QTranus User Help

Project Configuration

This window opens a TRANUS project. It may be used to a) edit Data, b) Run models and other programs, and c) Display the results of the models in map form. In this manual we are using the model of Swindon as an example. This model and all related data may be downloaded from:

TRANUS site

To begin the process, a window is presented with boxes to fill:

Fig. 1: TRANUS Project Configuration window

Layers group name

Give a name to put all the layers that you will produce into a group - Obligatory field

TRANUS workspace

A TRANUS project resides in a unique folder in your computer. As soon as you specify a valid TRANUS workspace, you will notice that the Scenario Tree appears with valid information in the left panel. This is because QTRANUS looks in the folder you specified for a file called TRANUS.CTL. This is the file where the scenario tree is specified, a fundamental structure in TRANUS modeling. You may click on the little + to expand the scenario tree.

Zones shapefile

Specify the shape file where the polygons of the zones are contained. You may use the button provided to explore your pc. As soon as you put a valid shape file name, a map with the polygons should appear as a background. The shapefile must contain one polygon for each zone in the model. Make sure that this is so.

Next, Select zones shape Id with a pull-down list of all the fields in the zones shapefile that you specified. Select the one that contains the Zone Id numbers. This must be integer values exactly matching the Zone Id identifiers in the model.

If no Zone shapefile is specified, the program will not be able to produce maps based on zonal information.

Centroid Shapefile

Optional. If you specify a shapefile with zone centroids, then some map options will use them to generate the flow maps (see the corresponding section). If you do not specify a centroids shapefile, then the program will calculate them automatically from the polygon shapefile. Why do we have this option? Because sometimes the geographical centroids do not represent reality adequate.

Network links shape file

A shape file with all links in the network is required as data for the models and to produce maps of results

Network nodes shape file

Optional. A shape file with nodes is used to enhace the presentation of networks, so that they may be displayed with possible labels such as Id number or names

Data

This button jumps to the Data Window (not yet active)

Run

This button jumps to the Run Window (not yet active).

Results

This button jumps to the Results Window, where options and commands are available to produce maps with the results of the model of several types

Once the above fields have been filled, you may save the QGIS project in the usual way, doing File-Save or File-Save As and giving it a name. This means that the next time you open the QGIS project, everything will be there exactly as you left them. You may then add more layers to the project using the QTRANUS plugin again and again.


Data Window Run Window Results Window