Engenious Product Portal

HSPFToolKit™ is really the third generation of a set of tools created by Engenious Systems, Inc. The first two generations were never released because they did not feel right upon final review. They did not bring anything to the table that was not already available elsewhere!

In order to understand this new generation of the toolkit, you must understand the previous generations and what we felt they lacked. The previous generations were front ends to HSPF in the same vein as Basins, from the USGS, WWHM funded by the Washington State DOE, and WHAM (better known as MGSFlood™), funded by the Washington State DOT. Of the three mentioned above, Basins is the most comprehensive front end, supporting all the HSPF features. WWHM and WHAM are what we would consider black box type front ends that hides HSPF from the users. Both offer a narrow subset of all the HSPF capabilities. Both are highly tailored for localized communities. Both are designed to utilize a narrow subset of HSPF's abilities.

Our first two generations of the toolkit were similar to the latter two, and at the end of the day, we always reverted back to the "raw" HSPF batch code to understand the data and develop a sense of what the model was doing. We found that relying on the use of the front ends, while expedient (because they do work), didn't seem to give the engineer the sense of empowerment that comes with understanding the data and what the model is doing. At the end of the day, we found that HSPF is such a powerful program, that the only way to "develop" that sense of "knowing" your data was to get down and dirty and use the hspf batch language.

HSPFToolKit™ is a reflection of that belief. It is our third attempt to come up with an interface to HSPF that is not limited in the way the above front ends are limiting. Yet at the same time, enables users to fully utilize all the features of the HSPF batch language (hereafter called UCI format). In order to use the toolkit, you must be familiar with the format and syntax of the batch commands used in the UCI file OR have a desire to broaden their professional experience by learning to run HSPF via the UCI commands.

10/2008 - HSPFToolkit™ now includes a schematic layout view. This view has the ability to create schematics from existing UCI files. The schematic is not a grid based format where nodes are placed in a standard xy type grid. Instead, the schematic is a free form layout that enables users to move and place nodes at any location. The schematic directly supports the SCHEMATIC, RCHRES and EXT TARGETS blocks of the UCI file format.

The toolkit is a targeted at the high level user, who needs to or wants to make use of all the functionality that HSPF offers. In fact, it is nothing more than a text editor. One specifically designed for HSPF! HSPFToolKit is actually two (2) programs, one is an editor to assist in the creation and editing of the UCI file and the other is a set of tools to look at the time series inside the WDM file created by HSPF.

UCIEditor™ Features

• Collapsing editor by HSPF Groups
• Context sensitive help. The program knows what line you are on and help will display information about the data.
• Point and click Catalog lookups.
• Point and click customizable defaults tables.
• Support for every HSPF feature.
• Support for just about any HSPF engine you want to run.
• Automatically inserts a new header for whatever Group you are working in.
• Allows you to comment sections of code to your hearts content. (This was a major problem with all front ends that we encountered, and in fact drove us to realize the limitations of front ends).
• Bookmarking feature that enables you to work on a section of the UCI file, then jump to another section, then back again.
• Commenting toggle for selected lines.
• Copy down where appropriate. The ability to automatically propagate a number to all selected rows below it.
• FTable Flow and Stage lookup. Select a FTable, and ask the program to return the flow given a stage or a stage given the flow from the table. It does the interpolation for you.
• Cut and paste FTable from EXCEL. Yep, cut a table from EXCEL and paste it into the UCI. The program formats it for you.
• Multiplier manager, it is customizable based on the multipliers/conversion factors that you use.
• Snippet creators for MASS-LINK, EXT SOURCES, PERLND AND IMPLND. These are dialogs (actually remenants of our earlier versions) that will insert pieces of code at the cursor location. We may write a lot more of these, but it depends of feedback from users. At some point, it's easier to type what you want than to tell a dialog what to insert.
• Schematic Summaries. Highlight a group of lines in the Schematic Group and the program will tell you the total acres (big deal), Percent outwash, Percent Till and Percent Imp/Saturated (now that's interesting)! Hint, you need to know in order to compute Water Quality Rates.
• Oh, did we mention that we have a snapshot manager? Yep, you no longer have to save your UCI file under a different name as a backup. HSPFToolKit™ has a built-in snapshot manager that will let you save as many snapshots of your UCI file that you want, . . . and restore it at any time. It takes a snapshot of your UCI file right when you open it. That way, if you are fooling around and suddenly decide that it was a bad idea, you can restore the file to its starting condition for the session. A great way to manage scenarios.
• Bi-directional schematic layout support for SCHEMATIC, RCHRES, and EXT TARGETS Blocks.

