Abstract

This chapter presents a graphical user interface (GUI) for the translation of SWMM 4 input files to SWMM 5 input files developed under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between Camp Dresser & McKee Inc. (CDM) and the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). This chapter also summaries the design of the SWMM Data Translation program and discusses the SWMM 5 testing procedures. One of the purposes of the CRADA is to provide upward compatibility between SWMM 4 and SWMM 5 by providing a user friendly interface that will translate existing SWMM 3.3 and SWMM 4 RUNOFF, TRANSPORT, and EXTRAN files to a single SWMM 5 input file. The SWMM 5 input file is a quasi-XML file that has link node data in a free formatted unstructured ASCII file. The SWMM 5 input file then can be read by the EPASWMM.EXE graphical user interface or the standalone SWMM 5 engine written in C programming language.

The translator is written in Visual Basic 6. The source code for the SWMM 4 to SWMM 5 translator will be available to the general public in the official release of SWMM 5. The translator parses the SWMM 3.3 and SWMM 4 data sets and saves the SWMM 3.3 and SWMM 4 information to a data structure. The data structure is then sorted and the equivalent information is saved to a SWMM 5 input data file. The translator does more than simply transcribe input data fields. It translates TRANSPORT input data sets without elevation to SWMM 5 hydraulic data sets with elevations and free outfall boundary conditions.

An additional purpose of the translator program in the initial release of SWMM 5 is to provide many test data sets for the hydrologic and hydraulic comparison of SWMM 4 and SWMM 5. Over 200 RUNOFF, TRANSPORT, and EXTRAN data sets were translated from SWMM 4 to SWMM 5. The hydrologic and hydraulic output results were then compared between SWMM 4 and SWMM 5 as part of the QA/QC (quality assurance/quality control) task in the SWMM CRADA.

The CDM SWMM 4 data translating process contains three basic components:

1) digesting SWMM 4 data sets,

2) parsing the SWMM 4 data line and storing data into memory, and

3) converting data to SWMM 5 format.

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