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Creating a New Visual HELP Project

The logical structure of the Visual HELP interface facilitates a very quick learning curve that allows you to generate and modify a typical profile in just minutes. In many cases, the most difficult and time consuming task you will have is deciding what to name the project files. The following section provides a description of the steps involved in creating a hydrologic model profile using Visual HELP's advanced model generation tools.

General Project Information

Each new Visual HELP project requires you to enter a unique project name, select the units (metric or English), and identify the author and the client for the project. A Project Description field also lets you enter a detailed description for tracking changes or for future references.

Selecting a Location for your Landfill

When you create a new model profile using either Visual HELP, you will be prompted to select a project location, including the longitude and latitude of the project location (approximate). The project location information is stored for general project description information and it is also used to locate the five nearest weather stations (you will be asked to select which weather station to use). The project database contains a list of locations from previous projects, or you can generate a new location.

If you choose to select a new location for the project, the following window will appear. If you know the Longitude and Latitude of the project location, you can enter it and add the new location to the database. Alternatively, you can use the GIS component to graphically locate the project location (city). As shown in the figure below, you can select from a list of continental GIS maps to use when selecting the project location.

Once you select the appropriate GIS map, press the [Select Location ...] button to load the GIS map. In this example, we will use the US and Canada map to select a project location in California.

Zoom in to desired location....

Click the Cross-Hairs icon and then click on the desired location (Sacramento). The following pop-up window will appear listing the five nearest Meteo Stations.

Select the desired station and then press [OK]. The location description and coordinate information will automatically be completed as shown in the following screen capture.

If this information is correct, press the [Add] button to add this data to the list of project locations. This project location and weather station information will be used to help generate the weather data for the Visual HELP model.

Selecting the Model Units

The next screen prompts you to select the Unit Template to apply for both the input parameters and the Output of modeling results. The Unit Template describes the unit settings for each parameter used in the model (e.g., length, time, permeability, flux rate, concentration, etc.). The default unit template is Customary (American units) but it can easily be changed to another pre-set unit template such as Metric.

The Unit Template settings for each parameter can be viewed/edited by selecting the [Edit Units] button. Each parameter has a dropdown list containing a selection of different American and Metric units to choose from. Once you have selected the units for each parameter, you can save the new settings as a new Unit Template to use for a different project. You may easily create your own unit template customized to fit your input data requirements.

Once you have selected the desired Units for the project, press the [Next] button.

The details for the new project will be displayed as shown in the following figure.

If this information is correct, press the [Finish] button. Your new project will now be created and you will be transferred to the New Profile Wizard to guide you through the process of creating a model profile for the selected model.

The next window that appears will prompt you to choose whether you want to create a new model profile using an existing model template, or by starting from a blank profile.

The existing profile template contains default settings for the case settings, number of layers, layer types, profile geometry, and material properties. The default settings can all be easily modified to suit your site conditions.

Alternatively, if you choose to create a new profile you will be prompted for the required default settings for the profile.

For this example, we will choose to use an existing profile template.

Press the [Next] button to advance to the final screen of the New Project Wizard as shown in the figure below. This window provides a summary of the new profile details.

Press the [Finish] button to create a new Visual HELP model profile. Visual HELP will then create the Project Data Tree for the selected template model and a model profile will be displayed as shown in the figure below.

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