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Spatial Analysis and Decision Assistance
Technical Support
Technical support is provided by email at sada@tiem.utk.edu.
Also, you may ask questions on the SADAusers
email list; subscribe by sending a blank email to
sadausers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
Listed below is a FAQ for system requirements, recently encountered SADA problems, and documentation of
changes between the different versions.
Why is SADA free?
SADA is a dedicated effort between the University of Tennessee, the US federal government, and many other contributing institutions to provide a professional and free spatial modeling tool that promotes a consistent and thorough examination of spatially distributed environmental data. SADA is part research effort and part working tool. Because SADA is a scaleable environment, it is often used to quickly try out new methods. While SADA is a nationally recognized software, it is also an educational and communication tool. For global distributions, it is very much a tech transfer from an industrialized countery (USA) to many developing countries desparately in need of this kind of tool.
Installation
Make absolutely sure you have Administrative priviledges (logged in as an administrator) before installling SADA. Also make sure you are not running the installation off the website. Download it to your machine first. Finally, make sure you are installing SADA to the same hard drive where your Windows is located (usually C drive). We have seen some strange things happen when its installed for example to the D drive.
Do not run SADA will run over the network! We require installation on each individual machine.
European and other Decimal = Comma users
If you are using a regional setting (e.g., France, Germany) that uses a comma instead of a period as a decimal (3,1415 versus 3.1415), then check this page.
SADA crashes before it can even get started
When you try to run SADA, it starts to open and then crashes. A message may say "instance of object not set" or some meaningless error like that. Most of the time, in these cases, SADA was not installed by someone logged in as an Administrator. Without administrator privileges, SADA may not install correctly.
Sometimes, we have seen the case where SADA was installed by an administrator but still had this problem. This may happen when you install it as an administrator but try to use it as a nonadministrator. This is rare. In some cases, depending on the security settings for you computer, a nonadministrator has no write privileges to the Program Files directory. You'll have to set the write privelidges to this directory or install SADA somewhere else. Some institutions have extreme control over the use of their computers and so users can run into these problems under these circumstances.
Another thing to check, is to make sure that you have your regional settings set to use a period as a decimal. Check this page to figure out how to do this.
SADA crashes when I try to read data or open a SADA file
SADA should be able to open the twodimensional.sda that is packed with it. If not, make sure you are using a regional setting where a period is used for the decimal point and not a comma. This is common problem for European users. If you are using a regional setting (e.g., France, Germany) that uses a comma instead of a period as a decimal (3,1415 versus 3.1415), then check this page.
SADA says I'm trying to open an older SADA file and there is no backward compatability
If you are opening a SADA file created with a previous version of SADA, unfortunately this is true. We simply don't get enough funding to chase down backward compatability issues. If you need to open an older SADA file, you'll need to reinstall that version and continue to work with the file that way. We apologize for this inconvenience.
On the other hand, some folks get this warning when they are creating a new SADA file. We have seen this happen when the user has the European setting "Decimal = comma". If you are using a regional setting (e.g., France, Germany) that uses a comma instead of a period as a decimal (3,1415 versus 3.1415), then check this page.
I'm having trouble getting my data into SADA (creating a new file)
For more help on creating new files check this page.
Why is everything disabled except for File and Help when I open SADA?
You have to either create or open a new file. Try opening the Twodimensional.sda sent with SADA. Your interface should light up once it is open.
How do I get something to work other than just data plots?
In SADA, most desired actions are listed in the Interview box. This is the long drop down list box which may say "Plot My Data". Select the arrow next to this box and select an action. Notice how the steps (in the blue window) change accordingly. Please read the QuickStart PDF file packed with SADA and found in the SADA installation directory. It helps a lot.
Where can I learn more about geospatial modeling?
The SADA help file is not a great place to learn about geospatial modeling. Here are some good books on the subject.
- Applied Geostatistics, Isaaks and Srivastava
- Geostatistical Software Library (GSLIB), Deutsch and Journel
- Geostatistics for Natural Resources Evaluation, Pierre Goovaerts
- Geostatistics in Five Easy Lessons, Journel
- Spatial Data, Cressie
Also, every semester UT offers a training class on SADA. We concentrate a great deal on geospatial modeling. Click here to find out more.
How do I export results out of SADA?
The fourth button from the left on the toolbar menu at the top of SADA(V4) is the export to file button. You can use this to export data and interpolation results, sample designs, cost/benefit plots, etc. For geospatial models, it will give the option to export as either csv or EarthVision. Many SADA users are also ESRI users. The upcoming V5 will do an automatic export. With V4, you'll have to do some manipulation.
How to get a Geospatial Result out of SADA into ArcMap 9.1 (and maybe other versions)
- Run the geospatial model in SADA. If you are going to export to Arc, there are two important things to know. First, your cell sizes in the x and y direction are equal. Arc can't deal with rectangular cell sizes. Second, Arc is largely 2d, so don't do a 3d model in SADA. For help with a 3d model, please send an email here.
