TSTool-QuickStart - Laserfiche WebLink

TSTool Documentation Quick Start - 1 TSTool Quick Start Guide 2014-05-21 This document will help you download, install, and run TSTool software using simple examples, and will point out other resources that are available for more in-depth learning. This guide assumes that the user has very little TSTool experience. After reading the guide and running the examples, you will have a basic understanding of how TSTool works, and can begin to explore its capabilities. This document focuses on installing TSTool on Microsoft Windows; however, the information is relevant for Linux and Mac computers. Examples mentioned in this document are provided for convenience. The TSTool command files can be opened and run. However, to learn how to use TSTool it is recommended that you create the examples yourself using the TSTool software by following instructions in this document. TSTool (“time series tool”) was originally developed for the State of Colorado as part of Colorado’s Decision Support Systems (CDSS) in order to process data from the State’s HydroBase database into data files for river basin modeling software. Since the initial development, TSTool has been enhanced to have many capabilities and can be applied to many problems involving time series, tabular data from databases and Excel, maps, and websites. TSTool has been developed and enhanced with funding from the State of Colorado and others sources and the State is migrating TSTool and other CDSS software to open source licensing. The Open Water Foundation (OWF) continues to enhance and support TSTool in support of various projects. Examples of TSTool applications include:  Browsing time series data available from internet web services (streamflow, climate, snow, etc.)  Automating data downloads, quality control, and creating data products  Analyzing current conditions (streamflow, snow, drought, or other data) with respect to historical data and producing graphs for multiple locations to monitor and model river systems  Processing raw data into model data files  Processing model output into graphical products, performing quality control, and facilitating model calibration  Automating database loading  Automating creation of Excel data sheets for data entry from a template  Performing statewide water demand and supply analysis, with graphs at every step to ensure transparency in calculations  Calculating natural flow in rivers by manipulating time series TSTool Capabilities TSTool, as the name implies, focuses on processing time series. Time series are data sets that include a series of date/time and value pairs, for example to indicate how temperature, precipitation, and streamflow change over time at a specific location. Each data value also may have an associated data flag that may indicate, for example, a missing value, an estimated value, or some other qualifier. Although the format of time series data varies between sources and data formats, they all have the same fundamental properties and TSTool deals with time series in a general way. Time series can be displayed in both graphical and tabular forms, as shown below. The TSTool visualization tools handle time series with different data intervals (including irregular time interval), missing data, and units.