The webpage layout is composed of three main elements.
On the left side, there are a series of configuration “Panels.” Each of these Panels can be maximized and minimized.
In the center are the simulation windows. When running a simulation, a 2D plan view (the simulation canvas) of the running model is displayed. Underneath the model animation is a Parameter window and a Time Series display window.
On the right side is the Console where you will see a listing of messages, indicating the progress of the simulation. This is useful for debugging. Most importantly, if you see no text in the Console after starting a simulation, the model is not running!
To run an example, examine the “Start Here: Load Simulation Datafiles“ panel. There is a “Run Example Simulation” button, and a drop-down menu above it, filled with pre-configured examples.
The default example is for Ventura Harbor, which is a medium-sized numerical configuration – it will run faster than realtime on most hardware, and much faster than realtime on new hardware. Among the examples, Pacifica, CA is the least computationally demanding, and this may be a good configuration to choose if the Ventura simulation is running slowly. To run the chosen configuration, click “Run Example Simulation.” You should immediately see messages appearing in the Console. Note that the first time you run a simulation, the browser needs to download ~ 20 MB of image textures and bathy/topo surfaces, so this may take a few seconds, depending on your internet connection.
If all goes well, you should see a 2D plan view of the simulation domain, with waves entering from the left boundary:
If you see something like the above, success. If you do not see the above, there are two likely culprits:
· If you see nothing in the console, your browser does not support WebGPU. No fix for this other than to use a different browser. As of this writing, the platforms that do not support WebGPU are Safari and mobile browsers.
· The simulation is running very slowly (e.g. faster-than-realtime-ratios less than 0.2) and you have a decent GPU. This is not uncommon on Windows laptops that have both an integrated and a dedicated GPU. First check the resource monitor of your OS (e.g. Task Manager in Windows), and see if you have two GPU’s. If you do, check out this video: https://youtu.be/b2VBtYfNymY. Otherwise, drop a post in the forum with your hardware/OS and issue.
If you want to try a different example, select it from the menu and hit Run Example Simulation again. If you want to clear the console, click “Clear Memory / Reset Simulation”