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Conturing Surface and Rain Water Runoff Software
Posted by jules-j on August 3, 2017 at 3:02 pmI’ve been working on a free church parking lot project. Got the topo finished, and the engineer got the design done. Out for bid. I’m having a hard time convincing the engineer you can’t drain water 3 ft up hill. That got me to remembering about a free software you could import a txt file and it would draw the surface. You could rotate the 3d view. One of the neat things was you could simulate rain fall, and see the runoff. I know Global Mapper will do this, but I don’t want to spend any money. Does anyone remember this freeware?
Thanks
bill93 replied 6 years, 9 months ago 11 Members · 18 Replies- 18 Replies
[SARCASM]Forget free software. Sounds like you need a better, free engineer.[/SARCASM]
Sorry, no recommendations on software. But, probono or not, the engineer should be able to read topo, if they’re doing grading plans. 3D software isn’t curing that problem.
back-chain, post: 439918, member: 7900 wrote: [SARCASM]Forget free software. Sounds like you need a better, free engineer.[/SARCASM]
Sorry, no recommendations on software. But, probono or not, the engineer should be able to read topo, if they’re doing grading plans. 3D software isn’t curing that problem.
In his defense, loosely, we didn’t have a contour map with us that day. We were standing in a low spot, he turned and looked, said “I want to get this water from here to there”, pointing at an area that was 3 feet higher.
Maybe he meant that he wanted to run it underground in a pipe?
You can certainly make water flow up hill. Think of a spillway when the water reaches a certain elevation it is going over the top. It had to go up in order to get there. I was presented with a problem once where the drainage flows would not escape. It formed into a a pond. Adding a ditch with a slight uphill grade was the solution to get the drainage flows to the nearest outfall.
Historic Boundaries and Conservation EffortsSorta unrelated to the original question but there are times that people can’t see the correct slope like yours. You can go to the other end and look back and sometimes it becomes clear.
James
Jules J., post: 439912, member: 444 wrote: I’ve been working on a free church parking lot project. Got the topo finished, and the engineer got the design done. Out for bid. I’m having a hard time convincing the engineer you can’t drain water 3 ft up hill. That got me to remembering about a free software you could import a txt file and it would draw the surface. You could rotate the 3d view. One of the neat things was you could simulate rain fall, and see the runoff. I know Global Mapper will do this, but I don’t want to spend any money. Does anyone remember this freeware?
Thanks
You can get a 30 day demo of Global Mapper. I think this may also be done with Carlson TakeOff and Carlson Hydro.
I own Global Mapper and Carlson TakeOff. If all efforts fail, send me the data and I will generate a water runoff drawing.
not my real name, post: 439933, member: 8199 wrote: You can certainly make water flow up hill. Think of a spillway when the water reaches a certain elevation it is going over the top. It had to go up in order to get there. I was presented with a problem once where the drainage flows would not escape. It formed into a a pond. Adding a ditch with a slight uphill grade was the solution to get the drainage flows to the nearest outfall.
Are you a politician?
not my real name, post: 439933, member: 8199 wrote: Think of a spillway when the water reaches a certain elevation it is going over the top. It had to go up in order to get there.
Not really. I think of it as water came down from somewhere else and piled on top of what was already there until it was high enough to go over. That ignores mixing of course, but that seems a clearer way to think about it.
.Jules J., post: 439925, member: 444 wrote: In his defense, loosely, we didn’t have a contour map with us that day.
One humility lesson of the day came about 20 years ago on an airport taxiway. No further claims of grade have been made by visual inspection alone.
Something like that is now within fetching distance at all times:
Jim in AZ, post: 439941, member: 249 wrote: Are you a politician?
What? A pond has no outlet. You simply increase the volume in the form of a ditch to create an outlet. Does that sound like politics to you?
Historic Boundaries and Conservation EffortsBeen there! I had a level and rod in the truck with a GPS control point right there. I asked if he wanted to take a few shot.” Naw! I see what I need to see!” This is not my game. I’ve done my part.
Jules J., post: 439912, member: 444 wrote: I’ve been working on a free church parking lot project. Got the topo finished, and the engineer got the design done. Out for bid. I’m having a hard time convincing the engineer you can’t drain water 3 ft up hill. That got me to remembering about a free software you could import a txt file and it would draw the surface. You could rotate the 3d view. One of the neat things was you could simulate rain fall, and see the runoff. I know Global Mapper will do this, but I don’t want to spend any money. Does anyone remember this freeware?
Thanks
Your answer is here
http://www.sitetopo.commakki, post: 439951, member: 8365 wrote: Your answer is here
http://www.sitetopo.comYes Sir! That’s it!
not my real name, post: 439948, member: 8199 wrote: What? A pond has no outlet. You simply increase the volume in the form of a ditch to create an outlet. Does that sound like politics to you?
Stating that water runs uphill does…
Plot a section to show height differences along the flow path? The Engineer may understand that, and can’t really argue.
Jules J., post: 439953, member: 444 wrote: Yes Sir! That’s it!
Better hurry…
kotuku4, post: 439960, member: 8886 wrote: Plot a section to show height differences along the flow path? The Engineer may understand that, and can’t really argue.
I’ve got a contour map with shot elevations plotted. Even thou he did the rodding, he do
imaudigger, post: 439989, member: 7286 wrote: Better hurry…
Got it! It’s a neat little stand alone program. I’m running it from a usb drive. Just start the program, open a points file (txt), overlay a cad dxf file. Contours instantly. Shows the rainfall flow, and shows the ponding areas. The guy that owned it went out of business. Said it’s got a 30 day trial. That’s about all I need it for. I bet if you unzip it again you’ll get another 30 days. Runs on my win 10 rig.
I bet it writes something on your hard disk where you won’t find it so it enforces the 30 days. Maybe in the registry where restoring a previous version would defeat it, but maybe not.
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