Working with Open Source BASINS

This week I've started tackling a fun new project - working with portions of the open source BASINS software. It has been challenging and educational. I've learned a bit about MapWindow and I've also seen that the code needed to access WDM files is really not so bad.

I started on this project because my colleagues at Virginia Tech need a new way to calculate hydrology calibration statistics. We've been using HSPEXP for years, and it does just what we want, but it just doesn't work on modern computers. You can coax it along using XPMode in Windows 7, but even then it has a tendency to randomly freeze up. It's just not happy anymore, and it's time we laid it to rest.

So, fortunately for us, a former graduate student who used to work with me when I worked at Virginia Tech now works for Aqua Terra, the company that maintains BASINS and HSPF. He told us that they've been working on a way to calculate the same statistics that HSPEXP calculates - without the old DOS program and interface.

Fortunately BASINS is open source, so I could get my hands on the code early and customize it for our use. However, things started to get complicated quickly. The folks at Aqua Terra directed me to the subversion download site for BASINS, from which I obtained the code. Fortunately it's written in VB.net, with which I'm quite familiar! However, I quickly learned I needed far more than just the BASINS code.

I discovered that I needed to download several MapWindow projects as well - specifically D4EM, MapWinUtility, and SwatObject. I read a bit more about MapWindow while searching through their site and I must say I find it very exciting - an open source GIS platform for which you can write code in VB.net. I am really interested in developing some GIS programs with the MapWindow libraries, and hope to get in to that once this current project is done.

I also updated my BASINS 4 installation - I'm still not entirely sure if this was necessary, but it I think perhaps it provided the most current version of some DLLs. Some method of BASINS installation is needed to provide hspfmsg.mdb and hspfmsg.wdm. Interesting to note that the update I linked is for 9/2011...which is newer than the current version available on the EPA website, dated 5/2010. Most of the DLLs provided by the BASINS installation can be obtained from MapWindow, but I think the hspfmsg files and a couple DLLs like TableEditor are only available with BASINS. As of the 5/2010 revision, BASINS would not install in Windows 7 except under XPMode. I'm hoping that perhaps if I copy the hspfmsg files to a new computer and get the DLLs from MapWindow I won't have to install BASINS on a Windows 7 computer...this remains to be tested. It is also possible that the 9/2011 version of BASINS will install under Windows 7...this also remains to be tested.

So for now I'm working with the BASINS code on Windows Vista. I ended up just extracting the tool I needed, as in the end we're hoping to have a standalone executable that just calculates the statistics - and maybe runs HSPF - rather than having to launch the full-blown BASINS system. So far I've gotten the statistics calculated, but I still need to work on some connections for the graphs and summary reports, as they're not printing out correctly with the code I've extracted so far. Once everything seems to be working on Vista (where BASINS does install), I'll try transferring everything to a Windows 7 machine and tackle the problems that are sure to arise. I'll let you know how that goes!