Drainage Design Diaries: From Data Drips to Flexible Reporting with InfoDrainage

SAMER MUHANDES: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Drainage Design Diaries from Data Drips to Flexible Reporting with InfoDrainage. My name is Samer Muhandes and I'm a Senior Product Manager with Autodesk. I manage a product a Drainage Design product called InfoDrainage and-- as well as InfoWorks ICM.

Before I make a start to enable my colleagues and the legal department to sleep at night, I need to present to you the safe harbor statement. This is basically saying that as an employee of Autodesk and as a product manager, I may share something about the future or share a forward looking statement. If I do this, and I know I will, please do not make any procurement or investment decision based on a future looking statement, and I will tell you what is in the software and what is coming in the future. So you, basically, you know what's there and what's coming.

The agenda for today. The plan is, basically, I'm going to tell you the story of a drainage designer. I've been a drainage designer for 10 years, and I'm going to tell you about my, basically, daily routine as a drainage designer from the moment I start getting the data from my clients to the moment I finish my design and put the report together and submit the final design and get it integrated with the site design.

So we're starting from data drips. We'll look at various data types that we get into a drainage design and we may need. And then, we'll move into hydrology to estimate the runoff and the rainfall. And then, we move into inlet design to collect that runoff. And then, to pipe design and culvert design to convey that runoff. And then, we've got the pond design, basically, to store it so we can attenuate the water and discharge attenuated flow because no one will allow us to discharge unattenuated flows and, basically, flush their rivers or their public sewer, depends where we're connecting.

And then, we will look at the simulation results. We want to stress test the whole system together and see how it behaves against a 30-year storm, 100-year storm. And then, we will look at the results and move to a Flexible Reporting, which is a new tool in InfoDrainage and generate reports to manage and satisfy local requirements. And then, we will take that model and put it back in Civil 3D to live with the rest of the site design.

OK, starting from the first data drip, which is the ground model. One of the first things you would need to do as a drainage designer is to get your ground model. This is where you will be able to estimate how you're going to run your drainage system. Because drainage, I always say, it's a level game and we need to play it right and you need to know where you're going to start your pipeline and where you're going to outfall. You need to know where is the best place to have your ponds and storage structures.

Maybe you need to understand, sometimes, if the master plan hasn't been finalized. Maybe you need to understand where are the hotspots that you need to avoid so you can advise maybe the architect saying, OK, these are the areas where I'm going to have, basically, flooding hotspots, and I would advise you to move the school away from these points or these areas and you need to move the hospitals away. We try to avoid having critical structures in these locations.

So within InfoDrainage, you can import CSV, TXT files, XYZ, LandXML, ASC, PWF, and InfoDrainage surfaces. And you can create a surface from manhole cover levels. If you don't have a surface and you need to do some sort of a 2D analysis, you can just triangulate the manhole cover levels and get a surface created, which is really cool and I've used it a lot of times. And you also will be able to get your manhole cover levels picked automatically as soon as you apply a surface.

So once you drop a surface and you model, the software will ask you, do you want me to update all your cover levels to, basically, read the surface, or do you want to ignore the surface? And you can choose what you want to do. So you could choose not to sync it. So let's see how that works.

You click on Surface on the Preview and you've got all these options. And then, let's import the surface from CAD. So we get the surface and we can see easting and northing levels. And then, once you say, OK, it will ask you, do you want me to update things or not? So you can update it. And now, you have a surface.

We've added to InfoDrainage as well the ability to trim your surface. So you could choose to, basically, go and use the Trim tool and say, OK, I'm just interested in that part of the surface. I mean, what the-- I can see here on the screen is because of hidden structures-- certain structures in the model. So yeah, this is why you see them on the Trimming tool.

So now, I selected that this is the surface of interest. And you can say OK to that. And you can either override the existing or, basically, create a new surface. And then, that's it. This is our trim surface.

And next, you, basically, you're going to generate another surface from manhole. So if didn't have a surface, I can use the manhole cover levels and I can triangulate a surface together. So you will notice that the surface is starting from the manhole-- the center of the manhole and trying to connect all the manholes together and you get a surface that you could use. It's not going to be as accurate because of the number of them. You're not going to have a lot of manholes and it's not-- you're not going to have a lot of data points. The interpolation and extrapolation will not be as accurate as having a 1 meter resolution surface.

