Over the course of this lab, we'll be using the DEMs you create from your field surveys as input data with which we'll run the open-source, and very powerful, Delft3D hydrodynamic model. This page describes the steps you'll need to take prior to lab on April 5th. Once you're finished here, you'll have a working copy of Delft3D ready to go. 

If you've already done this in lab, you can skip this step! But if not, you'll first want to register as a member of the Delft community. Not only will this give you the ability to download the source code for Delft in the future, it will also allow you access to all their user forums, which actually provide decent answers to most of the problems you can (and will) encounter running the software. So to begin, head to the Delft website and "Register" as a member.

Once you've registered (it might take a few minutes before your account is active), go ahead and sign in with the link in the upper right. At this point, you'll want to request a license for the Delft3D graphical interface. 

Now, you're probably thinking "why do I need a license if this software is open source?!" And that's a good question - as of right now, all the Delft computational routines and the guts of the program are open-source, but the GUI user interface isn't, so you still need a license for that. If you really, really didn't want to deal with licensing, note that it's very possible to run all of Delft from a command line or terminal - but for now, we'll use the graphical menu to run it, so you'll need a license.

I've found that it typically takes the folks at Delft a day or two to send you the license files. Once you recieve that, you'll want to download that license file and extract it to a suitable location on your computer. For simplicity's sake, I always create a new folder at the top level of your hard drive; so go ahead and make the folder C:/delft3d

Once you create that folder, extract the license file (typically "Delft3D_GUI.lic") into it. 

Now, don't delete that license email from Delft! In there, you'll find a link to an FTP site. Go ahead and click the link to the FTP site and enter the credentials you're given. Once you've hacked into the mainframe, navigate to /Windows/Previous Open Source GUIs/Delft3D_4.00.02_(for_flow_5.01.00.2163_and_lower)/ and click on setup.delft3d.openhydromorpho.exe to download it. For now, it doesn't matter where this file goes - so long as you remember where you put it!

Once the download's complete, you can double-click setup.openhydromorpho.exe to run it. First, it will want to walk you through the setup for Delft's license manager program. Accept all the defaults; it will ask you for the path to your license file, which you'll conveniently have in the C:/delft3d folder, so go ahead and point it there. 

After the license manager installation is complete, the program will want to take you through the install of Delft3D itself. Here, it's VERY IMPORTANT that when it asks where you want to install the program (e.g. "Destination Folder" on the first step, you choose (if it's not already chosen for you) your C:/delft3d directory. Typically, I think this is the default folder where Delft will be installed - but just make sure that's where it wants to put it. Other than that, accept all the defaults and proceed with the installation.

What you've just done is installed a working Delft3D menu - but it doesn't yet have any of the 'guts' of the actual program; that is, you've got a bunch of buttons and a nice interface that do absolutely nothing. We'll get to that in Step 4, but first there are a couple small utilities to download and install in Step 3.

Hopefully you didn't close your FTP browser window. If you did, painstakingly navigate back to it now. Now navigate to /Windows/Previous Open Source GUIs/Delft3D_4.00.02_(for_flow_5.01.00.2163_and_lower)/Redistributables and right-click "Save link as..." on MCRInstaller.exe, which is the MATLAB Compiler v7.11, and then also right-click and "Save link as..." on vcredist_x86 (2008 SP1).exe, which is the Visual C++ compiler.

Now you can go ahead and run both of these exe's to install the software. Odds are that you've already got one or both of these pieces of software installed on your machine, and it'll tell you this during their installations. In the case of Visual C++, it's no problem if you've already got that installed. Just exit the installation and all will be good.

In the case of the MATLAB compiler, it's a huge problem if you have another version installed. The version of Delft we're using has a post-processor and data export tool that only runs with MATLAB Compiler v7.11, so if you've got another version, you need to go to Control Panel and Uninstall it. Don't worry - your MATLAB will still work just fine. 

Alright - you've got all these things installed and ready to go. Now you just need Delft! 

Delft3D is released as open source software, which means that as long as you're registered as a member of their community, you can go download the source code itself. Now typically, to get a working version of the software on your own machine, you need to compile that source code and build executables yourself. If this sounds intimidating, don't worry - we're going to give you a pre-compiled version of the code that has the program ready to go!

Here is a link to a zip folder containing the Delft files. Download that zip folder, preferably to your 'downloads' folder or your Desktop (really anywhere BUT your C:/delft3d folder). Extract the contents wherever you downloaded it (again, NOT to your C:delft3d folder).

Once you have that zip folder extracted, it should contain three folders (called examples, manuals, and w32). Recall that earlier, we mentioned that you have a Delft3d menu with that didn't have any computation programs behind it - it was just buttons that did nothing. Here's where we put the actual guts in the program. Select ALL three of those folders, copy and paste them into your C:/delft3d folder. It will give you a warning about overwriting files. You want to copy and replace (e.g. overwrite) existing files.   

Now you're ready to go. You can start the Delft menu by going to Start -> All Programs -> Deltares -> Delft3D. This should bring up the Delft3D menu, which, if you've got the license manager working properly, will show your name and license info before displaying the main menu. 

If you've gotten the menu, great! You're in good shape here. But to be sure, let's try a quick example flow run. In your main Delft menu, click Select working directory and set it to C:/delft3d/examples/flow. Hit OK. Back in your Delft main menu, click Flow, then click Start. In the window that pops up, click Select file and then select f34.mdf, which is a simulation run that comes included with the Delft software. Hit OK and you should see a computation window pop up; the simulation lasts for about 10 seconds. If this seems to work, you're good to go and we'll see you in lab! If not, shout with questions.