Auxiliary Wind Vectors

While ASCII wind grids can be used in FlamMap fire behavior runs, these grids are inconvenient for viewing with FlamMap. Wind Vectors, a combination of the Wind Direction and Speed grids displayed as an arrow, give a better interpretation of the modeled winds.

Tree pane showing Auxiliary Wind Vectors item.

Wind vectors for loading as Auxiliary Wind Vectors are available in several ways

ASCII or GeoTIFF grids can be converted to point shapefiles with a GIS,
if stand alone WindNinja is used to create your wind grids point shapefiles are automatically created for you and are ready to be viewed in FlamMap, and
wind vectors from a FlamMap run can be saved as point shapefiles.

NOTE: Stand alone WindNinja contains more options that can create more accurate wind grids. The version of WindNinja embedded in FlamMap is a striped down version designed to run much faster.

Shortcut menu for Wind Vector tree item

Right-clicking the ♦Wind Vectors item in the "Tree" pane displays this short cut menu.

New Wind Vector Theme

Selecting the New Wind Vector Theme command from the shortcut menu displays a standard Window's "Open" dialog box. Navigate to the appropriate folder, select the desired shapefile and click the Open button. Your project window displays the shapefile on your active grid theme in the "Display" pane. You may need to expand the ♦Wind Vector tree item by clicking it's box to show the ♦ yellowstone_30_270_100m item.

Remember, loading a wind vector shapefile as an Auxiliary Theme does not make it available for fire behavior calculations. To use wind grids in calculating fire behavior outputs enter the ASCII grid filenames on the Inputs Tab of the "Runs:" dialog box.

Delete All

Selecting the Delete All command will remove all of the Wind Vectors from your FlamMap project.

Help

Selecting the Help command will bring you to the Wind Vectors heading above in this online help system.

Manipulating Wind Vector Themes

To temporally hide or display an individual Wind Vector, simply double click it's line in the "Tree" pane. A blue check mark "" indicates the theme is currently displayed and a red "X" indicates it is currently hidden.

Shortcut menu for individual wind vector auxiliary theme.

Right-clicking a individual Wind Vector item displays the following shortcut menu (the Save As and Save Source Grids As commands are not available for Wind Vector themes). With these commands you can delete an individual Wind Vector or change the way a Wind Vector displays.

Deleting Wind Vector Themes

To delete all of the Auxiliary Wind Vector themes, right-click the ♦Wind Vectors items in the "Tree" pane and select Delete All from the shortcut menu.

To delete a single Wind Vector theme, right-click an individual item in the "Tree" pane and select Delete from the shortcut menu. A warning dialog box asks for confirmation of your delete request.

Bring to Top

Selecting the Bring to Top command from the shortcut menu places the selected Wind Vector theme "on top" of any other visible vector and contour themes.

Arranging Vector Themes and Contours

You can arrange the layering of all the visible vector and contour themes by selecting the Arrange Vector Themes command from the shortcut menu. This command brings up the following dialog box.

Set Overlay Theme Draw Priority dialog box.

In the "Set Overlay Theme Draw Priority" dialog select the first theme you wish to re-arrange. Then use the arrow buttons below the theme list to move the selected theme up or down in the stack;

	Move selected theme up one level.
	Move selected theme down one level.
	Move selected theme to the top of the stack.
	Move selected theme to the bottom of the stack.

Properties

Wind Vector Themes use the "Wind Vector Legend" dialog box to control the display of these unique themes.