And then, the next data drip that we're going to have is the background. So I want to have the context of where I am and what's, basically, the land use. Sometimes you've got the three officers in the Council or the local authority. They might give you what is called the group protection zone. It's the [? hotbeds ?] they call it, I think. And basically, they give you circles that you're not allowed to touch or that circle is where you have a tree and a group. And that's, basically, that area, you're not allowed to put a fork in it.

So you can add these as a background layer. You can add some sort of utilities. And then, you can add the master plan so you know where you're going to run your pipes. You don't want to get a pipe to go through a building. So you want to have it, maybe, in the footway or in the highway, it depends. So let's see how that works.

You get CAD data with it from dwg, so dxs, and you can import them as background image. The cool thing here is that if someone has that file open, you are referencing the same file. So if the architect is, basically, adding building, moving buildings, or what you need to do is refresh in InfoDrainage and you can get that surface.

And basically, you can also get images, you can get JPEG image, PNG, and TIFF, and you can import them directly to InfoDrainage georeferenced images. And you have the option to convert CAD polygons to subcatchment areas. And also, you will be able to reference, as I said, you reference the CAD and [? sync. ?] And also, utilities, you can bring utilities and reference them so you know that you're not going to, maybe, touch a gas main as you design your ponds and as you design your swale.

So an InfoDrainage, we organized all of our structures so you see the footprint of your structures. So that will help you have a more spatial awareness. And let's see how that looks like. So you could right click on CAD Data, Import the CAD file, and now you have a CAD file in the background. Or you can say, I'm going to import an image, and that's a georeferenced image. And you can play with the transparency. And then, you can say OK to that. And that's it.

Now, we have the pipe network, so we want to bring the pipe network maybe from a shapefile or maybe from CSV. Let's say there is an existing network that I want to bring or maybe I digitized that elsewhere and I want to bring it or maybe from Civil 3D. So you could get a Civil 3D network. You could get a MicroDrainage model with-- maybe the model has already been done and you need to add another development to it. Maybe LandXML, CAD, GIS, CSV, text files, all of these can be translated into manholes and pipes.

Let's see a quick example from an importer tool that you can import MicroDrainage model, select the model, and you have a network right away, and it works. If you're bringing a shapefile, it will present you with a mapping tool to map the attributes. So it will say this is what I found in the shapefile. And you say ID in the shapefile equals name in InfoDrainage. So you need just to map these attributes.

This is another example, a model in SSA. And basically, you export it to GIS. And once you create a folder, you put all of the elements together. And then, you can go to InfoDrainage and you will be able to say import these files and let's start with the nodes. And this is the mapping that I mentioned with the unit.

So you say invert elevation is invert level. Rim elevation from SSA is covered level aiming for drainage. And you map these attributes together. You specify the units. And you import them so you have now the nodes attached to the links or the connections. And similar exercise, you bring in the pipes and you just do the mapping. You say name is ID and cover level is [INAUDIBLE] here is [? man ?] roughness. And downstream invert level is half the elevation. So you do the mapping, and then you say Import once you're done.

And now, you have the network. The only thing that doesn't come with SSA would be the outfall cover level because SSA doesn't have an outfall cover level. So we need to add it manually. Here, we bring the subcatchment and maybe we're interested just in the area. Maybe the area and the ID and the destination of that subcatchment. So now we have the subcatchment, and I need just to update the outflow cover level. Yeah, as mentioned, SSA doesn't have an optimal cover level. And that's it. You have now a network from SSA or from MicroDrainage that can be brought to InfoDrainage right away.

OK, one thing that we are going to add to the software-- so by the time we see this presentation, it will either be released-- it will either be already released or it will be released in a week time from the moment you see this presentation. But this is on the safe harbor, so it might not be released. We never know.

So basically, we added a land use and soil type objects, and it's going to be a technical preview that we're going to release, hopefully, as I said, by the time you see the presentation. And you will have the option to have these land uses and soil type polygons imported or maybe you can digitize them in the model, and you will be able to have attributes in the land use, such as, what is the land use? Is it urban area? What is the cover type? For example, open space, condition, the volumetric runoff coefficient and the percentage of impervious area.