WDMPeek™ Features

What's WDM Peek™? It's the second program that is part of the HSPFToolKit™. Being able to create and edit UCI files is one thing but designers need to know the results. They need to be able to PEEK into the WDM file to see whats there!

• Open a UCI file and the program will know what WDM files are associated with it. If there are more that one, you can select which you want to peek into.
• Lists all time series within the WDM file by DSN, start and end date, station description.
• Enumerates all Attributes associated with each DSN (pretty boring so far).
• Log Pearson Type III on any time series that you choose. Not just a plain log pearson, but also the graph AND the CONFIDENCE RANGE for each return frequency. The data out past the 25 year return frequency is so thin, that decisions based solely on the return frequency without consideration of the confidence range is only half using half of the data. We have found that in many cases the 95% confidence interval for a 100 year event overlaps the 50 year return frequency!!
• If Log Pearson doesn't meet your needs, we support Cunnane, Gringorton, Gumbel, Log Normal, and Weibull plotting positions.
• Of course peak yearly and ranked peaks for any time series.
• Return years. Yep, the program will tell you the actual years that comes closest to the return frequency year.
• Oh, and the program can extract those time series for you, . . . it can extract the yearly time series by closest return frequency, by wettest year, by average year or by dryest year! AND it will do it to a file or just to the clipboard so you can paste into EXCEL!
• Did we mention that WDM Peek also looks at return frequency by VOLUME? Yep, it will give you a 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 year return volume frequency! What???? Think about it. Engineers always talk about return frequencies as in a recurring flow rate. In a lot of cases, what they are really interested in is the return frequency of a runoff volume! There are times when engineers really want to know what the 100 year return volume is! NOT the same, and when you are focused on detention facilities, knowing how much volume to design for is much more important than the peak rate that enters the facility. Yes, you can extract time series by volume.
• And yes, StormShed3G™ can run those time series!
• Yes, we support Gringorton ranking as an alternative to Log Pearson Type III. It's interesting to compare the two, they generally don't agree, we only support the methodogies, and endorse neither.
• One of the impedements that we faced when initially using HSPF was knowing if we got everything or if everything was converted properly. So the program offers a nifty little feature called sum of all points. Basically, it will tell you the total volume of a time series. Why is that important? Because if you are routing a number of basins through at pond and splitting the flow, it would be nice to be able to sum all the volumes going into the pond and compare it with all the volumes coming out of the pond. The sum of the parts must equal the whole no matter what program you are using! A black box won't do that for you. As simple as this feature is, it is the primary method we have found to gain confidence in your HSPF results.
• OH, did we mention that HSPFToolKit™ does pond sizing too? Tell the program the DSN number that you are designing against, and the DSN number entering the pond and the program will let you mix and match storage and discharge structures to meet you design requirments. This is our third version of our continous model pond sizing algorithm. And you know what? Automatic pond sizing is a joke. Our mix and match, on the fly is a lot more fun, probably takes a little longer (maybe, . . . probably not!) but you end up with an optimized answer, not one that you can then "refine". Besides, after using our pond sizing tool, you will have a really good feel for sensitivity of miniscule changes.

Conclusion

There's lots of other "little" programming features that we haven't even started discussing. Before you try HSPFToolkit™, understand that HSPFToolKit™ is designed to enhance the professional skills of those that use it by making the arduous task of writing the UCI easier. It's not going to be a black box and attempt to write the UCI for you, however, the schematic feature will write UCI commands directly to the SCHEMATIC, RCHRES, and EXT TARGETS blocks. But understand that running HSPF through a black box front end doesn't make you proficient in HSPF, in fact, we feel that relying on black box type front ends actually DEPOWERS (the opposite of empowers) the engineer. That's reality. after two attempts at front ends for HSPF, we have come to the conclusion that the UCI is actually a great front end and simply needed to enter the 21st century. HSPFToolKit™ will help you/force you to understand what needs to be written and provides relevant supporting lookup material when you need it.

The ability to peek into the WDM file and look at the time series in meaningful ways as part of the overall HSPFToolKit™ is really empowering from a decision making point of view. To be able to do it with a few clicks is empowering.

We have created a series of video walk throughs to familiarize you with the interface, and features.

Are you using a "Black Box" front end to HSPF? If you are, do you know what the program is doing and are you able to decide if the answer makes sense or is even correct?

We have looked at "Black Box" type HSPF front ends and feel that they do too good a job. We think that they totally insulate the user from HSPF and as a result, leaves users with virtually no ability to look under the hood and decide if the answers make sense or even how they are derived.

