RE: Database check utility in UrbanSim4

I agree with David's suggestion on this - that we build something that is quite flexible and extensible by users to adapt consistency checking to the data requirements of any user's projects.

I think we will need to provide a base component for this, and a means to extend it. We're working on data preparation tools on a project with the Puget Sound Regional Council, and on a GIS interface to the model system with Maricopa Association of Governments - the base functionality and extension capacity is very likely to be part of this effort. We will provide some information on this soon.

Paul

On Fri, 16 Mar 2007, David Socha wrote:

> Hello Kiarash,
>
> Firstly, UrbanSim 4 has no counterpart to the consistency checker that was in UrbanSim 3. I expect that the UrbanSim consistency checker won't work well for an UrbanSim 4 input database, since the database structure has changed in UrbanSim 4.
>
> We have not started to build such a tool. Such a tool would be very useful. Each application (e.g. each MPO) may have different tests they want to run, since they may use different models requiring different tables or different columns in a given table. Other checks would be common among a perhaps large set of users.
>
> An important question is how to get this tool built.
>
> Here is a suggestion: build this incrementally by contributions from the UrbanSim users. Many of these tests could be done by SQL queries. Others could be done by simple Python scripts. If users start to build such tests, they could upload these to our external wiki - where everyone could see them and share them. Then the user could download the set of checks they are interested in and run those. If they don't work sufficiently well, the user could modify the test to improve it and upload the changes to the wiki, either as an improvement to the existing test or as a new test.
>
> This is low cost approach that will start sharing value quickly.
>
> Secondly, regarding your second question of locating your specific problem, there is a verbosity level. In urbansim/configs/general_configuration.py change the value of 'debuglevel' to 10 for maximum verbosity. If this doesn't give you sufficient information, please file a bug report at http://trondheim.cs.washington.edu/bugzilla/index.cgi. Include the complete log file as an attachment. Thanks.
>
> David Socha
> Center for Urban Simulation and Policy Analysis
> University of Washington
> www.urbansim.org <http://www.urbansim.org/>
> 206 616-4495
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: users-bounces_at_urbansim.org [mailto:users-bounces_at_urbansim.org] On Behalf Of Kiarash MOTAMEDI
> Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 1:20 AM
> To: users_at_urbansim.org
> Subject: Database check utility in UrbanSim4
>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> We are applying UrbanSim for Paris region and I wanted to ask two questions:
>
> - In UrbanSim 3, there was an utility to check the database. Is it still available in US4? How can we run it?
>
> - Trying to run US4 on our database, the program stops running with a log that is not clear to help us to locate the problem in dataset. Are there different levels of verbosity in US4? How we can ask the programme to give us the most possible detailed information? For example, which variable is missing or in computation of which variable it has a problem?
>
>
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Kiarash Motamedi
>
>
>
> THEMA - Université de Cergy-Pontoise
>
> 33 bd du Port
>
> 95011 Cergy-Pontoise CEDEX
>
> France.
>
>
>
> Tel: 01 34 25 63 16
>
> Fax: 01 34 25 62 33
>
> email: kiarash.motamedi_at_u-cergy.fr
>
>
>
>
Received on Fri Mar 16 2007 - 16:58:40 PDT