Best open-source GUI for MODFLOW?

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sophie dupont

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Dec 12, 2016, 2:51:19 AM12/12/16
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Hello,


I am new in groundwater modelling and I am looking for an open-source GUI for using MODFLOW. Based on your experience, what is your recommended solution? Is there something like an alternative to GMS that is open-source, similar to what QGis is to ArcGIS, or Octave to MATLAB?


Sorry if this topic has already been addressed, in this case I would appreciate to be pointed to the link(s) where I could find more information about this question. 


Thanks a lot for your help. 

Julio V

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Dec 12, 2016, 3:05:22 AM12/12/16
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http://water.usgs.gov/nrp/gwsoftware/ModelMuse/ModelMuse.html

El lun., 12 dic. 2016 a las 9:02, Julio V (<julio....@gmail.com>) escribió:
try ModelMuse from tha usgs
It is great, easy to use and powerful indeed


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sophie dupont

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Dec 12, 2016, 3:25:49 AM12/12/16
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Thanks, it looks indeed quite powerful and I will definitely try it. But it does not seem to support MODLOW-USG does it? In my study I will have to model both structured and unstructured grid so a solution which supports both MODFLOW-2005 and MODFLOW-USG would be better. 

Julio V

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Dec 12, 2016, 5:34:57 AM12/12/16
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it is not implemented yet. I hope it will be soon,,

Giovanni Firmani

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Dec 12, 2016, 8:37:30 AM12/12/16
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Maybe this also can help:


You can also use PMWIN but it is not open source, although free



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Julio V

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Dec 12, 2016, 10:50:02 AM12/12/16
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El lun., 12 dic. 2016 a las 14:37, Giovanni Firmani (<g.fi...@gmail.com>) escribió:
Maybe this also can help:


You can also use PMWIN but it is not open source, although free



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On 12 December 2016 at 15:45, sophie dupont <neof...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello,


I am new in groundwater modelling and I am looking for an open-source GUI for using MODFLOW. Based on your experience, what is your recommended solution? Is there something like an alternative to GMS that is open-source, similar to what QGis is to ArcGIS, or Octave to MATLAB?


Sorry if this topic has already been addressed, in this case I would appreciate to be pointed to the link(s) where I could find more information about this question. 


Thanks a lot for your help. 

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Giovanni Firmani
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Fax      +39 06 56562922
Skype gio.vanni.f

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Nadège et Didier Vanden Berghe

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Dec 13, 2016, 9:17:25 AM12/13/16
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Bonjour Sophie

You may not use USG in ModelMuse however you can try the LGR version of Modflow, which may help you to refine your model locally. ModelMuse allows also to use SUTRA, which is a USGS finite element model. Last but not least Deltares proposes iMOD, a Modflow visual interface that allows easy model size reducing, e.g. you can build a regional coarse model and you can resize it for a local purpose - I haven't try it yet.

Flopy, as mentionned by verdajo, is probably the most exciting software, that does include USG. It needs to script python, which is not so hard. If you want to learn Python, Mark Bakker github page is an excellent starting point, e.g. :
https://mbakker7.github.io/exploratory_computing_with_python/

Good luck,
Didier

Jeff Norville

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Dec 13, 2016, 9:34:21 PM12/13/16
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Hello Sophie,

ModelMuse is among the better GUIs out there (more stable than SWS's Visual Modflow, better workflow than PMWIN [perhaps projecting personal opinion]), and the video tutorials Richard W has made are great.

Didier also brings up some excellent suggestions -- and I hadn't seen the new Bakker series of Python notebooks, what an excellent resource (thanks!).

Another path : have you looked into the tutorials included with the USGS Modflow download? Depending on the complexity of your task/s, you might save a LOT of headache by avoiding the GUIs entirely. In that case you'll need to open a command line input instead -- which isn't so bad!

Getting comfortable with a good text editor (TextPad, Notepad++) and QGIS (or perhaps Golden's Surfer, commercial license) is perhaps the most stable toolkit for learning Modflow and it's limitations. You'll need to look through a lot of textfiles - GUI or no - to find spots in your grids / layers that the solver didn't like, found dry cells / rewetting instability, issues like that.

If you haven't already, I'd dig into as many of the example models as you have time for simply using the command line, then reading the output files / water balance in the *.LST file, volumetric budget/volumes, etc. You can import then into ModelMuse, which has an excellent 3D viewer, or check into setting up QGIS to edit FD grids (Gridder plugin) and visualize outputs.

People here can help guide you along any of these paths, so don't be afraid to give it a try.

Cordialement,
Jeff
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