Latest Contributions by MarkBoucher

Have you verified that your target locations are correct? ... View more

Often closing ArcMap and rebooting the system clears this kind of error up also. ... View more

I looked over the file location options that I can see and found nothing. Then I did a search and found this: Redirect ArcHydro 2. temp directory​. It looks like the temp directory used by ArcMap and Arc Hydro is the same Windows default directory. I followed the instructions in my Windows 7 environment and it worked. ... View more

I haven't done anything other than make a directory I named \GIS on my C: drive. I've not mess with partitions. I don't know off hand how to change the temp file location. ... View more

If you are just "Aiming at a map of urban area flow paths caused by extreme rainfall I am trying to figure out the most reasonable approach" and not looking to delineate the watersheds, then you only have to get to the flow direction grid. There are not that many steps to getting there. If you have polygons of the buildings, then you could use those as innerwalls. 1 m resolution is nice. I have 10 ft. You could make the raster smaller by changing it to a larger grid size. You would lose resolution and detail unless you started from the LiDAR and recreated it with a larger grid size. This would speed up the processing. Also, processing from your local drive is much faster then processing over the network. I think I understand what your are trying to do, but I could be misunderstanding. If you have sinks inside the DEM, the flow paths will end at the sinks. You won't be able to tell where the low areas overflow to once they fill up. You could do this, but when a flow path stops at a sink, you would have to add a pour point at the low point on the "rim" of the sink to see where the overflows would go. I haven't used this tool, but the Generate Flow Path tool in Arc Hydro Tools might do this for you. You'd need to create batch points where you want to start the flow paths at, run the tool, add flow paths at the "rims" of the sink areas and then run it again. Depending on how many you have, this could take some time. If I were you I'd burn in your rivers and fill the sinks and then create the flow direction grid. Subtract the rawdem from the fill raster. Then symbolize it so that the zero values have the color "null" and the rest of the cells in the fill raster are on a color ramp with the deeper cells darker (I use blue ramp), you will be able to see where the sinks are and determine how much work it would be. ... View more

In flat urban areas the underground storm drain system collects most of the flows. The roads have high points and low points that obscure the overland flow paths that a DEM can't really reveal. Roads over culverts or open channels can also "block" flow direction. What I do is I get (or create) a layer for the storm drain system. I copy those polylines into my agreestream layer. I run the Arc Hydro processes thru the flow direction step. Then I use the flow path trace tool in the Arc Hydro toolbar to check if everything is flowing correctly. I also use the Spatial Analyst math tools to subtract the rawdem from the fil raster (final hydrologically correct DEM). This shows me the differences the geoprocessing (DEM Manipulation, etc) makes to the DEM and I can find places that I need to add more to the agreestream layer. Where needed I create innerwalls (and once in a while outerwalls) to block the flow direction where I know it wouldn't go. You'll need to determine how far you want to go with this. You could spend forever perfecting the hydrologically correct DEM because it will never be perfect. This is not a quick process if you have a complicated urban watershed. It is an iterative process so I use Model Builder a lot. You may find you are manipulating most of the DEM to flow where it should flow. There are readymade Arc Hydro Model Builder models for most of the processes. This helps get the process right. I keep a countywide agreestream layer (as well as innerwall an outerwall layers) so that my work can be saved for future studies in the county I work for. I keep these in a geodatabase because the geodatabase seems to be more "stable" than a shapefile. Hope this helps. ... View more

I just got 10.2.2 installed on a laptop and am testing the new version of Arc Hydro. All worked well until I got to fill sinks. After restarting ArcMap, etc., I reset the processing extents to be that of the rawdem I'm using: an area a little bigger than my study extents. All worked smoothly after that! So, somewhere in the process, Arc Hydro might change or set the processing extents and if all does not work just right, it doesn't get changed back and that causes problems. If you have problems, see if that fixes it. It would be nice if Arc Map had a way to show me what the processing extents are or had a way in Model builder to have a layer (like rawdem) be used to set the processing extents for the mxd. Those features would be really nice. ... View more

Well... it is tax day... Seriously, this is one of those "generic" error messages. I seems like you are doing things that reduce this error: local drive, target locations, etc. Make sure you have the Spatial Analyst extension turned on and make sure the layers are all in the same coordinate system. Even recently I had some problems with the catchment polygon processing (raster to polygon). It took a PC reboot to "fix" it. I'm at a loss to understand the cause. It has been working fine lately. The Arc Hydro processing is doing a lot. Sometimes I sense that I get an error if it has been a while since I saved or closed and restarted ArcMap. I have never heard anyone talk about this, but I wonder if the "undo" list gets too long for ArcMap to keep track of when doing all the geoprocessing and that causes a memory or other problem. I will soon be getting v10.2.2 and so I'll be able to experience upgrade errors then. Maybe its a version issue. Sorry I can't be of more specific help. ... View more

