The Vortex suite bridges the gap between widely distributed, heterogeneous gridded earth science data (such as NetCDF, HDF, GRIB, ASCII, and other rater formats) and the specialized HEC-DSS format required by HEC software.  To streamline workflows, the Vortex suite provides specialized utilities to rapidly ingest, process, and output spatial data directly into HEC-DSS format.  These utilities have been incorporated into HEC-HMS, but an HEC-HMS project does not have to be open to access the utilities.  Alternatively, the latest Vortex distribution can be downloaded as a standalone and run outside of HEC-HMS.  Once downloaded, the distribution should be unzipped locally on the user's machine.  Utilities are located in the bin folder, identified by the vortex symbol and ending in ".exe".  Example of the file explorer bin folder is in the figure below.

The below table provides a breakdown of the Vortex utilities and their functional roles.

Vortex UtilityPrimary Function
Importer

Rapidly converts gridded data from varied external sources into HEC-DSS format.  Resampling methods include: Bilinear, Nearest Neighbor, Average

Optional capabilities within the Importer:

  • Clipping to a shapefile
  • Defining projection (select provided projection or providing a .prj file)
  • Setting target cell size
  • Override DSS units
  • Override data type

Importing NetCDF datasets without "time_bnds" variable.

Raster Filename Parsing.

ClipperClips grids to a shapefile or other geometry layer.
CalculatorMultiplies, divides, adds, or subtracts input grid(s) by a constant or raster.
NormalizerAdjusts grid cell values in one grid (source grids) with information in another grid (normal grids).  Common application is to adjust, or scale, precipitation values in a gridset that has values at a short time interval (e.g. 1 hour) with gridded precipitation from a gridset that has data at longer durations (e.g. daily).
Time-ShifterAdjust the time and data of gridded records by moving the data forward or backward in time by the span of time chosen by the user.
Gap-FillerFills spatial or temporal data gaps in gridded time-series.
Grid-to-Point-ConverterExtract time-series statistics (minimum, maximum, median, 25th percentile, 75th percentile, percentage of cells > 0, percentage of cells > 25th percentile) from gridded data.
SanitizerScreens and replaces values above and/or below a threshold.
Image-ExporterExports gridded data from HEC-HSS format to image formats.