Australian Government, Geoscience Australia  

Tsunami Inundation Models for the GOSFORD region


Installing, Running and Changing the Simulation

This document describes the installation and running of the simulation software.

In addition, we show how to change your simulation, add new elevation data, etc, and how to get help if you have trouble.

Requirements

The tsunami inundation simulations are based on the Open Source software package called ANUGA. For more information about ANUGA visit https://datamining.anu.edu.au/anuga.

ANUGA has been developed and tested under the Windows XP and Linux (Ubuntu, Mint and Red Hat) operating systems. ANUGA may also be installed on a Windows Vista system and Debian Linux, but these have not been extensively tested.

The ANUGA scripts on this DVD require a minimum of 3GB of memory and possibly more, if mesh resolutions are increased. For this reason we recommend using 64 bit Ubuntu Linux as this operating system can use more than 3GB of memory, whereas Windows XP cannot.

Installing ANUGA

You must install ANUGA according to the Installation Guide. As the installation procedure comprises a number of steps we suggest that it is carried out by someone with a basic understanding of how to install software packages on the operating system of choice.

How to run a simulation

This is how you should run the model on this DVD. We assume that you are using Windows and will give examples for that operating system. The translation to Linux should be obvious, but the ANUGA user's mailing list can be used to get help.


First, it is assumed you have installed the ANUGA software according to the Installation Guide.


Next, you must copy the entire contents of the DVD to a place in your filesystem. Let's assume that you want to put the data into C:\ANUGA. You would do this in a Command Prompt window:

C:
cd \
mkdir ANUGA
xcopy /e X:\ ANUGA

Of course, you could just drag all files on the DVD (X:\ is the assumed drive letter) to the desired target directory with Explorer.


Now you must create an environment variable ANUGADATA that points to the directory you just created:

set ANUGADATA=C:\ANUGA

Doing the above in a Command Prompt window is temporary - if you open another window you will not have the ANUGADATA environment variable defined. To make the variable permanent you must set it in the Start|Settings|Control Panel|System tool (Advanced tab). See the Installation Guide if you don't know how to do this.


Next, you prepare and execute the model:

cd C:\ANUGA
cd project
python setup_model.py
python run_model.py


This should all run to completion though it may take several days, depending on the hardware used.

If you get an error from setup_model.py or run_model.py look for some explanation in the log files, which you will find under C:\ANUGA\data. Just keep drilling down from that point until you find a directory called outputs. The latest directory in outputs should contain a file called screen_error.txt with an explanation of the error at the end.

Once the simulation has completed you may view the results using the ANUGA viewer as described in the Installation Guide and User Manual. You may also generate rasters suitable for GIS mapping or write dedicated scripts extracting timeseries at selected locations. Some hints to help you do this are at the analysis page.

The ANUGA User Manual describes how to use the ANUGA system in general and provides some examples of its use.

How to extract data from the simulation output files

After you have run a simulation you may wish to extract information from the generated SWW file. On this disk there are a selection of example analysis scripts that you can use or modify. The analysis scripts page explains how to use the scripts.

How to modify a simulation

After you have run the supplied simulation you may wish to change it in some way, such as adding improved bathymetry data, for example. The modifications page explains how to do this.

How to join the ANUGA user's mailing list

One of the quickest ways to get your ANUGA questions answered is by asking them on the ANUGA-user mailing list. You can subscribe to the list and can view the mailing list archives.

It costs nothing to register and you can choose to have list mail sent to you as individual emails or have them batched into a few emails per day. You can unsubscribe at any time through the subscribe link above.

Frequently Asked Questions

There is a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page at https://datamining.anu.edu.au/anuga/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions. Look in there and search the mailing list archives before asking questions on the ANUGA user's mailing list. Someone may already have asked your question!

Note that you can edit the FAQ pages, so it is helpful if you can update the FAQ with your question and its answer if you feel it would be helpful to others.