Once you have these, then if you have a subcatchment that crosses multiple land use, it will take a weighted average for the volumetric runoff coefficient, for the percentage of impervious area, and it will assign that weighted average value to the subcatchment. So if you have a subcatchment with 50% of the subcatchment falling under maybe an urban land use and another 50% of the subcatchment falling under a Greenfield, let's call it 50% impervious area and 100% impervious area, you should get a total percentage of impervious area of 75%, and this is the weighted average. Similarly, with the volumetric runoff coefficient.

Also, if we combine this data, the land use the cover type, the condition with the soil type, soil type A, soil type B, we will be able to establish the SCS composite runoff-- composite curve number. So let's see how that looks like. You can import a GIS file. This is telling you that this is a technical preview. Yeah, you get these polygons, maybe assign a color to them and you can map these attributes.

Now, InfoDrainage will assume a value for the default. So anything that falls outside of these polygons, it will have a default value, and you could set what this default value should be. So you could say the default, If I don't, basically, have a subcatchment falling on the top of a land use, use these parameters.

Similarly, we want to do this for soil type. And we're going to bring them into InfoDrainage. And here, the only attribute we have is name and soil group. And of course, you will have a default. So when the subcatchment doesn't touch any of these polygons, it will have a certain [? subgroup. ?] And you can, of course, play with these polygons on the plan view.

And now, I'm going to draw a subcatchment. And then, we're not going to do it here in this video, but we're going to do it later on. But if you do draw a subcatchment, it will take weighted average and it will calculate the composite of runoff composite curve number automatically.

So that was the data driven. Is that all? No. Sometimes you bring utilities, sometimes you bring, as I said, group protection zones. And sometimes you have, maybe, land ownership. I remember suggesting that maybe we need to extend or scale a pond, and I wasn't aware that, basically, we're starting to touch or consume land that belongs to the Ministry of Defense. And yeah, of course, we're not going to take their lands, and we had to understand the land ownership. So I had to bring a layer of showing me the land ownership and where I should stop pursuing land take.

And of course, depends where you are, which country you are. In some countries, of course, you may need to bring more data and make more assessments. If you're in the UK, especially in certain areas, you need to do the UXO assessment to see if there is any risk of unexploded ordnance there after the World War. And we've had sites in the past when we found that the site is at risk of hitting UXO as you start excavating. So all of these, of course, you need to be aware of them before you start making decisions and digitizing pipes and running hydraulics. So before anything, you're trying to collect the data and paint the picture of where you are and what you're going to be doing.

Then, now, we have the data. We imported them all to InfoDrainage, whether it's the background layer, the pipes, the land use, the soil type. And sometimes, maybe you need to have, maybe, SPZ, the Source Protection Zones, area where you're not allowed to infiltrate because of proximity to abstraction. So yeah, you understand the full picture and you know exactly where you're going to be infiltrating, where you're going to be running your pipes.

Now, let's estimate the rainfall and runoff. So in InfoDrainage, we've got global rainfall methods that, basically, can be used everywhere. So we've got NOAA and SCS, which are used in the Middle East and in USA, of course, and they are American methods. And we've got FEH and FSR used heavily also in the Middle East and the UK. And we've got ARR used in Australia. We've got the Desbordes, which is used in France. And we've got the Chinese rainfall method. Guess where they use this? In China.

And in countries where they don't have synthetic or we call these design rainfall methods or synthetic rainfall methods, in countries where they don't have this, we use what is called the IDF curve combined with a temporal pattern. Or sometimes, we use just IDF curves and we run static analysis.

Also, we have known rainfall. If you had an event that traumatized you in August 2018, you could say, I want to design a drainage system so if that August 2018 event hit me again, I don't want a flood. So you could bring that historical event and you could try to develop solutions and find options to mitigate or, basically, accommodate that rainfall event.

In the past, I've worked on projects with the objective of, basically, accommodating a historical storm. The owner was saying, if that storm hits me again, I don't want to flood, and that was the objective and that's OK. And, of course, once you describe your site descriptors in any of these synthetic methods, or once you put the IDF curves, then you can go to Rainfall Manager and visualize the rainfall profile.

So let's try our rainfall. So you can click on the site. We have APIs with our website and you can choose the return period and climate change and you can choose the duration, and then, the temporal pattern. And once you generate them, then you have a rainfall profile or rain-- multiple rainfall profiles created.

SCS, similarly, you have the SCS method where you can put the period, duration, climate change, and then, you can choose the distribution and you can go to the viewer and see your rainfall profile. FEH is, basically, you bring-- you buy a file from the FEH service and then you can specify the return period and duration. And then, you can have it in the rainfall viewer. AR&R-- sorry-- FSR, you click on a site. It's two parameters. And you select the rainfall and then the duration, and you have a rainfall event.

