This is a short guide for people looking to get started with XBeach within Deltares (employees, MSc. students, interns, etc.)

Important resources

Where to find information on XBeach:

  1. Our website: www.xbeach.org (containing tutorials, executables, skillbed and a user forum)
  2. The manual (also on the website, although it is a little outdated on some topics)
  3. The source code (see below how to get hold of it)
  4. Your colleagues who are also using XBeach

Getting the toolbox (Matlab)

Setting up your own XBeach model is easiest when making use of our matlab toolbox (integrated into the OpenEarthTools toolbox, www.openearth.eu). Getting hold of it involves the following steps:

  1. Install 'TortoiseSVN' via the Deltares Appstore
  2. Create a new folder where the toolbox will be placed
  3. Right-click and choose 'SVN Checkout ...'
  4. Use the URL: https://svn.oss.deltares.nl/repos/openearthtools and click OK
    1. Supply your Deltares login information
  5. You now have the complete OpenEarthTools toolbox, the XBeach tools are located in ..\trunk\matlab\applications\xbeach\
    1. Update regularly using right-click -> SVN Update on the highest level. (the toolbox is constantly being improved, if you don't update manually, you don't benefit from this)
    2. Contribute with bug fixes and new functionality using right-click -> SVN Commit. Please try not to break stuff (unless you are a fan of angry emails).
      1. Remember, any changes you make locally are only distributed to other people after you commit them.

Getting the source code

You do not need to download the source code just to run XBeach (see 'Running XBeach' below). You do need it if you want to examine or modify the source code. If you want to develop a new feature, please do so in a separate BRANCH, and NOT directly in the TRUNK.

If you want the complete source code, follow the steps below. 

  1. Install 'TortoiseSVN' via the Deltares Appstore
  2. Create a new folder where the toolbox will be placed
  3. Right-click and choose 'SVN Checkout ...'
  4. Take a moment to think if you really need all branches/tags/ etc, if not you might want to make a selection using 'Choose items'
  5. Use the URL: https://svn.oss.deltares.nl/repos/xbeach and click OK
    1. Supply your Deltares login information

Getting course material

There is course material (including exercises) on getting started with XBeach. This is located in the same repository as the source code (see above) in the folder 'Courses'. The most recent one at the time of writing is 'DSD2014'. When just starting to learn the model, it's advisable to read the course material and try to complete the exercises.

Getting precompiled executables

When running XBeach on a windows computer (for instance your Deltares laptop or the WCF), you will need a windows executable. If you are running time consuming computations, it is a good idea to do so on the WCF or the H5 cluster and not on your laptop.

  1. The executables for the latest releases are available from the website http://oss.deltares.nl/web/xbeach/source-code-and-exe
    1. By default, make use of the most recent release, unless you have a good reason not to.
    2. Make sure to download the 32bit version if you use a 32bit computer
    3. If you don't use parallel computing (MPI), don't download the MPI version, since it contains more tricky dependencies.

Running XBeach

You can run XBeach either locally or remotely:

  1. Local: See 'Getting precompiled executables' above.
  2. Remote - H5: See the following description: XBeach-H5
  3. Remote - WCF: [Under construction]

Disclaimer