If you use a front end and don't feel like you are in control of the answer and have no ability to tweek it in a meaningful way, our response is that the only way to overcome that, is to use HSPF. Our toolkit isn't a front end, but it is designed to help you learn and be more comfortable with HSPF. Our toolkit is designed to give users that feeling of empowerment when they know where the answers are coming from and are certain that nothing was left out.

Using HSPF will put your engineers back in control of the design process and decisions.

If you are located anywhere in the Puget Sound area (lets say within a half days drive from Seattle) we will be happy to come and give you a demo of the product and answer your questions!

Call us!

206-784-7175

What you need to know before you Install

This is the section you are interested in for BOTH licensed and evaluation HSPF Toolkit installations. We don't distinguish between the two. Installation is handled through the link below. The program will install itself on your machine. You DO NOT have a choice of where it is installed! Once installed, updates are automatic until we decide otherwise. Updates are free for a particular product release.

The version of the program that you installed is what we consider "feature locked", meaning that we aren't adding new features to the program but will make enhancements to the UI, improve help and error trapping, fix bugs, and other "maintenance" type activities. We do reserve the right to actually add a new feature to the program at any time if we really want everyone to have access to the feature immediately.

For an established program like StormShed, the version updates had a cycle of 2-3 years, meaning that we didn't ask for money for the next version for 2-3 years after the previous version release. For HSPF Toolkit, we will probably start on the next version IMMEDIATELY with a target update in about a year. This is inevitable because it is a new product and far from being feature complete for its intended audience. In fact, the level of interest in the program will drive the product development and enhancements.

We understand that engineers, or anyone for that matter, do not like continued updates, but consider this, no one paid us to develop this product so that we could sell it to you, and no one is forcing you to use the program, and you will never see or meet us in the lobby waiting to give a presentation. So to that end, we are focused solely on developing a product that will do two things, empower you as the HSPF user and make it easier for you to do what you need to do. We think HSPF Toolkit is capable of achieving those goals.

Requirements

• Windows XP or Vista
• Minimum 1 MB RAM, the larger the Time Series, the more RAM you will need.
• Multi-processor preferred. This program will take advantage of multi-processors to process info in the background!
• HSPF runtime.
• Optional, WDMUtil installed on the machine.
• Internet connection for product authentication.
• The contents of PrecipRegions.zip downloaded and installed somewhere on your network (see notes).
• Download and install this OCX to enable the use of the new GIS precipitation selector feature. It is a required prerequisite to the program, but could not figure out how to get our installation technology to automatically include it with the installation. Sorry.

Notes:

• It seems that the Basins4 version of WinHSPHLt.exe runs in Vista. We have been unable to run the version of WDMUtil.exe in Vista.
• When running extended 15 minute extended time series, (100+ years at 15 min steps) there are serious memory issues. We have not figured out what to do about it. It seems because of Windows Vista Memory management, if you let the computer "sit" for awhile just before you do something with a DSN, it will work. This happens because Windows does a lot of stuff in the background and if you initiate a memory intensive computation before it is done, . . . the system
• PrecipRegions.zip is a file that contains a GIS map of Washingtion State and allows you to just click on a location to get the precipitation at that location. It will automatically compute the multiplier for you that offsets your project site from the nearest gage. You will then be given the option of inserting that into the UCI.

Problems: Cisco Security has interfered with HSPFToolkit on a number of installations. Apparently, Cisco Security FAILS to raise a red flag during the installation and in fact leaves no message. Apparently, exiting CS prior to installing does not help the install. If you are running Cisco Security, your Cisco Administrator may have to add an exception for HSPFTool in order for the installation to complete properly.

We are providing a short installation video that is worth looking at before you proceed. It is titled HSPFToolkit Installation Video and will download to your computer before starting. Requires Windows Media Player.

So, click here to install either the evaluation or licensed version of the program on your machine. We are busy working on this website, and a number of other projects, so believe it or not, on-line payment and licensing is not high on our priority list at the time. There are more interesting things related to HSPF Toolkit as a product that we are working on. Please call us (206-784-7175) or email us when you are ready to purchase a license.

Program Features added after the Video was created

Yeah, we keep upgrading the program even after the initial release.

• You can not double click on any record line in the UCI file to access a dialog based input form.
• We modified the Sum Schematic feature to provide a report for the entire schematic section.
• We added the ability to compare the PERLND AND IMPLND values in the UCI file against the Regional Parameters Database.