Similarly, ARR, the Chinese method, the defined method, the French rainfall as well-- the French rainfall, they call it the double triangle. You select the site as well, the duration, the return period, and you have a rainfall profile.

And if you have an IDF curve coming from a country that doesn't follow or doesn't have a synthetic method, you can bring a table. And that table will describe the relationship between the duration and intensity for each return period. So this is, basically, multiple IDF curves. And you could set up your temporal pattern. If you have one, you can set it up. And then, once you combine them together, you get a rainfall profile.

So you could say here that I'm going to use this temporal pattern with specific storm durations. And then, you can go to the rainfall viewer and you could see the user defined rainfall is a result of combining these two, the IDF curve with the temporal pattern. And known rainfall is the historical event. And this is an event that landed in Norwich in the past, so we brought it up.

And you could see all of your rainfall events in the rainfall manager. So you could adjust the values, you could delete it. And when it comes to rainfall landing on a subcatchment, what's going to happen after this is you will get runoff. So we've got multiple runoff methods to have a global coverage for InfoDrainage. So we've got the time of concentration method.

You have the SCS method Santa Barbara urban hydrograph SWMM runoff rational, modified rational, Laurenson, and they call it ReFHs as well, Green Roof method, and UK unit hydrograph FSR, FEH, ReFH and ReFH2 and Time Area Diagram. So all of these allow you to, basically, model any runoff.

And whatever the behavior of the subcatchment, whether you have water landing on a green roof or whether you have water landing on a green field with some infiltration and you want to allow for this infiltration using the Horton method, for example, you could use the SWMM runoff, whether you want to use the SCS curve number. So all of these are covered and you could use InfoDrainage for that.

And this is when you need to use the land use and the soil type polygons that we spoke about. So this is us throwing the subcatchment, and then relying on the land use and soil types to, basically, calculate the volumetric runoff coefficient. So you could see, it's 0.75. As soon as I said use the land use, it became 0.4. And as soon as I moved it, it's changing and updating as I move the subcatchment area.

So if you can see the volumetric runoff coefficient and the percentage of various area, and now when it comes to the SCS curve number, it's reading both the land use and the soil type. And you could see that the previous curve number is being updated, and as a result, the composite curve number is being updated as well. So this is quite exciting. And by the time you're seeing this presentation, hopefully, it will be a week or two and you will see it in the software.

But, of course, this is on the safe harbor. Yeah, as I presented in the beginning, do not make investment or procurement decision based on a future promise. Cool. And by the way, if you move your land use, it will update the numbers automatically. And if you move your subcatchment, it will update these numbers automatically. And you can bring these polygons as CAD files, as GIS layers and CSVs. So there's lots of flexibility.

So we had these data drips coming to us from clients and surveys and topographical surveys, et cetera. And then, we've got the rainfall described and modeled, and that rainfall landed on a subcatchment generating runoff. Now, the first thing we want to do is collect that runoff.

So we want to have a collection system, an efficient collection system that can take that runoff and take-- basically, send it to the conveyance system. So starting from the collection system, we've got an inlet sizing calculators. And basically, we follow the HEC22 inlet calculation methods.

This is where you can describe the physical properties of your inlet, whether it's a combination, and the location of your inlet, whether it's in [? sag ?] or on [? grate. ?] And once you describe these physical properties and you can estimate the flows using the subcatchments in the model, you can say, estimate the flow of that rainfall landing on the subcatchment. Give me the flow and tell me what is the captured flow for this arrangement. What is the bypass flow and what is the approach flow?

So it will start from the approach flow, then estimating the captured, the bypass, and then, it will estimate the gutter spread, the bypass spread, and then, the gutter depth and the bypass depth. So based on these values, you can determine whether you need maybe another one or maybe you need a bigger inlet, maybe you need a wider gutter. So you need to avoid having a spread more than half lane. Most states and in most places, they never allow you to have a spread more than half lane.

And then, now we're happy with the inlet design and we, basically, managed to model the physical reality of water heading these inlets, and then, maybe making their way into the bypass lanes into the next inlet or maybe making their way into the conveyance system. So let's see, how can we design pipes?

