5. SPHY model GUI
Overview
The SPHY model GUI has been developed with the goal to make the use of the SPHY model more user-friendly, and thus more applicable to a larger user-group world-wide. Using the SPHY model GUI has several advantages above the use of SPHY as stand-alone application:
Easy creation of new projects and opening/modifying existing projects.
Quick overview of all your SPHY model settings.
Easy to select model input and output, and to modify model parameters.
Default parameter values and parameter ranges prevent the use of physically wrong parameter values.
Model output reporting options can be easily managed.
The model can be executed inside the GUI, meaning that command line execution is history. A progress bar shows model execution progress.
Visualization of the model in- and output can be done inside QGIS. This provides the user with a clear overview of the maps that are used as model input. Model output can be added as spatial map, or can be analyzed using time-series plots.
The GUI uses the registry, meaning that your last project (settings) will be saved and loaded upon the next time you continue to work with your model (project).
The SPHY mdoel interface consists of a top menu with four buttons and a tab widget that contains 11 tabs (figure 15). The use of the top menu buttons will be explained in detail in Section 'Top menu buttons'. When working on a SPHY model project, the user must go through the individual tabs and complete the required information, which can be related to model input maps, parameter values, reporting options, running the model, and visualizing results. The user has to complete these tabs in the order they appear: from left to right. The last steps always are running the model and thereafter visualizing the model results. The use of each of these tabs is described in detail in the Sections 'General sections' through 'Visualizing model output'. The effect of changing parameter settings is only briefly described in these sections. For a detailed description of parameters and theory, we refer to the Theory section of this manual. A detailed overview of the model input and output can be found in Appendix 1.
If it is the first time you use the SPHY model GUI, then please first read the Section 'using the interface for the first time' below before continuing with the other sections.
Using the interface for the first time
The SPHY model GUI is always started by clicking the SPHY model interface button. SInce it is the first time you use the interface, the registry settings will be empty. This means no previous SPHY projects can be found by the interface. If this is the case, then the interface looks like Figure 16. The only options available are:
New project
Open project
The New project button logically asks the user to save a new SPHY model project, whereas the Open project button asks the user to open an existing SPHY model project. After one of these options has been selected, the tabs will be activated such that the user can go through these tabs to complete model setup.
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