Considerations of River Ice Breakup Uncertainties in HEC-RAS

A fantastic blog post by Mr. Juha Aaltonen of the Freshwater Centre of Finnish Environment Institute SYKE.  In his post, Mr. Aaltonen discusses river ice breakups and the advantages of incorporating uncertainty into river ice modeling in HEC-RAS.  He was able to do this by harnessing the power of the HECRASController as detailed in "Breaking the HEC-RAS Code".

While his post is specific to river ice breakup modeling, uncertainty can be used for just about any HEC-RAS application.  Give Mr. Aaltonen's post a read here:

http://www.hyokyaaltonen.fi/consideration-of-river-ice-breakup-uncertainties-in-hec-ras/

Breaking the HEC-RAS Code – 1 Year!

Well it’s been one year since I published “Breaking the HEC-RAS Code”.  It was a lot of work, but I am very pleased to see how many people are making use of the book controlling and automating HEC-RAS with their own codes.

 

For those of you who haven’t discovered it yet, this book introduces the HECRASController, an API that gives you the ability to control HEC-RAS from an external application.  If you have HEC-RAS installed on your computer, you already have the HECRASController!  The book is written around Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), since most HEC-RAS users have Excel and many are already at least somewhat familiar with the VBA programming language embedded within.  However, many readers of my book have expanded the concepts presented to other programming codes like Python, R, C#, Matlab, etc with great success. 

“Breaking the HEC-RAS Code” unlocks the secrets to using the HECRASController.  If you would like more information about this book, or the companion Excel workbook that contains code written for every HECRASController procedure plus example code for a variety of applications, follow the link below or shoot me an email. 

Breaking the HEC-RAS Code

For those of you already making use of the HECRASController, let me suggest visiting The RAS Solution forum and posting examples and/or questions about your experience to the HECRAS Controller sub-forum.  Good luck breaking the HEC-RAS code!

HECRASController VBA Code-Companion to “Breaking the HEC-RAS Code”

Written by Christopher Goodell, P.E., D.WRE  |  WEST Consultants
Copyright © The RAS Solution 2015.  All rights reserved.

There has been a lot of demand from new owners of the book “Breaking the HEC-RAS Code” for example code in VBA form.  So…here it is!  Aside from the obvious fact that you wont have to re-type code from the book into your own Excel VBA modules, this Excel Workbook provides the benefit of seeing how each and every procedure in the HECRASController works.

 
That’s right, every subroutine, and every function are documented in this workbook, along with example code from a wide range of HEC-RAS automation procedures and some code snippets for error catching and string manipulation-very important when reading/writing HEC-RAS input files.  In total, there are over 150 procedures and over 8000 lines of code for you to use for help while you create your own HEC-RAS automation projects.


Each procedure from the HECRASController is demonstrated in either a subroutine or function in this Excel Workbook.  Each demonstration provides up-front commentary including the procedure's name, what it does, cautions and pitfalls to look out for, as well as what standard HEC data set it was tested with (i.e. Bald Eagle Creek, Beaver Creek, etc.). 



There’s also commentary all throughout each demonstration so that you’ll know exactly what each block of code does.  

The HECRASController VBA Code Excel Workbook will make a valuable companion to “Breaking the HEC-RAS Code”.  Every bit of code presented in the book is available in digital form in the Excel Workbook.  The HECRASController VBA Code is optimized for Version 5.0 of HEC-RAS. It will work right now with the current beta release, and will work with the official version when it is released.  

The HECRASController VBA Code Excel Workbook is available here:

BUY NOW

Updated Errata Sheet for Breaking the HEC-RAS Code.

For all of you who have a copy or are planning to get a copy of "Breaking the HEC-RAS Code", there's an updated Errata Sheet on the bottom of the "Book" page of this blog.  Although I spent a LOT of time hunting down and correcting errors before publishing, it's inevitable that some of these will show up.  As always, please let me know if you find any more.

And also, many of you have already emailed me with examples of code you've written by using the techniques presented in the book.  I love it!  Thanks.  Keep up the good work and if you've written something you think will be useful to others, or you just want to show off :-), please post it in the forum under the HECRASController sub-forum.

New HECRASController Forum

Happy New Year RAS Modelers-

I've added a new sub-forum for HECRASController users to post questions and comments specific to the HECRASController and to submit sample code that you would like to share with others.  As you do more and more programming with the HECRASController, please consider sharing some of your useful code with others.  I plan to periodically post code both from the book "Breaking the HEC-RAS Code", and from real projects I've worked on.  A good primer for controlling HEC-RAS using the HECRASController is located here.

The new forum can be found in the forum tab on the top of this page, or by following this link.  "Breaking the HEC-RAS Code" is available from my e-store and from Amazon and other on-line book retailers.

Have fun!

New Book - “Breaking the HEC-RAS Code” now available!

 
One of the most powerful, yet relatively unknown features available in HEC-RAS is the HECRASController.
The HECRASController API has a wealth of procedures which allow a programmer to manipulate HEC-RAS externally by setting input data, retrieving input or output data, and performing common functions such as opening and closing HEC-RAS, changing plans, running HEC-RAS, and plotting output. HECRASController applications are seemingly endless.  Not only can the retrieval and post-processing of output be automated, but with the HECRASController, real-time modeling and probabilistic experiments are possible. If you have HEC-RAS on your computer, you already have the HECRASController!
“Breaking the HEC-RAS Code” explains how the HECRASController works, provides example applications of the HECRASController, and catalogs the vast array of programming procedures (with explanations and examples on how to use them) embedded in the HECRASController.
This is a "must-have" book for all HEC-RAS users.

Automating HEC-RAS!

Written by Chris Goodell, P.E., D.WRE  |  WEST Consultants
Copyright © The RAS Solution 2014.  All rights reserved.

Are you an HEC-RAS user?  Yes?  OK, try this out:

1.  If you haven’t already done so, install the HEC-RAS example projects to the default location.




2.  Open up a blank workbook in Excel.