WATERBURY, Conn., July 1, 2002 -- Haestad Methods recently announced the release of WaterGEMS, its first true Geospatial Water Modeling and Management System for the enterprise. WaterGEMS is a GIS-based solution for efficiently modeling, managing, and protecting water resources.
"The patent-pending technology behind WaterGEMS allows for the first truly seamless integration of water distribution modeling and GIS," said John Haestad, President and CEO of Haestad Methods. "Engineers and GIS specialists can now manage their water system data, time-series hydraulic results, current and future scenarios, and other core infrastructure data all within the same GIS environment. No need to transfer data back and forth. The model and the GIS are now one and the same."
Scott Cattran, Associate and GIS Manager at Woolpert LLP, added that, "The real advantage of WaterGEMS is the ability to use GIS analysis and hydraulic modeling in one environment using one dataset. This means tighter integration, and is a huge step towards building integrated enterprise systems. Couple that with the ability to customize the user interface and you have the most sophisticated GIS-integrated modeling package on the market."
Haestad Methods' product philosophy is to make intellectual investments in strong technologies and to consistently adapt to customer's changing needs. WaterGEMS was developed using cutting-edge ArcObjects™ technology from GIS market leader ESRI and state-of-the-art computing tools from Microsoft's .NET initiative. Haestad added, "because of this, WaterGEMS functionality will continue to grow not only as Haestad Methods develops new tools, but as ESRI and Microsoft add functionality as well. This approach opens up so many more doors for our users."
The development of the GEMS (Geographic Engineering Modeling System) framework is a technological leap for Haestad Methods and forms the backbone of its future product lines.
"WaterGEMS provides an efficient means for existing WaterCAD or competing water distribution model users to quickly integrate their water modeling data with the latest GIS technology," said Keith Hodsden, P.E., Director of Engineering Support and Technical Sales. "It also allows owners of GIS data used primarily for asset management to easily integrate this data into the WaterGEMS model. In the past, it has been costly to extract and convert GIS data to modeling input on a regular basis. Now, all of the data can be stored in one geodatabase for both asset management and modeling purposes. This simplifies data maintenance and integrity checking enormously."
Using ArcObjects, the new ArcGIS™ 8 technology foundation from ESRI, Haestad Methods' WaterGEMS capitalizes on the intelligence of the new geodatabase format instead of relying solely on shapefile technology and data exchange methods like other available water models. While WaterGEMS still accommodates shapefiles and ArcInfo® coverages, it provides users with the tools to migrate to the modern geodatabase format on their own schedule. Plus users get all of the functionality that comes with ArcGIS 8 including advanced symbology options that turn hydraulic models into powerful visual presentation tools.
"We have been looking at moving across to geodatabases and ArcGIS 8 for some time now but have been deterred by the complexity of the task," said John Gaydos, P.E., P.S., Engineering Manager with the City of Bay City, Michigan. "WaterGEMS allows us to merely open our existing hydraulic models and save them as ready-to-use geodatabases which means huge cost savings for our city."
Sasa Tomic, Ph.D., Director of the WaterGEMS Developer Program at Haestad Methods added that "by utilizing our exclusive WaterObjects customization technology, users also have unlimited opportunities to distinguish themselves by crafting their own WaterGEMS modeling extensions ranging from web interfaces for model and/or data dissemination to custom integration with any other application."
WaterGEMS builds on the ease of use of Haestad Methods' flagship product WaterCAD®, the world's most widely used and recognized water distribution model. WaterGEMS incorporates all the modeling functionality from WaterCAD, and adds advanced geospatial capabilities for taking full advantage of existing GIS data and quickly maximizing the return on investment. Dozens of new features have been added to answer the demands of Haestad Methods' existing worldwide customer base, which is quickly becoming reliant on GIS technology to perform its day-to-day jobs.
"Through my 25 years with various water utilities, we were always looking to better leverage our data collection investments," said Tom Walski, Ph.D., P.E., Vice President of Engineering for Haestad Methods. "WaterGEMS is a direct reflection of these experiences and my interactions with the over 4,000 professionals I have educated in water distribution modeling. WaterGEMS represents a quantum leap in the art and science of hydraulic modeling and is poised to dominate water modeling for the next decade and beyond."
About Haestad Methods:
Founded in 1979, Haestad Methods provides more than 125,000 civil engineers in over 170 countries with hydrologic and hydraulic computer modeling applications, continuing education workshops, and textbooks. Haestad Methods' complete suite of engineering software products for water, storm, and sanitary sewer modeling includes WaterGEMS™, WaterCAD®, Darwin™, SewerCAD®, StormCAD®, PondPack®, FlowMaster®, CulvertMaster®, and Hec-Pack ™.
Haestad Methods trains thousands of engineers each year. They are duly authorized by the IACET to award CEUs and PDHs and are licensed by Sandia National Labs as RAM-WSM (Risk Assessment Methodology for Water utilities) trainers.
For more information, call Haestad Methods at 1-800-727-6555 (USA and Canada) or +1-203-755-1666 (worldwide), e-mail [email protected], or visit http://www.haestad.com, http://www.watersecurity.org, and http://www.civilquiz.com.
