Visual modflow software

Applications

• Evaluate Groundwater Remediation Systems

• Delineate Well Capture Zones
• Simulate Natural Attenuation of Contaminated Groundwater
• Estimate the Reductive Dechlorination of TCE, PCE and DCE in Groundwater
• Design and Optimize Pumping Well Locations for Dewatering Projects
• Determine Contaminant Fate and Exposure Pathways for Risk Assessment
• Optimization of Pump & Treat Systems
• Evaluation of Funnel & Gate Remediation Approaches
• Simulation of Natural Attenuation Processes
• Prediction of Plume Migration Through Aquifer Systems
• Delineation of Wellhead Protection Areas

Identification of Exposure Pathways for RISK Assessment

With Visual MODFLOW Pro, you have all the tools necessary to:

• Graphically assign model grids, properties and boundaries,

• Visualize model input parameters (2D or 3D views),
• Run the flow, pathline, and transport simulations,
• Automatically or manually calibrate the model, and

Display and interpret the modeling results in full 3D

• Produce professional reports

For professional applications in 3D groundwater flow and contaminant transport

modeling, Visual MODFLOW is the only software package you will ever need!

Proven Benefits

Our goal is to develop powerful, yet easy-to-use software that meets the needs of groundwater and
environmental professionals around the world. Visual MODFLOW is an excellent example of how we have
accomplished this goal by making groundwater modeling accessible for any hydrogeologist or engineer who
is familiar with the basic concepts and limitations of groundwater modeling. With Visual MODFLOW, you
don't need to know all of the awkward codes and cryptic data formats required by MODFLOW, nor do you
need to be concerned about maintaining consistent units, keeping track of the model 'stress periods', or
figuring out what VCONT and IBOUND values are. Visual MODFLOW does what every good interface
should do; it takes care of these issues in an easy-to-understand and transparent manner, so you only need
to be concerned with REAL DATA, REAL TIMES and COMMONLY USED UNITS.

Building, calibrating and interpreting a groundwater flow and contaminant transport

model is time-consuming enough. So why make your job more difficult by using a
software package you have to re-learn every time you use it? The Visual MODFLOW
interface contains a logical menu structure that guides you through the steps required to
build, calibrate and evaluate a groundwater flow and contaminant transport model.
Download the demo today and see why thousands of groundwater modelers and
environmental professionals around the world have selected Visual MODFLOW as the
software of choice for their groundwater modeling projects
Data Input

• The most powerful and easy-to-use graphical interface available

• Interactive model display in both plan view and cross-sectional view
• Import AutoCAD (.dxf) files or bitmap image (.bmp) files for site base maps
• Rotate and align the model grid over the site base map
• Graphical grid design tools and automatic grid smoothing
• Import variable layer surface elevations from discrete data or gridded data files
• Import time schedules for transient boundary conditions and observation points

Assign multi-level observation wells and create observation groups

Simulation Capabilities

• Now supports Modular Groundwater Optimizer (MGO)

• Now supports Algebraic Multigrid (SAMG)
• Full support for MODFLOW-2000, MT3DMS, RT3D, MT3D99 and WinPEST
• Now supports MODFLOW-SURFACT
• Full support for the Stream Routing Package
• Seamless integration with the Win32 MODFLOW Suite
• Interactive display of model solution convergence for on-the-fly modification of solver settings
• graphical display of transient simulation results
• Includes the WHS Solver (fastest and more stable than PCG2)
• Support for the Link-Algebraic Multigrid (LMG) Package

Batch processing of multiple simulations for sensitivity analyses

Model Calibration

• Comprehensive selection of calibration plots and statistics (scatter plots, residual histograms, and
time series plots)

Automatic calibration using WinPEST

Model Display

• Color-shaded contouring of model properties and simulation results

• Customizable display of contoured results, pathlines and overlay priorities
• Detailed graphical summaries of global and local mass budgets
• Print full-color, high-resolution plots to any printer or plotter
• Export screen display to graphics formats such as Enhanced Windows Metafile (.emf), AutoCAD
(.dxf), and ESRI Shape (.shp) files
• Export model results to 2D or 3D ASCII text files supported by virtually ANY 3D visualization
software
Advanced 3D visualization and animation of model input data and simulation results using the Visual
MODFLOW 3D-Explorer

