CCNEWS - CIVIL ENGINEERING & SURVEYING SHAREWARE/PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE ----------------------------------------------------------------------- No. 6, August 6, 1987 A. GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED DISTRIBUTORS 1. MCTRANS CENTER University of Florida 346 Weil Hall Gainesville, Florida 32611 or call the McTrans Hotline (904) 392-0378 McTrans serves as a center for technology exchange for microcomputer software in the areas of transportation under the purview of the FHWA, by distributing public domain software and providing technical assistance in using the software. Most offerings are available for $2 to $5, with documentation costing $5 to $30. Subscription to an excellent newsletter and catalog is free. Offerings include the following: JCP-1, ELSYMS, NULOAD, ILLI-PAVE: Pavement analysis WSPRO, HY8: Water surface profile, culvert analysis NIS, PMS: Needs Inventory, Pavement Management System Traffic engineering: signal timing, street flow, inters. cap. NEW> McTRANS NOW CARRIES SHAREWARE!!! New offerings include: COllierGO: Full featured menu and prompt-driven COGO program PC-STRAN: 1, 2 or 3 dimensional structural analysis program for member structures PC-BRIDGE: Continuous beam structural analysis for bridges PAY ESTIMATES: Project cost manager for construction project 2. AMERICAN PUBLIC WORKS ASSOCIATION 1313 East 60th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 APWA is making available, for $50, SANITARY and CESTORM, hydrology and hydraulics software by the U. S. Army Construction Research Laboratory. They perform sanitary and storm sewer network analysis. These programs are not shareware or public domain, but are so affordable they don't have to be. 3. NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE Hydrologic Research Laboratory 8060 13th Street, Room 530 Silver Spring, MD 20910 The public domain programs DAMBRK, SMPDBK, BREACH, and NETWORK, developed by the NWS for flood routing and analyzing dam breaks, are available for $30 each. Executable code, FORTRAN source code and sample data sets are included. Send check payable to "Department of Commerce, NOAA" to the attention of Janice Lewis. B. PRIVATE DISTRIBUTORS -------------------- 1. CIVIL ENGINEERING SHAREWARE P. O. Box 472 Lee's Summit, MO 64063 The following mainframe public domain programs have been converted to be MS-DOS compatible by this firm, and are available for $35: PSRM: Penn. State Runoff Model HEC-1: Corps of Engineers Flood Hydrograph Package HEC-2: Corps of Engineers Water Surface Profile Program XSRAIN: Colorado State Univ. program for flood hydrographs BREACH: N.W.S. breached earthen dam discharge hydrograph STABL4: Purdue University slope stability program WEAP: Wave Equation Analysis of Piles, Case-Western Univ. COM52: Univ. of Texas, analyzes lateral loads on piers/piles PLNELAS: Plane-Elastic analysis of 2D structure by finite element method 2DFRAME, 3DFRAME: Analyze frames and trusses, Vanderbilt Univ. For more detailed descriptions of software and a good example of the shareware concept, write to the above address. 2. PUBLIC (SOFTWARE) LIBRARY P. O. Box 35705 Houston, TX 77235-5705 This is a general purpose library with PD/SW software in every possible category. Software is available for $5 per diskette. Of special interest to CE's and LS's are: MR. BILL: billing program for attys, archs, & engrs CPM and Gantt Chart project management software LOTUS 1-2-3 financial and accounting templates Within the engineering section are: 1-2-3 ENGRG: Gas, oil and geology templates NEW> 1-2-3 ENGRG #2: Gabion retaining wall, open channel flow, rational comp. "C", project mgt, water co. rates ALLWET: Pressure pipe network analysis program NEW> PIPES: Prompted data entry programs for HEC-2 & Kentucky pipes, NFPA 13D sprinkler pipe design program SURVEY: Traverse, COGO and stakeout program ROADS: Highway capacity analysis from U. C. Berkeley, CA, NEW> AASHO asphalt pavement design NEW> HPE: Finite element stress analysis program NEW> SPIA: Math scratchpad for functions While there are some better-known PD/SW libraries around, once you have read their newsletter (write for one, the first one is free), there will be no doubt in your mind which one is best. 3. CHRISTOPHER M. STONE, P. E. C/O CNOBG APO, NY 09283 Mr. Stone represents a different concept in shareware, in that he wishes to trade programs he has written for programs written by other engineers. His most recent program, BIFOOT, is a spread footing design program which was the National Grand Prize winner in the Software Design Competition sponsored by the Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute. His programs are written in BASIC and are furnished with the source code. Other programs include: stress analysis for 2-D frames, seismic rigidity analysis, steel column and beam design, concrete column and beam design, retaining wall design, masonry wall design, and composite beam design. All programs are written to use metric units, but are easily converted to english units. BIFOOT is in metric and english units. C. ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARDS -------------------------- If you have a modem you can download much general-purpose software from many electronic bulletin boards around the country. To date, I know of the following BBS's that offer CE & LS software: 1. EBBS (Engineering Bulletin Board System) PO Box 75537 Los Angeles, CA 90075 (805) 252-4182, 1200/2400 baud 8 bits no parity, 24 hrs You can log on and read or leave messages for free, but only subscribers ($75 individual, $150 company) can download software. A catalogue is available by writing to the above address or leaving a message on the BBS. Programs are also available by mail. MAJOR CHANGES ARE PROPOSED FOR EBBS! The subscription fee will still entitle users to proprietary structural software, but all PD/SW programs will be available without subscription, as well as access to EIGHT (8) conference sections for civil and structural topics. The new BBS will probably be online by September. There are currently 143 civil/structural programs available: STRUCTURAL software for: retaining wall design, finite element analysis, concrete beam, slab, wall, column, footing design, diaphragm analysis, truss analysis; steel plate girder, wood members, continuous beams, more. Most programs are Symphony/123 templates, some are basic programs. The sysop/author has prepared, and had accepted, a paper on "Analysis and design of Reinforced Concrete Members" for the 1988 ACI conference on STATE OF THE ART COMPUTER APPLICATIONS. SURVEYSOFT: traverse, COGO, and stakeout program NEW> CC-SURV: Test ver. 0.70 of Generic CADD/COGO utility VERCURVE: 1-2-3 vertical curve design template for roads CORD, MERCATOR, ANGLERR, SOL309: surveying utilities CIR212: highway capacity analysis from Univ. Cal. Berkeley ASPHALT: asphaltic pavement design program, AASHO method ALLWET: pressure pipe network analysis program PNENTRY: prompted data entry program for Kentucky Pipes NEW> ST1ENTRY: prompted data entry program for APWA's CESTORM HC2ENTRY: prompted data entry program for HEC-2 HEC-2: Corps of Engineers water surface profile program HYDRO: 1-2-3 open channel flow and runoff coeff. templates GABIONRW: 1-2-3 gabion retaining wall design template PIPE-13D: size water mains for NFPA 13D res. fire sprinklers WSM: 1-2-3 and SC4 templ. for analyzing water system rates PROJ-MGT: 1-2-3 bid tabulation, constr. progress templates MR-BILL: Time and billing program for professional services IPM: Critical Path Method project scheduler NEW> SECTION ON ENGINEERING SUPPORT PROGRAMS: including HP style calculators, equation solvers, unit conversion, curve fitting 2. The following BBS's have a full range of general purpose and utility PD/SW similar to the Public (Software) Library, and in addition have directories for CAD, engineering, scientific and other engineering categories. Some of their offerings are: AutoCAD drawings, fonts and symbols; math and equation analysis, statistical analysis, chemistry analysis, HP calculator, 1-2-3 retaining wall, truss design; and some of the software listed on EBBS, as well as other programs unique to each bulletin board. They are all worth exploring. Registration is free except where noted. PROFESSIONAL RBBS SYSTEM Sparks, Nevada (702) 356-1048, 300/1200/2400 baud, 8 bits no parity, 24 hrs Several engineering file sections COMP-U-EASE South S. F. Bay area, California (408) 286-8332, 300/1200/2400 baud, 8 bits no parity, 24 hrs Engineering file sections and engineering conference CIME-ISE (Computers in Mechanical Engineering) Madison, Wisconsin (608) 233-3378, 300/1200/2400 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 24 hrs Cad and scientific programming file sections NEW> PACS (Philadelphia Area Computer Society) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (215) 951-1255, 300/1200/2400 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 24 hrs Graphic conference, Generic CADD users group run by Eric Kraemer, surveying applications programmer, proposed Generic CADD file section. $7.50 registration fee. COGO-MANIA ---------- It seems that shareware talent has started to concentrate on COGO/CADD applications, much to my satisfaction, as this is the bread and butter of the civil engineering office. Received too late for review in this section were GeoCalc's COGO program, available from GeoCalc, P. O. Box 5308, Philadelphia, PA 19142, for $10 plus a stamped, self-addressed diskette mailer. The registered version ($299, or $399 with Generic CADD) will produce files readable by Generic CADD. Also note that CollierGO is listed above under McTRANS. Both programs are full-featured COGO programs, but with a very different user interface. In the development stages is Civil Comp Surveyor (CC-SURV), which will NOW produce Generic CADD files, available from EBBS, Pro. BBS, PACS, and Comp-U-Ease bulletin boards. In a future issue of CCNEWS will be presented a "features matrix" of the above COGO programs (including SurveySoft, which has been available for some time), with a short description of the differences in the user interfaces. If you just can't wait, go ahead and get them and try them out. It sure beats trying out the commercial stuff, at $1000 to $2000 a pop, or $50 for crippled demos!! CC-REVIEW: CESTORM/ST1ENTRY ---------------------------- CESTORM is a set of programs for the purpose of analyzing storm drain pipe networks. It is furnished by APWA for $50, and is not SW or PD, but is quite affordable. It is written in FORTRAN and should run on version 2.0 or higher of MS-DOS or PC-DOS. It will utilize an 8087 if available. 