Hydraulic structures (Water Overlay)

Hydraulic stuctures

The water system can be enhanced with a number of hydraulic structures. These are constructions which effect water flow in specific cells, according to their specific flow model and parameters. The behavior of these constructions can be adjusted by adjusting the related attributes.

In general, for ease of use, hydraulic structures are by default imported as underground constructions.

Hydraulic structures can be either line-based or point-based:

• Line-based constructions
  Line-based constructions form a direct connection between two exact cells, allowing water to flow from one point to another. The flow is dictated by the construction's formula. The endpoints of a line-based construction, the exact cells which are connected by the construction, are computed based on the orientation and size of their polygon. Essentially, the furthest ends of the polygon are used as end-points. Because the cells are considered adjacent, any calculated flow through line-based hydrological constructions is instantaneous.
• Point-based constructions
  Point-based constructions add or remove water in one or more computational layers, based on their formula's. The centerpoint of a point-based construction, the exact cell where the effect takes place, is is the geometric center of the construction's polygon.

Note that the more complex the polygon is, the more difficult it is for the Tygron Platform to resolve it to a simple line or center point.

When the calculation of the water overlay completes, the total amount of water which has flowed through a specific construction is stored in an attribute in that construction. By default, this attribute is OBJECT_OUTPUT_FLOW, and the flow is expressed in m3. If multiple water overlays exist in the project simultaneously, the attribute name is appended with a number so that each overlay (as they are added to the project) has a unique attribute it writes its results to.

Hydrological constructions can only function as a single hydrological construction. If a single construction has attributes related to multiple hydrological constructions, the resulting behavior is undefined.