Visual MODFLOW Pro What’s New

Some additional features and improvements requested by Visual MODFLOW users including:

• Improve data export options

• Optimization of pumping well locations
• Improve printing options for 2D Output
• Improve graphics export options
• Significantly faster solver
• Improve 2D Output graphics quality
• Graphically assign grid cell elevations
• Import MODFLOW data sets
• Importing property zones and recharge zones from polygon shape files
• Importing layer surface elevations from USGS DEM files, ESRI Grid files, and Map Info Grid files
• Assigning layer surface elevations using a constant slope defined by a strike and dip data
• Importing site map images from common graphics formats including .GIF, .JPG, and .TIF
• Adjustable transparency level for imported site map images

Predictive Analysis using PEST-ASP

Importing MODFLOW Data Sets

Although previous versions of Visual MODFLOW were able to import existing

MODFLOW data sets, the import process often ignored important data such as Specific
Storage and Specific Yield values, and it was not able to accommodate quasi 3D models
containing implicitly represented aquitards. Visual MODFLOW 4.0 has a significantly
improved importing process that supports both MODFLOW-2000 Groundwater Process
data sets, and older data sets from MODFLOW-96 and MODFLOW-88. This process
utilizes a modified version of the USGS utility (MF962MF2K.EXE) to convert
MODFLOW-96 and MODFLOW-88 data sets to MODFLOW-2000 data sets, and then
imports the MODFLOW-2000 data set into the Visual MODFLOW graphical
environment.

Exporting and Capturing Images

One of the biggest difficulties in using Visual MODFLOW has been getting the report images into a report
document. Although you could export the image to an enhanced Windows metafile, these files were not
always so easy to manipulate and could not always be read by third party graphics software.

Visual MODFLOW 4.0 provides a full suite of common graphical image formats to
create (.GIF, .JPG, .TIF, .PNG, and .BMP) with options for increasing the image
resolution and controlling the image quality. These high-resolution images can be either
exported to a separate graphics file for additional manipulation using a popular image
editing program, or you can capture the enhanced image and paste it directly into the
report document.
Pumping Well Optimization

Visual MODFLOW v.4.0 includes an interface supporting pumping well optimization using MGO. This
program is primarily used to determine the optimal well pumping and/or injection rates at one or more wells
in order to achieve a specific objective while maintaining reasonable system responses. Some of the more
common scenarios include:

• Minimizing the pumping / treatment cost of a pumping and treat groundwater remediation system
while maintaining capture of a contaminant plume.
• Minimizing the mass removal cost of a pumping and treat groundwater remediation system while
maintaining capture of a contaminant plume.
• Maximizing the pumping rate at one or more water supply wells while maintaining a minimum
water level in the aquifer.
• Maximizing the pumping rate at one or more water supply wells while keeping the concentration of
an identified pollutant below a specified level.

The interface is setup such that the optimization problem is defined almost independent of the optimization
engine you choose to work with.

MGO (Modular Groundwater Optimizer) has been developed by Dr. Chunmiao Zheng
under a contract for the U.S. Dept. of Defense. This program has a public domain version
available with similar optimization capabilities

Enviro-Base Pro

Enviro-Base Pro is an all-in-one database, designed to provide Visual MODFLOW users a wide variety of
referenced hydrogeological property information. Enviro-Base Pro is now available through Visual
MODFLOW Pro interface.

Enviro-Base Pro categories:

• Soil Properties
Including Hydraulic Conductivity, Porosity, Specific Yield, and Specific Storage.
• Chemical Properties
Including Viscosity, Henry's coefficient, Vapour Pressure, Log Kow, Density, and Solubility.
• Half-Life
• Drinking Water Standards
• Adsorption
• Dispersivity

Enviro-Base Pro consolidates all categories of information pertinent to hydrogeologists

into one easy-to-use, and modify, software package.