256K RAM is required. Three programs are present on the distribution diskette: STORM1, STORM2 and STORM3. They will handle up to 100 pipes and 300-600 nodes, depending on system memory. They can be run in batch mode only. Users of other FORTRAN programs are familiar with batch mode, where the user must create a properly formatted input file with a text editor, then run the main program, which creates an output file to print to screen or printer. Creating the input file can be time consuming. ST1ENTRY was written to aid in that process and will also be described below. STORM1 is based on the rational method, which is the most popular method used in the geographical area I practice in, for watersheds of the size storm drains are designed for. STORM2 is similar, but accepts inflow hydrograph data at each node rather than rational method data. STORM3 uses the ILLUDAS method to compute inflow hydrographs and uses a hydrograph time lag procedure to route the flows through the system. ST1ENTRY will only prepare input files for STORM1, hence its name (STorm 1 ENTRY). Civil Comp will consider writing data entry programs for STORM2 and STORM3 if enough interest is shown. Only STORM1 and ST1ENTRY will be reviewed in more detail here. STORM1 requires subbasin runoff coefficient and subbasin area to be input for each node. In addition, subbasin slope and length must be entered, from which inlet time is calculated using the Kirpich formula. Concentration time is then calculated by STORM1 by adding the sums of inlet time to the flow time of upstream sewers. Flow time is based on pipe size and slope. The concentration time of the longest flow route to the node in question is used for determining i (intensity). Intensity may be based upon one of two methods, to be chosen by the user. Either a formula based on U.S. Weather Service Technical Paper No. 40 may be used, or a local rainfall intensity duration curve may be entered. The following pipeline data is also input: node numbers for each end of the pipe (not required to be sequential), diameter, length, invert elevations at each end, and Manning's roughness factor. It is critical that the input file is perfectly formatted for STORM1 to run correctly. ST1ENTRY is a shareware program written by Civil Comp, with a registration price of $15. It prompts for required STORM1 input data with some error-checking capabilities such as data type (alpha, numeric, etc.) and range of values (Manning's "n" between 0 and 1, etc.). Also, some cross-checking of data takes place. The data must be well organized, as no editing of previous entries is allowed, other than the current data line. ST1ENTRY allows the user to create intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) files for particular geographic areas, then add pipeline data at a later time. The IDF file created is simply the first lines of the input file described in the STORM1 manual, without the pipeline data. A program option at the main menu of ST1ENTRY allows the user to later retrieve the appropriate IDF file and append pipeline data to it, and save it as an input file with another name, to be read by STORM1. The separate IDF file concept is an enhancement within ST1ENTRY, not an option of STORM1, and the IDF file is not usable within STORM1 until pipeline data has been appended to it by ST1ENTRY. After creating an input file with ST1ENTRY, STORM1 is loaded, and it simply prompts for some output options and the input and output file names. Run time is short (a few seconds) for small systems if an 8087 is present, but could get quite long (many minutes) for a large system if an 8087 is not present. Output includes a summary of pipe and subbasin input data and the following computed values: inlet time, flow time, peak time, pipe flow, pipe capacity, and redesign pipe size if pipe capacity is exceeded by pipe flow. Output is either to screen or to a disk file, as selected by the user before the computer run. A PD utility is furnished on the ST1ENTRY diskette to aid in printing an output disk file to the printer. If the user wishes to revise the input file and rerun STORM1, familiarity with the file format is required. The listing printed by ST1ENTRY during creation of the input file will help the user find the proper variable in the proper field, as variable names used in the STORM1 manual are printed above the values on the ST1ENTRY printout. STORM1 has some limitations. It analyzes gravity flow only, that is, a hydraulic grade line is not determined, nor are junction losses considered. Still, it is useful for determining problem areas within a network, which may be further analyzed by other methods if necessary. WHAT'S NEW or COMING SOON If you haven't seen it by now, go back and read what's new at McTRANS and EBBS. User participation and full coverage of the CE/LS public domain/ shareware spectrum will be available by modem or mail order from these two sources. Also, EBBS and Civil Comp are putting together courses and faculty for a seminar in the spring for the civil/structural engineer in private practice. More news will be available regarding this seminar on the proposed EBBS conference and in future CCNEWSletters. THE LAST WORD ------------- The purpose of Civil Comp News is to help users, distributors, and authors of PD/SW software for civil engineers and land surveyors keep in touch with each other. Civil Comp is not a software distributor. Hopefully, software authors will note friendly sources of distribution listed within CCNEWS and will take advantage of them. If you know of any other sources, please let me know. Messages may be left for me on EBBS. The latest update of CCNEWS is available on EBBS, where it may be read by subscribers and non-subscribers alike by entering "E" at the Main Menu. EBBS will also keep the most recent four issues in the Civil/Structural Files section, from which CCNEWS can be downloaded or (T)yped to your screen. Also, if you download this file, feel free to upload it to another BBS to help spread the CCNEWS. Rich Wadsworth Civil Comp 320 Eureka Canyon Road Watsonville, CA 95076