Save Time and Effort by Creating Your Own Script
- Alastair Sheppard
- May 18, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 20
Daisy Lambert, Graduate Hydraulic Modeller at Jacobs
Introduction
As a Graduate Hydraulic Modeller with intermediate Python skills, I had the exciting opportunity to work with the Flood Modeller API. This experience has been both a fun challenge and a valuable learning journey, allowing me to enhance my Python skills and expand my modelling knowledge. In this article, I share my journey of creating a script to convert models from ESTRY (TUFLOW) to Flood Modeller 1D.
Unlocking the Power of the Flood Modeller API
For those unfamiliar, the Flood Modeller API serves as a bridge between flood modelling software and the Python programming language. By writing your own scripts, you can integrate custom tools and workflows, significantly boosting your productivity and delivering innovative solutions to your clients through task automation.
If you’ve ever built a model, you know how repetitive certain tasks can be. Converting a model from one format to another is essentially a model-building task. When I set out to convert a model, I first listed the tasks I needed to complete:
Create the river cross sections
Name the unit
Add the cross-section profile data
Add the roughness values
Add the distance to next values
Geospatially locate each unit
Arrange the network in the correct order
The first five tasks are extremely tedious and must be repeated for every cross section, increasing the risk of manual input errors. Automating these tasks can save hours of effort! This motivated me to build a conversion tool using the Flood Modeller Python API. By writing a script to automate these tasks, I was able to streamline the process significantly.
Efficiency at Its Best
In just a few seconds, the script converts all the river sections and correctly inputs the associated data. In my example, which contains 48 cross sections, assuming each river unit takes 3 minutes to build, we saved nearly 2.5 hours of effort before considering time for checking or breaks
Join the Open Source Revolution
One of the most exciting aspects of the Flood Modeller API is that it is open source, meaning anyone can develop their own tools. You can request these to be merged into the main Flood Modeller API or keep them for internal use only.
Additionally, if there’s a tool or component of the API you’d like to see developed but don’t have the ability to create yourself, we encourage you to submit your ideas via the Flood Modeller GitHub page. It could be developed for future releases!
Daisy Lambert
Daisy is a Graduate Hydraulic Modeller at Jacobs. She has experience working on a range of schemes, including reservoir flood studies, surface water flood risk assessments and various integrated 1D-2D modelling projects. I also support the development of the Flood Modeller API, including a number of conversion tools.