Mirza, You should do the DEM Reconditioning first. Then do fill sinks. Then do flow direction. Basically the order of operation is the order the tools appear in the menu. You don't have to use all of the tools. The HRESULT error could be due to having the project an Arc Hydro file on a network server. Move the project to your PC and try it. Search for the "Arc Hydro Problem Solvers" thread. I created that thread and there are lots of practical suggestions there. Mark ... View more

Brian, In response to: "To the best of my knowledge, this feature class [AdjointCatchment] contains polygons of all of the catchments from my DEM above a certain threshold drainage area, including the catchments that are nested within a larger catchment (subcatchments)." Lets say you wanted to delineate a watershed that did not coincide with a DrainagePoint. Delineating only using the flow direction grid (fdr) is very slow. If we calculate the Catchments at the DrainagePoints, some of that work is already done. The AdjointCatchment (ACat for short) is precisely created to overlap the Catchment polygons and allow us to capitalize on the Catchment polys by conglomerating (adjoining) them. Then to delineate any point, one must only delineate a small portion downstream of a DrainagePoint using the fdr grid and then use the ACat polys to immediately define the rest of the delineation. ... View more

The appropriate way to use our Arc Hydro is to develop the Catchments and AdjointCatchments first and leave them alone. The Catchments  and AdjointCatchments are used by Arc Hydro in performing the delineation by "Batch_Points".  Their whole purpose is to speed up the delineation process. You place "Batch_Points" at the locations where you want to calculate flows. You can use the drainage points created by Arc Hydro (Copy or snap to while creating. The Batch_Point feature table has specific fields. Create at least one point using the Batch Point creation tool, then copy other points to that dataset). Then use the Arc Hydro Watershed Processing tool Batch Subwatershed Delineation to delineate the Subwatersheds you want for your study based on the Batch_Points locations. GeoHMS has a tool that "imports" Batch_Points. I use this all the time without having to use other GeoHMS functions. In Arc Hydro, Subwatersheds do not overlap and Watersheds do overlap. So, pick which you want. You can create both. They are created in different datasets. To use the batch points again, you have to calculate the BatchDone field to zero. I'm doing this from home and don't have access to the software to make sure all of my terms are correct. I may look at this tomorrow and double check that I'm communicating correctly. I have updated this reply considerably after getting into the office this AM. Mark Boucher ... View more

Some who follow Arc Hydro or this thread might have info on bathymetry, but you'll have a better chances of finding an answer if you go to the main GeoNet ​page and search bathymetry. You might find a broader audience for your question there. This thread is specific to ArcHydro and does not specifically cover data sources. Here's a good example of what you could find with such a search. We got the point. The latest support for Bathymetry ... View more

A DEM Reconditioning problem was solved. Could be a memory issue. See thread at DEM Reconditioning >> Empty AgreeDEM ... View more

Hmmm... The rawdem that I use is in GRID format with floating point. I converted it to tiff, jpg, and bmp (most common formats) using the Raster To Other Format (multiple) tool then ran the DEM Reconditioning on all of them. All of them worked without a problem. I you have your DEM in some other format, you could try to convert it to GRID and see if that works. The next thing I would do, if you didn't do this already, is start from a brand new mxd. If you've done that and it still fails, before you do the DEM Reconditioning, go to Geoprocessing>Environments>Processing Extents and choose your "Boundary" layer to set the processing extents. Then run it. If this works, there is some glitch somewhere and the processing extent is not being set automatically. I can't imagine that ESRI wouldn't have this set either in the Arc Hydro coding or some other place in the overall scheme of things. I have had the extent reduced to the extents of the BatchPoint data and have had to reset it at that point (probably due do crashing partway through some process). After this I'd need to get a copy of your data and try it myself. I am using 10.1, not 10.2, so my doing a test may not help. Mark ... View more

Ryan, Whenever I've had empty results, the coordinate system seems to have been the culprit. Make sure you import the master DEM and then saving the mxd. This sets the coordinate system for the data frame. If you save it before you load data, the data frame will take on the coordinate system of the first layer added and you need to save the mxd again. It is important that all layers be on the same coordinate system. I'm not sure if when you add a layer that is in a different projection if the "on-the-fly" reprojection will avoid this problem. Step 6: Is "wtr" your stream layer?  I use "agreestream" as the layer name since this is the ArcHydro default stream layer used for burning the streams during the DEM Reconditioning. Leaving it as the default saves me time in having to set names in the processing steps. Also, I found putting the agreestream layer in a separate geodatabase adds a level of "stability". I have one for the entire county that I don't clip for an individual watershed processing. The size does not seem to matter much. I think the processing extents are limited to the DEM Step 7 thru 9 : Arc Hydro will set the Target Locations and create the geodatabases and folders for you using the mxd and the data frame names. The only time I find I need to reset these is if I start the Arc Hydro processing and then change the name of the file or the data frame or if I use Save As to save a version of your work. Hope this makes sense and helps. Mark ... View more