Main Window

The HEC-FDA user interface looks and feels like other USACE software: there is a study tree and an editor window. When you first launch the software and close the Terms and Conditions window, the user interface opens with only the Menu Bar, which contains the File and Help menus; and empty Study and Edit Panes. 

HEC-FDA user interface view after the software is launched

Note:  The study creation workflow will be used to provide a basic introduction to the HEC-FDA user interface as described on this page. 

Menus

Immediately, the File and Help menus are available. Navigate to File and choose one of the enabled options, which include:

  1. Create a new study.
  2. Import study data using a tab-delimited file that was exported from HEC-FDA Version 1.4.3.
  3. Open an existing study by navigating to the study directory and selecting the .sqlite study file. 

Note, HEC-FDA provides a list of the most recently opened studies (five maximum) to allow users to quickly open an existing FDA study.

Study Tree

We'll use the study creation workflow for demonstration purposes. After creating a new study, the Study Tree (in the Study Pane) will populate with the HEC-FDA study elements, as in the image below. 

New Study User Interface

For more information regarding creating new studies review Create New Study from Version 1.4.3 Data and Create New Study from Scratch.

Import Study Data

To import or create new study data, right-click on the study element.

Right-click on study element

Study Tree Elements and Sub-elements

Some study elements appear in bold alone, e.g., Lateral Structures (levees) while other elements have sub-elements (e.g., Stage-Discharge Functions are a sub-element of Stage Transform Functions); each behave same way. Observe in the image below that an existing levee has been defined below Lateral Structures and an existing condition stage-discharge function has been defined below Stage-Discharge Functions. 

Study data element hierarchy. Top arrow points to an imported Stage-Discharge Function which is a sub-element of the Stage Transform Functions element. Bottom arrow points to the imported levee which is located under the Lateral Structure element.

Study Data Shortcut Menu

Right-click on any study data item to edit, remove, or re-name an imported dataset. 

right-click study data item

Occupancy Type Editor

Editor Overview

For the remainder of this section, we'll focus on the occupancy types editor - this is the most complicated editor that has all types of data entry. Observe the occupancy type editor in the screen shot below. Most editors, like this one, have Save and Close buttons on the bottom right-hand side. Click Save before clicking Close to save your edits.

Occupancy Type Editor

Let's walk through the different pieces of the editor, step-by-step, following the numbers in the image above. 

  1. Add, copy, and delete. Hit the green cross icon to add study data, the paper icon to copy (duplicate) study data, and the red to delete study data. 
  2. Text boxes and drop-down menus. Most data is entered through text boxes and drop-down menus. Copy and paste can be used with the text boxes!
  3. Checkboxes. A checkbox is used to "turn on" certain functionality, such as the functionality to compute content, vehicle, and/or other damage. 
  4. Table with plot. Most summary relationships (e.g., depth-percent damage functions) are entered into a table, and a plot is drawn based on the data in the table. Copy and paste can be used with the tabular data!
  5. Plotting functionality. There are four options for inspecting a plot. Starting at the top of the menu bar to the right of the plot, the options are: track , pan , zoom in , and zoom to all . The track functionality might be the most useful of the four: click on the track button, navigate the cursor to a point on the curve, and left click to see the coordinate values. 

Validation

Most editors also have two methods for validating (checking for validity of) study data: red highlighting and tool tips. Both can be seen in the image below. Text boxes are highlighted in red if there is a problem with the entered data, and tool tips are available for highlighted items among other study data. In the image above, the depth-percent damage function has non-sensical extremes. The problematic coordinates are highlighted in red. A tool tip is displayed when hovering over the highlighted text box that reads "The first percentile of this distribution (the lower confidence limit of 0.01) yielded a non-monotonic extreme for the uncertainty in this relationship." 

Red Highlighting and Tool Tips

Tooltip Creation Date

You can also hover the mouse over study data items in the study tree to view the date and time the item was last edited. This is especially helpful when you forget which function you updated last.

Last Edited Date