both at the same time.

Old Contour Options dialog.

New Contour Options dialog.



April 2011 Sprint Highlights

Some of the more interesting accomplishments from the April 2011 sprint:
  • Fixed 22 bugs.
  • Created 64 bit versions of MODFLOW.
  • Taught the GMS training course in Dresden, Germany.
  • Updated the tutorial docs and files on the wiki for GMS 8.0.
  • Fixed some issues with the IUZBND array in the UZF package.
  • Documented MODFLOW world files on the wiki.
  • Simplified code behind Contour Options and Raster Options dialogs.
  • Added tests for the Set Arc Directions From Stream Data feature.
  • Researched converting the wiki to a pdf or chm file.
  • Fixed some coding problems that were resulting in compiler warning.
  • Changed the Visual Studio project for 64 bit GMS to follow pattern of 32 bit property sheet.
  • Added to the suite of 64 bit test.

GMS Learning Center and YouTube channel

In order to help make it easier to learn how to use GMS, or to just see what GMS can do, we recently launched the GMS Learning Center at Aquaveo.com.  All the GMS videos we've created so far are available there. These are YouTube videos so you can also find them all on our Aquaveo channel on YouTube. Look for the GMS playlist. These videos are all recorded in high-def so they're best watched full screen at 720p. We add a few new videos each month. Various folks around the office have been recruited for the voice recordings and none of them are professional voice actors but we think they've done a pretty good job.

Also at the GMS Learning Center are all the standard tutorials which ship with GMS. The tutorials can be freely downloaded and completed offline. Finally there are links to the wiki, the user forums, the training courses, and a new Resources for Educators page that will probably warrant it's own blog post in the near future.