Printing Options
One of the longest running requests has been for a more customizable page layout for
printing the results generated by Visual MODFLOW. The previous versions offered few
options for customizing the layout and only provided a very limited amount of space for
describing the image being printed. Visual MODFLOW 4.0 includes a more flexible page
layout designer for adding image descriptions, project descriptions, and a company logo.
2D Color Shading
The drawing tools and algorithms used to render the color shaded contour maps of
distributed data have been upgraded to include rich RGB color schemes and to allow for
color map transparency in order to see underlying model features. The color schemes will
be the same, but the colors themselves will be much more vibrant and the transition
between colors is much smoother.
Assigning Grid Cell Elevations
One of the longest standing requested features has been to allow for graphical selection
and assigning of grid cell elevations. Visual MODFLOW 4.0 has finally delivered! Now
you can easily digitize the desired cell area using a polygon or rectangle, or by painting a
set of cells, and then assign a constant elevation to the top or bottom of the layer surface.
Built-in data validation checks prevent the layer surfaces from intersecting adjacent layer
surfaces and provides suggested remedies in situations when this does occur.

Importing Property Zones and Recharge Zones

from Polygon Shape Files

Visual MODFLOW v.3.0 introduced the capability of importing and interpolating

Conductivity and Storage zone distributions from external data sources including XYZ
ASCII files (.TXT, MS Access database files (.MDB), Excel spreadsheet files (.XLS) and
ESRI Point and Line Shape files (.SHP). Visual MODFLOW v.4.0 extends this capability
to more model properties including Initial Heads, Initial Concentrations, and
Dispersivities. In addition, Visual MODFLOW v.4.0 also includes the ability to map
property zones and recharge zones from ESRI Polygon Shape files (.SHP).

Importing Property Zones and Recharge Zones

from Polygon Shape Files
Visual MODFLOW v.3.0 introduced the capability of importing and interpolating
Conductivity and Storage zone distributions from external data sources including XYZ
ASCII files (.TXT, MS Access database files (.MDB), Excel spreadsheet files (.XLS) and
ESRI Point and Line Shape files (.SHP). Visual MODFLOW v.4.0 extends this capability
to more model properties including Initial Heads, Initial Concentrations, and
Dispersivities. In addition, Visual MODFLOW v.4.0 also includes the ability to map
property zones and recharge zones from ESRI Polygon Shape files (.SHP

Importing and Editing Layer Surface Elevations

Visual MODFLOW v.4.0 provides a dramatically improved set of tools for importing, creating and modifying
layer surface elevations for the finite difference model grid. From importing USGS DEM files, to specifying a
constant slope using Strike and Dip information, no other graphical interface offers a more complete set of
features for designing the model grid layer surfaces:

• Import layer surface elevations from gridded data files

including USGS DEM files (.DEM), Surfer Grid files (.GRD), ESRI Grid files (.GRD) and Map/Info
Grid files (.GRD).
• Import and interpolate sparse elevation data from XYZ
ASCII files (.TXT), MS Access Database files (.MDB), MS Excel Spreadsheet files (.XLS), and
 ESRI Point Shape files (.SHP) using either Natural Neighbor, Kriging or Inverse Distance
interpolation methods.
• Add Control Points to the sparse data set in order to direct the interpolation.
• Assign constant elevation or constant thickness values to any layer surface, or apply mathematical
expressions containing existing layer surface elevations as variables.
• Assign a constant slope to a layer surface using three points in space, or using Strike and Dip
information.

The layer surface elevations may be visualized using three different view tabs:

• The 2D Preview displays a color map of the layer surface elevations for the currently selected layer
surface.
• The 3D Preview displays a 3D wire mesh of the entire model grid.

The Array Preview displays a spreadsheet array of the individual grid cell elevations for the currently
selected layer surface.
Previous versions of Visual MODFLOW supported importing an unlimited number of
site map images, but the images were required to be provided as bitmaps, and it was only
possible to view one site map at a time. Visual MODFLOW v.4.0 provides support for
importing and displaying the most common image formats including .JPG, .GIF, .TIF,
.PNG and .BMP. In addition, a transparency setting may be applied to the imported
images in order to display multiple images simultaneously, or to view other model
attributes underneath the site map image.

What’s New in Visual MODFLOW Version 4.1?

The main interface for Visual MODFLOW version 4.1 has much of the same user-friendly look and feel as
previous versions of Visual MODFLOW, but what’s “under the hood” has been improved to give users more
powerful tools for entering, modifying, analyzing, and presenting groundwater modeling data. You now have
the ability to effectively tackle seawater intrusion projects, with direct access to powerful solvers such as the
new GMG Solver.

In addition, Visual MODFLOW version 4.1 have streamlined the GUI to improve the overall work flow during model development and you can expand your project scopes and expect top-performance with even the most complex models!