Hetland Hydrodynamics is owned and operated by Dr. Robert Hetland. I am an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University specializing in numerical simulation of geophysical scale flow, from estuaries to regional seas. I offer a wide range of professional services, including
- Hydrodynamic simulations
- at scales from small estuaries to large basins.
- Assistance in model setup
- from simple advice to curvilinear grid generation to a complete model setup.
- Model analysis and visualization
- professional quality graphics including high-quality animations.
- Custom analysis and visualization packages
- software packages built to specification from script to command line tools to graphical user interfaces.
Numerical modeling tools
I work extensively with the Regional Ocean Modeling System. I also work with the General Estuarine Transport Model in cooperation with Bolding-Burchard Hydrodynamics. Both of these models are released open source licenses, and may be used in any project.
I also work extensively with the Python programing language for pre- and post-processing of model results. I have developed an open-source package for working with numerical simulations on a C-grid (such as ROMS and GETM) called octant. Python (and the modules needed to perform model analysis) are open source. Python can be used to make custom analysis and visualization packages, based either on automatic scripts, or as part of a graphical user interface.
Grid generation
I create numerical grids for simulations of ocean currents using modern grid-generation techniques based on open source products.
Regional modeling
I have created a number of simulations of circulation in regional seas.
Analysis and predictability
I have published a number of papers on using relevant metrics for assessing the skill of a numerical model. I believe that the most important aspect of a numerical simulation is to understand how it relates to the problem at hand. A model is not good or bad, and a model cannot be 'validated.' Rather, one should ask how good is the model at simulating the relevant processes?