Hypernet Labs and Computational Hydraulics International (CHI) collaborated to integrate Galileo’s remote deployment platform with water management software PCSWMM to make much needed scalable computing resources extremely easy to access for hydrology and hydraulics modeling.

The collaborative effort exemplifies Hypernet Labs’ aim of breaking down barriers to cutting edge scientific computing resources. It also demonstrates the ease with which the Galileo platform can be integrated with other software tools. Of the integration work, CHI President and CEO Rob James says, “It’s been a dream, actually, really easy.”
Since PCSWMM encourages and facilitates more detailed modeling of larger systems for stormwater, wastewater, and watershed management, run times are significant. The issue is compounded when you consider that multiple runs are required for optimization and calibration, and project deadlines constrain the number of large runs that can be executed. The problem, then, becomes one of quality and not just raw productivity.

“In the past,” says James, “people had to simplify their models to achieve that. And now with services like Galileo, they can have a fairly high resolution, accurate picture, but do the runs in parallel and use cloud services. This really reduces the cost for doing that massively parallel approach to modeling.”
The kind of modeling enabled by PCSWMM allows engineers to see the big picture, both temporally and spatially. Instead of examining the potential local effects of building a single culvert, for example, engineers can model the entire watershed to get a more holistic sense of the impact of small local changes, which can have downstream and upstream effects.

Again, this wider range of visibility, in terms of both time and space, is accompanied by a greater need for computation.
In existence since 1978, CHI is a forward-looking firm in the hydrology and hydraulic modeling (H&H) world. For the most recent software release, they worked hard to develop a comprehensive framework for Python scripting within PCSWMM. The aim was to facilitate connections with and support for third party software, and the PCSWMM-Galileo integration was built on top of this framework as the first case study.
The scripting environment creates a very flexible system, in which the tool that runs SWMM models on Galileo can be unilaterally updated or enhanced by CHI, Hypernet Labs, or end users wishing to customize or add features. This being said, end users do not have to code in order to use Galileo through PCSWMM. It’s a tool that can be installed with a one-click download.

CHI’s software and training clients include municipalities, multi-national corporations, universities, government agencies, and local consulting firms in over 85 countries. They host 40-50 workshops per year in the U.S., Canada, and overseas.