MAKING YOUR CUSTOM INUNDATION MAPS USABLE WITHIN Hurwin95/Hurrevac2000  (RASTER GRAPHICS ONLY)

Areas which had the old Hurrevac Inundation Maps can use the converted maps by downloading them from the hurrevac.com website and setting up as described in Tech Note #2.  The advantage of using the Utilities|Raster Viewer to view Raster style Inundation mapping is that you don't have to maintain a GIS Viewer, or a GIS system on a computer (such a system usually takes up a lot of system resources).

If you are a county that does not have Hurrevac maps already, (or if they are outdated)... you may have other, custom, maps you wish to convert for use in HurWin95 or Hurrevac2000, this Tech Note may be useful. 

Preferred approach -

If you currently don't have any Hurrevac graphics plug-ins for your county available....

Step 1 - Assuming there exists a GIS system with County Inundation maps (perhaps at the district Army Corps office)...probably the best way to approach this is to have the County EM sit down with the GIS specialist and decide on 4 to 10 zoomed-in GIS "snapshots" or panels that cover the county of interest and show inundation and other needed info.

Step 2  - When each screen looks right, then have the GIS specialist export that panel into .png  format (a very compact raster file format supported by most GIS).   Do this for each panel.  You will then have a set of 4 to 10 .png files describing the inundation patterns in your county.

Step 3 - Then the county or state EM should contact us, we will tell them where to ftp the panels , and we will package the correct graphics plug-ins using the .png panels for your county and put them up on the website for use by all (no charge).  Users can then install the graphics plug-ins and page through the panels in Utilities | Raster Graphics Viewer in Hurrevac.

Alternate approach (custom maps on your own) -

This approach is for creating a custom system for your computer on your own.

If you have Inundation maps, or other maps of Evacuation zones, Evacuation routes, etc. in any of the raster formats that HurWin95 / Hurrevac2000 supports (see Utilities |Raster Viewer |File |Open...) then you can set them up for easy identification by county and use within the program using the following steps:

Follow these steps exactly. If you are uncomfortable with performing these steps, give the job to your office's computer expert. For each file go through the following steps:

Step 1 -

Run HurWin95 / Hurrevac2000. Load the file in the Raster Viewer in HurWin95 / Hurrevac2000 using the following menu - Utilities |Raster Viewer...  then when the Viewer appears use File |Open... and select your file (must be in one of the supported formats).  

The raster picture appears. 

Now choose File |Save As...

When the Save As...box appears..navigate to the \maps subdirectory under the HurWin95 / Hurrevac2000 installation directory...example HurWin95 / Hurrevac2000\maps.   You must be saving in the \HurWin95\maps  or \Hurrevac2000\maps subdirectory and the file must be named correctly (see below)to work as intended.

Step 3 -

Now rename the file to Save according to the following convention:

The filename must consist of an eight character name (see below), followed by a period, and the extension (a three character format id such as pcx, bmp, png, etc.).   The .png format is suggested since it produces very small files.

First two letters of the filename must be the two-letter state ID, such as FL for Florida, GA for Georgia and so on.

Next three digits are the county FIPS code, with leading zeros, for example 005, 013, 110, etc. There must be three digits even if the number is a single digit, such as 005 for 5, and so on.

Next character is either an S for surge maps, an E for Evacuation Zones, or a T for Transportation Routes. This allows three different groups of maps for a particular county/parish.

Next are two digits (with leading zero if necessary) designating the map sequence number. The first map in the sequence would be 01, the next 02, and so on. This will allow for use of the Next / Previous button on the Raster Viewer to be utilized to page through the graphics in the order you specify. If there is only one map rather than a sequence just use 01.

Finally, the filename extension must be the format (.pcx, .wpg, .png, .bmp, etc) and all related files must be named with the same format extension.  The .png format is preferred because of its very small file size. 

Example filename -- FL005S01.PNG  for Florida, Bay County, Surge Map, 1st Map in sequence.

In addition to naming the file extension you must select the corresponding format from the drop down format box before saving!  Select PNG file format.

Now Save the file to disk. 

Step 4 -

Make sure there are no other files with the same name (but different extension) in the \maps subdirectory.  For example FL005S01.PNG and FL005S01.PCX in the same directory will not allow paging of those files...only one of the same basic name is allowed in the \maps subdirectory!

To review -

Example - If I have 5 Surge graphics (originally in .PCX format) for Bay county in Florida that I want to display easily and in order, I would open each in the HurWin95 / Hurrevac2000 Raster File Viewer and then save them in .PNG format in the \maps subdirectory under the HurWin95 / Hurrevac2000 program directory and name them as follows:

FL005S01.PNG

FL005S02.PNG

FL005S03.PNG

FL005S04.PNG

Where FL is the state, 005 is the county FIPS code for Bay county, S is for the Surge graphics group, and the numbers 01 thru 04 stand for the order of viewing. The period (.) and PNG are the filename extension. Be sure to select the PNG format as well as naming the extension .png before saving!

If you need the FIPS code for your county, check the file FIPS.TXT. The 3-letter county codes you use are in the second column.

To check the maps out -

Use the Special Maps File List Box. This drop-down list is displayed when you press the Special Maps button (if the button is showing) at the bottom of the Raster Viewer screen. This is a list of graphics files stored in the \maps subdirectory which are specially named (according to the above instructions) for easier access and viewing.

If there is more than one file in a particular category for a county, then the Next and Previous buttons to the right of this box become active, allowing you to easily page backward and forward through related graphics.  When the last one is reached...pressing Next will recycle back to the first (and vice versa for Previous button).