- Press the Export to file button in SADA (fourth from left) and save as a .csv file.
- Open the .csv in Excel. Note that SADA has done a raw dump. It will always be four columns (Easting, Northing, Depth, and Value). We need to convert this to a standard ASCII Raster Dataset. To do this is easy. Delete the Easting, Northing, and Depth column. Strip off the header row. Save the file as a TextFile (tab delimited) with a .txt extension. Close excel
Open the .txt file in Notepad. Add the following header to the top of the file:
- ncols 58
- nrows 44
- xllcorner 26900
- yllcorner 21900
- cellsize 40
- NODATA_value -1e+20
- Now look at SADA's set grid specs step. Change the header by writing in your specific values. For Example, ncols would correspond to Number of X, nrows would correspond to Num Y. Cellsize would correspond to X Size (remember X Size = Y Size if you are planning on exporting to Arc). Now, click on the Setup The site Step. xllcorner would be your site boundary easting minimum and yll corner would be your site boundary northing minimum. In SADA 4, the NODATA_value will be -1e+20.
- Save the .txt file
- Open up ArcMap. Click on the ArcToolBox button to turn on the arc tool box window. Expand conversion tools. Double-click on Ascii to raster tool. For input file, choose the .txt file. For output file, choose whatever you like. Make sure you set the type to FLOAT and not integer. Press OK.
- Hopefully you can say VOILA! If not, double check your steps.
Troubles with DXFs?
For troubles with importing dxf layers, click here.
Can I change my risk parameters to my site specific values?
Yes, there are two ways to do this. After you've setup your human health and/or ecological analyses, switch to the analysis you're interested in. Look up at the menu items and chose human health or ecological. Under that menu item is an opportunity to change the values. Recognize that SADA will only change them for the SADA file you have open, however. If you want to make the change more permanent, you'll need to open up ToxicologicalProfiles.mdb, ScenarioParameters.mdb, or ecotoxdata.mdb, locate the information you want to change, and change it directly in the database. Be careful and definitely do not alter the table structures. When you make a change to these databases, then any SADA file you link to these database will have the new information. Keep in mind, though, that previously created SADA files will have to re-setup the risk model to take advantage of these changes.
I have 3d data and SADA doesn't seem to be plotting it right.
When SADA plots 3d data in the 2d viewer it shows only those data that appear in the currently selected layer but the upper most data point isn't the one I see.
Here is what is happening - suppose the data point(s) you show in your graphic below are in fact located over the top of each other and are found in the database in the following order:
SampleID, Easting, Northing, Depth, Value
A, 10, 10, 2, 60
B, 10, 10, 1, 55
C, 10, 10, 3, 100
D, 10, 10, 6, 70
Now suppose you have a layer from [0 - 4). Ok, when you have layer [0-4) selected, SADA knows to only plot points A, B, and C because point D at a depth of 6 feet is not found in the layer you currently have selected. When SADA loops through points A, B, and C and plots them, it plots them in the order it finds them in the database. So the point you see is not the highest point found within the layer, but rather the last point SADA found when it was looping. So in our case here, the user would see point C, but in fact A and B are plotted underneath it.
This is unfortunate because it looks like SADA should show within the layer the shallowest point on top rather than the last point it encountered.
So in this case, visually, its not so great, but computationally (as in data screens, contouring etc) it is irrelevant.
We are going to look at a simple way to fix this in V5.
Duplicate Data Resolution
Some users notice (most unhappily) that SADA version 4 seems to continually be trying to resolve duplicates when switching between contaminants, doing statistics, and running risk numbers. Why doesn't SADA just resolve them once and quite hassling the user? SADA is doing the right thing. Its just doing it more times than it needs to. This unfortunate circumstance is a slight oversite on our part resulting in an annoying experience for users with large datasets with lots of duplicates. If your data set has no duplicates then you'll never see this no matter how big your data set is. For smaller data sets with duplicates it happens so fast, most folks don't notice it. We will solve in version 5. In the meantime, if it really is a drag, resolve your data before you bring it into SADA.
System requirements:
Obviously, the faster the better. Especially if you are doing geospatial modeling and/or 3d visualization but....
Before installing SADA, check for the following minimal requirements:
- CPU: Pentium II
- Disk Space: 400 MB
- RAM: 64 MB
- OS: Windows 98, 98 Second Edition, NT 4.0 (SP4 and higher), 2000, ME, XP
- Clock: 200 MHz
These requirements, however, are recommended to enhance performance of geospatial analyses:
- CPU: Pentium IV or higher
- Disk Space: 1 GB
- RAM: 256 MB or higher
- OS: Windows 2000, XP
- Clock: 1 GHz
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