InfoDrainage has one of the most advanced and flexible design logic to satisfy a set of design criteria. And we've got the ability to, basically, take on and off certain criteria so the design can say, I'm going to ignore the velocity now. No, no, no, I'm going to have the velocity and think about the capacity and think about this.

And we've got what is called the design logic switch to say, I'm going to prioritize making the pipes bigger before making them steeper, and that is called saving excavation. So you're minimizing excavation over minimizing pipe diameter. Or you could do the opposite. You could say, I want to prioritize making the pipe bigger before making it steeper to achieve more capacity.

And you could also lock certain pipes and you can say, this is an existing pipe. I'm not going to touch it. I cannot design it because it's not my pipe, but I'm going to connect to it. So I'm going to have it in my model and I'm going to design the upstream end and the downstream end, but I don't want to design that pipe. And you could easily lock it and exclude it from the design.

So the process is you create a flow path and then you can say, show me the profile. I don't like what I see. So you can go to the design wizard. You can select the rainfall that you want to design against. And we've seen the NOAA rainfall service. So you could say I'm going to design for five year event. And this is the duration and this is the temporal pattern.

And then, once you say OK, now you have your rainfall described. And then, you can say next and select the criteria that you want to design against. And this is the magic in InfoDrainage that it can look at all these criteria together and find the best solution to have a minimum coverage depth to satisfy the minimum and maximum slope sets to satisfy minimum maximum velocities to maybe limit the pipe capacity to 75%.

And then, it gives you in yellow what has changed and what has been updated. So you could see now, you've got a system that is flowing nicely upstream and downstream all the way towards the outfall. And you could do this for all the flow paths that you've got in your system.

And now, we want to talk about channel design. So what if I didn't have pipes to convey the water towards the pond or towards my story? What if I add channels, roadside channels, for example, which is the case in this project? We have smart objects with complex arrangements, basically, multi-layers of multiple objects on the top of each other. And you could say, this is my swale. Maybe it's sitting on the top of a gravel trench and maybe this is sitting on the top of a perforated pipe.

All of these are acting as one object. They're not multiple objects in InfoDrainage. And you don't have to draw seven different pipes and manholes, connect them together trying to describe what is happening. Basically, it's all in one object. And you have design tools to estimate what is the width of that swale? What is the top width? What is the bottom width? What is the-- maybe you can specify the side slopes.

To achieve a certain objective you could say, give me all these dimensions so I scale that swale by 10%. Or giving me these dimensions so I can achieve a volume of 200 cubic meter in that swale. And you could estimate that volume using rainfall and your subcatchment. It can give you a range of volume that you need to achieve in your swale.

At the end of the day, the efficiency would be-- efficiency of your flow control would determine the exact volume that you need. So in this case, I'm going to double click on the swale. And you can see this is the complex structure that I just described. And you could click on and on the trench and the under drain.

And once you're happy with the arrangement, let's say, it's just a roadside ditch. You could say, yeah, let's go and use the sizing calculator to achieve a specific volume and put the volume that you need, say OK, and it will update the base width and the top width. And you can around them up if you want. And then you can say OK to that.

It will look at the inlet and it will tell you I have a point inflow, which is like a pipe pointed at your swale, which is not the case. Maybe I have sheet flow and we call it lateral flow and inward drainage. And this is now, here, plus maybe specifying some infiltration that we have. And then, you can say, OK, to that and happy days. You have your swale designed and ready to take the sheet flow from the subcatchment. So water will land on your subcatchment and it will contribute evenly alongside the swale.

And then, you could see a long section and you could check on the swale and make sure that you're happy with the arrangement. This is the swale going into a culvert, going into a pipe, and then flowing into the pond.

And now we got to the culvert. So the swale, or the ditch, managed to get me all the way towards the culvert. So we've added, recently, to InfoDrainage culvert analysis capabilities. We added around-- not around-- exactly 57 culverts with different connection types and shapes and culvert entrances. The combinations of this, they-- basically they're 757. And these are the culverts available in the SWMM engine.

So we expose these culvert types in InfoDrainage so you could select that I have an egg shape or ellipses pipe or arch or boxes or whatever. So you can describe the shapes and the entrance and then the type. And once you have all of these together, then we let the SWMM engine know what sort of arrangement we have and this engine will analyze that culvert and return to you an accurate analysis of the head loss associated with the ditch with, basically, an open water feature heading into a closed conduit.

