Wind Profile Calculator

The Fire Lab developed a model that can calculate the wind profile based on different canopy distributions. This web application allows users to interact with the model and displays a visual representation of the wind profile and canopy. It can be found here.

Table of Contents

1. Technologies Used
2. Frontend Overview
3. Backend Overview
4. Deployment

Technologies Used

1. Frontend
   • Dependencies: Reactjs, Nodejs, Typescript, HTML, CSS, MaterialUI
   • Reasoning: React and MaterialUI were chosen as they are responsive and used within other Fire Lab projects
2. Backend
   • Dependencies: Python, Flask, C++ Swig Bindings
   • Reasoing: Code for calculations was either already written in python, or could be used through C++ SWIG Bindings.

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Frontend Overview

1. Navigate to the frontend directory:

   cd frontend

2. Install the necessary dependencies:

   npm install

3. Host the frontend locally:

   npm start

   • The application should be accessible at http://localhost:3000.
   • For components with a handleSubmit function, you will need to change where you are sending the request:

   // For local development:
   const response = await axios.post("http://localhost:5000/windprofilecalculator/api/calculate", formData);
   
   // For production:
   const response = await axios.post("https://ninjastorm.firelab.org/windprofilecalculator/api/calculate", formData);

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Backend Overview

1. Navigate to the backend directory:

   cd backend

2. Set up a virtual environment for Python dependencies:

   python3 -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate 

3. Run the backend server locally:

   python3 backend.py

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Computation Code

The calculations for the wind profiles is handled by these files:

• Canopy Flow: Handles wind profile calculations with canopies, located at Canopy Flow repo.
• Log Profile Calculator: Handled wind profile calculations without canopies, formulas for computation are described in this article.

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Deployment

This is handled automatically through Github Actions using the build_and_deploy.yml script. Once the master branch is updated, the script will automatically build the project, ssh into the server, and copy the files where they need to go. No Testing script has been made.

Deployment information can be found at NinjaStorm.