ISIS Modelling Software
ISIS is a software package which is used for river modelling. Developed by Halcrow Group Limited, it is used throughout the world as an analysis tool for flood risk mapping, flood forecasting and other aspects of flood risk management analysis. It is used by the Environment Agency, Office of Public Works, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Mekong River Commission and the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation in Egypt as well as many of the UK’s major river engineering consultants including Jacobs, Hyder Consulting, Atkins, Ove Arup & Partners, Haskoning, Black & Veatch, Capita Symonds and JBA Consulting.
History
ISIS was first developed in the 1970s as Halcrow’s ONDA and HR Wallingford’s FLUCOMP, LORIS and RIBAMAN software. There are a number of different types of software built into the ISIS code, but ONDA played a key role in its creation, which is why many of its functionalities remain today. ONDA modelled open channel flows and was capable of simulating both branched and looped systems. It was a modular program which could represent a variety of control structures, including weirs, sluices and culverts and floodplains.
Previous versions of ISIS
- v2.0 (release date unknown) - major new features included a new network visualiser and additional functionality in the display and animation of results.
- v2.1 (released April 2002) - major new features included a new GIS-based visualiser to enable the user to display ISIS model schematics overlaid on a background map in addition to improved usability, and a new run forms interface to improve model management capabilities.
- v2.2 (released April 2003) - major new features included a number of new units available to the user including a lateral inflow, rainfall/evaporation boundary, normal/critical depth boundary and a breach unit.
- v2.3 (released July 2004) - major new features included a new river unit based on the Conveyance Estimation System, a new hydrology tool to find the optimal storm duration and improvements to output options and model robustness.
- v2.4 (released February 2006) - major new features included a new flow stage plot facility, the removal of the constraint of a maximum ten nodes attached to a reservoir or junction and consolidated bug fixes.
- v2.5 (released March 2007) - major new features included the implementation Revitalised Flood Hydrograph rainfall-runoff boundary (ReFHBDY) and the addition of hot start functionality.
Present
Halcrow and Wallingford Software, the sister company of HR Wallingford, worked in partnership for over 10 years in the development, sale and support of ISIS. In January 2008 this partnership came to an end and Halcrow continued to develop ISIS alone and introduced a new licensing structure and price. The new licensing structure includes a free version of the software. It has the same functionality as ISIS Professional, but is limited to 200 nodes and 10mb of ISIS Mapper input files. It can be used for smaller river modelling projects such as flood risk assessments, flood mapping and design projects.
The ISIS suite has been developed by the further integration of WBM’s TUFLOW software and the introduction of ISIS Mapper, a GIS-based model building and visualisation tool for viewing 3D surface data. Available add-ons include Sediment Transport and Water Quality.
Current release of ISIS
- v3.0 (released February 2008) - the first ISIS release by Halcrow since the end of the business partnership with Wallingford Software. The release saw many major enhancements, most notably the inclusion of ISIS Mapper as a model building, flood mapping and visualisation tool, the release of a fully functioning Free version of the software (limited to 200 nodes) and the introduction of three new hydraulic units (Flat-V weir, Total Energy Junction, Blockage unit).
- v3.1 (released December 2008) - delivers faster run times and other improvements and new features - including grid manipulation, conveyance plotting, OpenMI compliance and better visualisation of diagnostic and structure information.
Support Community
In order to help users of the software a support website exists which contains manuals, support forums, knowledge bases and a number of helpful downloads. ISIS user community
See also
- Halcrow Group
- Hydraulic Engineering
- HEC-RAS
- MIKE 11
- WMS (software)