And this is an example. I click on the culvert. I say this is, maybe, an arch or this is a box or this is something else. So in this case, we're going to go with a box culvert and I'm going to select the type. So for each type you get entrances-- the entrance arrangements according to the type, so you'll get certain things exposed.

And let's say that I'm going to assume that 1-inch width will be enough. I can use the design tool to say, can you look at that culvert and make a decision on the width so I don't have a problem in the conveyance? And it will say, no, no, no, one is not enough. You need 74. And once I say OK to that, I can now run the analysis and can see the results.

Now I'm happy that I have the conveyance working. The collection is working. I have accurate representation of rainfall and runoff. And now, I need to get to the pond and design the pond. So in here, you could see that we are looking at the pond and saying, OK, I don't know what size I need, but I know the top area. This is the land take.

And maybe I can start from the top area and go down 24, and this is my first volume. But maybe I need to establish a specific volume that I need to meet based on quick storage estimate. So you could specify that volume and it will upsize the pond for you.

And now let's analyze. And once you analyze, you would see the results and you would determine whether you need to iterate your design or not. So here, we see that we're flooding from the pond and maybe because we're not utilizing the volume in the swales. So what I'm going to do now, I will go to the My Swales or My Ditches and I will ensure that I have some flow controls, basically, throttle the flow more. So rather than having 0.3 feet orifice, I'm going to have 0.2 or 0.1.

And then, I will run the analysis. So we will hold on to the water more in the ditches and we will utilize the volume more and less water will arrive at the pond at the same time. So I run the analysis and it's flooded again. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to upsize the pond.

So this is, basically, I'm telling you the story of how I think about the drainage design. So maybe I negotiated my discharge rate so I increase the size of the outlet as well. So I upsize by 20%, I increased the size of the outlet by a little bit so I can discharge more because I negotiated my discharge rate. And now, I can run the analysis and happy days. I'm utilizing more by the volume than the ditches, and I'm not flooding from the pond, so that's the story.

When it comes to simulation and results, we have the ability to create scenarios. A lot of times, as a drainage designer, you need to iterate the design and you need to scratch your head and think about solutions. And think about, basically, you have a search space and you need to iterate through that search space and move your pond to the right, to the left, add a couple of points, and maybe, change the swale, change the flow control. So all of these levers that you've got, you need to find the best combination of these levers together that gives you a solution that doesn't flood and a solution that is not ridiculously expensive for your clients. And this is our duties as drainage designers.

So we can utilize the Scenario Tool and you could say, I've got multiple scenarios. One scenario I'm going to use the swales, another scenario I'm going to use pipes. This scenario, I'm going to use a couple of ponds. And the other scenario, I'm going to use a tank. And you can run them together and compare the discharge. You can compare the volume and attenuation. You can compare the flows in certain areas.

So let's see how that would look like. And starting from the analysis, so you could, first of all, specify your rainfall. And we've seen that a couple of times today. But now, we're going to add multiple rainfall events. And you're going to say, I have a 10-year event and a 25 and a 50-year event. These are my durations. It's a one day duration.

And you see you have four rainfall profiles. And now, let's run the analysis. First of all, let's validate and it will say, oh, you're missing a value. You haven't specified Manning value for your pond. Because we describe how water is flowing through the pond so that the friction is important, whether the pond is vegetated or not. That makes a difference.

And now, let's run the analysis once the model is ready. I love this validate tool. It's really cool and it's your friend. And now, I see that I've got good results. I'm not flooded for the 100 year, not for the 25 year. And now, let's look at the various reportings that we've got.

We have the profiles where we can visualize what's going on and animate the water, how the water is flowing through my system. And you could change the storm. We play the animation. You can see ATL, AGL values.

Also, we've got summaries for all of our stormwater controls, connections, inflows, junctions. So if you want to know the flood volume in each node, you can go to the junctions. If you want to know the runoff in each subcatchment, you can go to the inflows, which will give you the summaries. And you can get itemized results, so time varying results for each element.

And you could see these, and then you've got the comparison reports. So if you have multiple events, you can use-- or multiple scenarios, you will be able to use the comparison reports.

So we're going to see the reporting more in the next slide. So when it comes to reporting, let's have a look at the comparison reports. And in this one here, you could specify which scenarios you want to compare and which storms you want to use.

