I’m happy to announce the new release of the Gabbioni software!
After months of active development I’m ready to release to the world the new and improved version of the program to design small gabion dams for soil conservation. It has been a long path but finally the new features are getting ready. That is why I am releasing a Beta version in order to test the functions and get feedback (if there are any users out there willing to share their thoughts about the software). So the purpose of this release is to test the code and look for bugs.
Some of the most exciting features are the improvements in the user interface and the multiplatform capabilities. They are both consequence of re-writing the code base in C++ and Qt libraries. The previous version of the program was coded in Python 2 and it was a bit difficult to get the application running properly by users not familiar with the language. Also the binaries were not as stable as expected. These problems are in the past now.
The core algorithms were improved and the result is a more robust software. The channel cross-section characterization, weir design, dimension creation and stability analysis algorithms were significantly improved. The Oropeza-Mota method is still the only option for stability analysis, but I have plans to include another methods for stability analysis in the future.
The data input is still based in delimited text files, such as comma separated values (CSV) and tab delimited text files. An option to copy/paste input data from spreadsheet programs was added. The final reports of the analysis are also created in these formats. The gabion dam plans are created in DXF format. So it is really easy to interact with other well known software in engineering such as spreadsheets (Excel, Calc) and computer aided design (CAD) programs.
There are a lot of features pending in the to-do list of the project. They will be included in the code eventually. With this version release I’m officially changing the status of the program to: testing.
As always the program is release under the GPL license, so you can freely download, use and distribute the software as you wish. Please consider a donation if the program (or other software in this site) is useful to you. Creating and supporting software are highly time consuming activities and I have to work hard to get the programs ready. I’m not currently making money from my programs so a donation will be nice and motivational.
Please enjoy. I’m open to any suggestions and feedback from users.
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ecoslacker
