What's New in WaterGEMS and WaterCAD CONNECT Edition Update 2

  Product(s): WaterGEMS, WaterCAD
  Version(s): 10.02.00.43
  Area: Installation

Overview

The CONNECT Edition Update 2 release of WaterGEMS and WaterCAD introduces numerous improvements and features to help you be more successful.

Table of Contents



CONNECT Licensing

This release uses CONNECT Licensing, a major advancement in Bentley's product licensing methodology. CONNECT Licensing gives organizations much more control over license usage and reporting, with the capability to establish concurrent use thresholds, groups of users with different levels of access and more. Selecting the license feature level (number of pipes) is also much more clear to the end user. More information on CONNECT Licensing and how it works can be found here: Licensing OpenFlows | Hydraulics and Hydrology Products - CONNECT Licensing

Important note: with CONNECT Licensing, you will need to sign in to the CONNECTION Client (included with installation of WaterGEMS and WaterCAD). If you do not currently have an account that is properly linked to your organization, please contact your Site Administrator, who can add you.

Compatible Operating Systems and Platforms

Compatible Operating Systems

Windows 10 (32-bit or 64-bit)
Windows 8 (32-bit or 64-bit)
Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit)

Compatible Platforms

The Standalone version does not require any CAD or GIS software to work. However, it can be integrated with the following platforms:

MicroStation V8i SELECTseries 4 (Some earlier versions may work as well. MicroStation CONNECT Edition integration is not yet supported with this release.)
AutoCAD 2019 or 2018
ArcGIS 10.6 (WaterGEMS only. Some earlier versions of ArcGIS 10 should work as well.)

WaterGEMS and WaterCAD are now compatible with ProjectWise build 10.00.02.320

See: Platform Compatibility

Bentley product-specific Bing Maps Key

You can now use a Bentley Bing Maps key, making it easier to display a Bing Map background without having to request a personal key from Microsoft.

To use this, select the Bing Maps background type. The default will be to use the Bentley Bing Maps Key.

You do need to be logged into the CONNECTION Client to take advantage of this feature. If you want to use your own Bing Maps key, click the ellipsis (…) button and you can select the option" User Defined Bing Map Key".



Pump Performance Studies

The Performance Study feature will let you compare actual pump performance from your SCADA system with the performance curves generated by the WaterGEMS and WaterCAD model. This can help you identify which pumps may be running inefficiently and let you identify areas of concern.

You can access this by right-clicking on a pump and choosing Performance Study. You would then identify the pump flow data from your SCADA system, as well as pressure or level information on the suction and discharge side of the pump. You can also view the pump efficiency data. After clicking next, you can make any necessary adjustments to the time you are considering.

    

Clicking Finish will generate a performance curve with the pump data in the model and the data from the SCADA system for head, flow, and efficiency. You can click the check the “Include System Head Curves” option to include a system head curve for different times during the simulation as well.



More details can be found in this article: Using the Pump Performance Studies to analyze pump performance and efficiency

Criticality Updates

Critical Valves

The Criticality tool has been updated to include the option to find critical valves in a system, in addition to critical pipes and segments. Valve Criticality enables you to determine which valves are most critical in water delivery - those that would result in the largest demand shortfall if they failed and could not be operated.

When you create a new Criticality Study, you will be able to choose between Critical Pipes/Segments and Critical Valves.

The outage segments created when you use critical valves will be centered on the valve and include segments of pipe attached to this. In the screenshot below, you see an outage segment related to a failed isolation valve in a model. The valve is displayed with a green icon.

For more information on this feature, please see: Critical Valves Analysis

Updated display options

The Criticality tool display options have been updated so that you have greater control over how the elements in an outage segment are highlighted, which will help in presentation of results. When you select the Highlight button, you will now see options to “Include Affected Elements in Highlight” and “Include Affected Customer Meters in Highlight.” By toggling this, you can control how the highlighted elements appear on the screen.



Other Features

Sort Selection Sets and Contours by label

It is now possible to sort the selection sets in your Selection Set manager and the contours in the Contours manager by label. This enables you to easily find and view selection sets and contours when a model has a lot of these.

To do this, click on the Label header in the Selection Set or Contour manager. This will sort the items in the manager alphabetically. Clicking the Label header again will reverse the sort.



Export to Excel option in Water Quality Batch Run

When viewing the Statistics tab after running the Water Quality Batch Run tool, you can now easily export the maximum, minimum, and average results for a trace or constituent analysis to spreadsheet format. This enables you to have full control over how the water quality batch run results are presented, using another application like Excel.

  

In the Statistics table, click the Export button in the upper left and choose Export to Excel. The data for different source types will be exported to individual worksheets in an Excel file. For instance, if you have three different Trace sources in your Water Quality Batch Run, you will see three worksheets in the Excel file, one for each source. Each worksheet will display the nodes in the model, as well as the maximum, minimum, and average results for the study.

Export flow arrows to Esri Shapefile

It is now possible to export the flow arrows to a shapefile format, enabling you to display flow areas in presentations in GIS applications like ArcGIS. To use this, open the pipe FlexTable, click the Export to File button, and choose the option to export flow direction arrows.

 

This can be useful for users who work in standalone but use ArcGIS for presentations so that the flow arrows can be displayed.

The flow arrows exported will be for the current time step. However, data on if the flow in the pipe reverses over the course of the simulation is also included in the shapefile. This information can also be used other applications like ArcGIS as needed. The flow arrows are exported with units of degrees.

Updated workflow for Trace Upstream, Trace Downstream, and Shortest Path queries

The queries for Trace Upstream, Trace Downstream, and Shortest Path have been streamlined to make it both easier and quicker to use.

Sorting based on Labels for FlexTables when generating Custom Report

FlexTables added to a Custom Report can be sorted by label, enabling the user to better display the elements in a report.

Updated workflow for selection of scenarios in Batch dialog

A new import and export feature has been included in the Batch Run dialog. You can select a set of scenarios in batch and export these selections out to a Scenario Batch Run (.sbr) file. If you clear the batch selection, you can then quickly select them again by importing the Scenario Batch Run file again. This can be particularly useful for models with a large number of scenarios, to enable you to switch between different batch run configurations quickly.



See Also [Top of Page]

WaterGEMS and WaterCAD TechNotes and FAQs

Downloading OpenFlows / Hydraulics and Hydrology Software

Software installation order

Cumulative patch set information

Set up notifications for new versions and patch set releases

  Original Author: Scott Kampa
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