Trevor English
First released for Windows in 1997, XPSWMM aided stormwater and flood professionals in taking on the water challenges of its time. It was an incredibly powerful tool that the water industry adopted to solve the challenges it faced. But time and software development always marches on.
Over time, most users adopted more powerful solutions like InfoWorks ICM, but a small core group continue to choose XPSWMM for their more simplistic design needs. This has inspired us to bring back XPSWMM as an Autodesk subscription.
This means Autodesk now offers three different stormwater, drainage, and 1D/2D modeling solutions. So, which one do you need? Let’s get to the bottom of it.
Do I need InfoDrainage, InfoWorks ICM, or XPSWMM?
We have a comparison chart of features to help explain it, but I’m first going to give you the tl;dr (too long; didn’t read) answer that works for most people:
- Are you looking for site-scale drainage design and hydraulic analysis? You need InfoDrainage.
- Are you undergoing capital planning for networks, flood risk modeling for cities, modeling and designing entire storm and sewer systems, and/or managing catchments (or any other region-wide stormwater and sewer process for that matter)? Then you need InfoWorks ICM.
- Are you running small scale drainage analysis and rudimentary sewer analysis? Then XPSWMM might work for you, although chances are you will be better off with InfoWorks ICM or InfoDrainage.
Those are the short and sweet answers for which tool you likely need. Of course, in the real world, the answer can be a little more complicated, as things always are. Let’s dig into a deeper comparison of XPSWMM and InfoWorks ICM.
What’s the essential difference between InfoWorks ICM and XPSWMM?
XPSWMM was developed to cater to simplistic sanitary sewer and small urban flood modeling projects. With a node limit of 32,000, it isunsuitable for larger, more complex modeling projects.
InfoWorks ICM is a fully scalable, whole-of-catchment analysis tool. It currently has a node limit of 250,000 which – unlike XPSWMM – doesn’t reduce with model complexity. In fact, this can actually be increased to cater for larger networks, if needed. This way, you can deliver a range of projects from simple capacity analysis or basin design to integrated urban and riverine floodplain analysis.
To compare quickly, we made a chart that explains simply what you can do in both solutions.
| Modeling application | XPSWMM | InfoWorks ICM |
|---|---|---|
| Sanitary sewer capacity analysis | ✅ | ✅ |
| Sanitary sewer master planning | ❌ | ✅ |
| Urban drainage design | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cross-drainage structure analysis | ✅ | ✅ |
| Riverine flood analysis | ✅ | ✅ |
| Advanced water quality | ❌ | ✅ |
| Small-scale flood analysis | ✅ | ✅ |
| Large-scale floodplain management | ❌ | ✅ |
| Advanced model calibration | ❌ | ✅ |
| Disaster management | ❌ | ✅ |
| Network operations | ❌ | ✅ |
Are there different versions of XPSWMM?
XPSWMM has a long history and was released as several different versions over time. To keep things simple and straightforward, Autodesk is now offering XPSWMM Complete, which contains all of the functionality XPSWMM added over the years, including its many extensions, with zero link or mesh limitations. This includes extensions such as xp2D GPU, WSPG, Multiple Domain, and all functionality within XPSTORM. XPSWMM Complete is a great tool for 1D/2D modeling for stormwater, wastewater, and river models.
In addition to XPSWMM Complete, we also are offering XPSWMM Sewer, which also contains no link limits, but it does not contain XPSWMM extensions or items related to stormwater modeling. It is best utilized for 1D modeling of sewer networks which do not necessitate river analysis or 2D flood capabilities. Specifically, the layers which are included in XPSWMM Complete – but not in XPSWMM Sewer – include:
- Link Cross-section
- Water level lines
- Rivers
- 2D layers
- 1D Flood
- Result Vectors
- Result Maps
- Result Plot Outputs including flowline layers, water level layers, and water surface profile layers
For XPSWMM customers who wish to model 1D rivers, XPSWMM Complete may still be the best option.
(Note: This capability split between XPSWMM Complete and XPSWMM Sewer mirrors InfoWorks ICM Ultimate and InfoWorks ICM Standard. We have written about these differences in the past in the post InfoWorks ICM Standard vs. Ultimate: which one do you need?)
In summary
The more we talk to customers who have made the switch from XPSWMM to InfoWorks ICM, the clearer it becomes to us that the future of hydraulic modeling software requires ever-more-powerful capabilities than the past can possibly keep up with.
Simply put: A lot has changed in the last twenty years, and the next twenty years promises even more (exciting!) upgrades to hydraulic modeling software. As the industry moves forward to take advantage of ever-more-robust data and more powerful, faster cloud computing services, we’ll all need to keep demanding more of our tools so we can meet the needs of the future.
Are you considering upgrading?
- Want to see how and why one of our customers made the switch from XPSWMM to InfoWorks ICM? Read our customer story Helping ISG make a smooth migration from XPSWMM to InfoWorks ICM.
- What about all of your old files? Worry not; we have a solution: The easiest way to migrate XPSWMM files into InfoWorks ICM: XP Importer
- Still not convinced you need to upgrade? Let one of our product managers pitch you the benefits by focusing on the things you won’t miss about XPSWMM: What XPSWMM users who made the switch to InfoWorks ICM no longer need to worry about.