And in this case, we're going to choose the phase comparison. And you're going to say maybe name that to whatever. Yeah. Drainage results. And then, you can say, look at that network. Check all of these storms, check these values. And I want maybe to compare things in tables. Or no, I want to compare them in graphs. And you could save a certain arrangement for the comparison report so you don't have to do it again every time, and you get these tables comparing the values.

But also, you can get these curves. So it will show you before and after, maybe, pre-development and post-development three sustainable drainage systems, most sustainable drainage systems with the tank, without the tank. So all of these can be shown. And I remember, before using InfoDrainage, I used to create copies of the model and make changes in each copy and then export them to Excel, put them in Excel against each other, and then compare tables and compare graphs. We're doing it all in InfoDrainage.

And then, last, but not least, when it comes to reporting is the flexible reporting. Now we revolutionize how you create your reports. You can now select any parameter that exists in the model, whether it's results, whether it's input, whether it's from the pipe, from the manhole, from the subcatchment. So we link them together based on connectivity.

It starts with the pipe. The pipe is the leading object in this. And then it will say, OK, do you want me to give you the upstream stuff? And then, you can say, yeah, give me the cover level of the upstream manhole and give me the invert level of the downstream manhole and give me the area of the subcatchment draining upstream of the pipe and maybe give me the inlets, give me the outlets. So everything is based on connectivity with the pipe acting as the leader for this.

And then, you can filter through the long sections. You could choose the storm that the pipe will pick up the results against because you could choose velocities and flows in the pipe. You could choose capacity. The capacity doesn't change based on the storm, but the velocity does change. So you could choose which storm is going to manifest or whether you want to [INAUDIBLE] or not.

And then, you can export it to Excel. Once you have it in Excel, you can go and update the headings. And you can prepare your report and send it to the local authority, which will satisfy basically any template they throw at you.

Finally, once we have our designs together, we've reported everything to the local authority, we have our drawings-- of course, didn't go through everything that you need to do as a drainage designer. You need to export the plan view, you need to communicate your long sections, you need to have the manhole schedules, you need to have the volume summaries. All of these are available in InfoDrainage and you can export them in different formats.

And at the end, you need to take that drainage design, send it to play with the rest of the site design in Civil 3D. So this is the final step. I go to Civil 3D and I use the Innovyze Ribbon in Civil 3D. So you go to the Innovyze Ribbon and you import an InfoDrainage file, which will bring the model that we designed. And then, it will map all the parts from InfoDrainage to Civil 3D.

And here, it spotted that we ran an analysis in InfoDrainage. Say, hey, I found some results. Do you want me to load them? And you say, yeah, sure. And you can load the results. You select the rainfall, you select the event that you want to bring. And then, the results will be migrated when you send the model to Civil 3D. So you go next, and then it found certain pipes, box culvert, and a pipe and you link them to parts in Civil 3D for box covers and for pipes.

And let's say you want to-- you didn't know what to do with this mapping, but you remember that you've saved it before. And you said, OK, maybe I can bring the mapping that I've done earlier. And yeah, don't need to remember every time what I need to map against.

And then, you say, finish and you have your model brought to you from InfoDrainage to Civil 3D. Now, this model, if you click on any pipe or any pond, you would see some data that will come from InfoDrainage. I mean, any parameter associated with the pond will come from InfoDrainage and will be translated into an extended-- in the extended data set.

However, if we go to the pipes, you will see that the hydraulic grade line and energy grade line will migrate from InfoDrainage to Civil 3D and you will get these shown on the long section, and it will be, basically, migrated into the pipe properties. So they will be translated into native pipe properties. It's not going to be just a foreign line that we throw at a long section.

If you scroll down through the pipe properties, you will see that we have hydraulic grade line and grade line flow. We have even the return period that we ran. And within the extended data set of any pipe, you could see the velocity. So now we've got the pipe, the pipe network, and the pond integrated with the site design. And then, you could-- someone else or you could do the clash detection against utilities.

And of course, you can have these utilities in InfoDrainage to avoid them, but that's the next step. Once you have a Federated Model, be sure that you're not clashing with anyone and happy days. You've got the design ready.

I hope that, basically, I told you a nice story about the Drainage Design Diaries. Basically, if you ask me-- or as a drainage designer, tell me about your day, this is exactly what I would have said. I hope that was useful. And if you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email and we can have discussions about it. Thank you very much and I hope to see you soon.