Our Work

Blue Raster helps you tell your story through interactive
mapping technology. Make your message clear, exciting,
and user-friendly for both mobile and web platforms.

Infrastructure

Building Bridges to Progress: The Inter-American Development Bank’s HIT Platform for Infrastructure and Transport

Across Latin America and the Caribbean, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) plays a pivotal role in financing sustainable, social, economic, and institutional development. With a mission to support transportation and infrastructure projects across South and Central America, the IDB collaborates with various partners to drive positive change in the region.

Blue Raster collaborated with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to develop the Hub de Integracion y Transporte (HIT) Platform, a groundbreaking initiative that serves as a regional infrastructure and transport hub, consolidating and presenting crucial information layers for effective planning and decision-making.

IDB HIT Platform

The HIT Platform offers an innovative solution by providing a comprehensive platform that combines key information related to infrastructure, logistics, value chains, projects, climate change, Covid impacts, and development perspectives. This platform acts as a powerful planning tool and an invaluable information repository, catering to the needs of government officials, Mesoamerican stakeholders and IDB specialists. The HIT Project is divided into six modules, each utilizing the robust capabilities of the ArcGIS Online suite of solutions and incorporating custom-developed features to address specific requirements. Recognizing the linguistic diversity of the region, all modules of the HIT Platform were developed in Spanish. The HIT Platform encompasses a series of interactive web applications and dashboards developed with ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Dashboards.

IDB HIT Platform IDB HIT Platform

The HIT Platform offers a personalized user experience by incorporating customized list and pop-up elements. These interactive components allow users to access specific information related to infrastructure, logistics, and value chains conveniently. By tailoring the user interface to meet specific requirements, the platform enhances usability and efficiency. To enable intuitive data visualization, the HIT platform project utilizes data-driven symbology, a feature within ArcGIS, to dynamically represent information based on various attributes. ArcGIS Arcade expressions, a flexible scripting language within ArcGIS, are employed extensively throughout the HIT project to ensure accurate and consistent data cleaning and formatting. By leveraging Arcade expressions, the platform achieves seamless integration and harmonization of diverse datasets, enhancing data quality and reliability.

Through its effective utilization of ArcGIS Online and its suite of applications and customization options, the HIT Platform sets a benchmark for effective planning and information management in the region, fostering positive change and driving sustainable growth.

Answering the Call for More Sustainable Groundwater Management with GRAT

From replenishing and regulating the human body to nurturing and fueling our environments, water is a valuable commodity that we cannot live without. In areas where rainfall can be unreliable, or drought often occurs—such as the western United States—alternative methods must be used to supply water to impacted communities and their agricultural regions. With the frequency of droughts in California, groundwater pumping is a widely-used tactic to combat the scarcity of natural water placement, but in time the groundwater used must be recharged to avoid an imbalance.

That’s why the Groundwater Recharge Assessment Tool (GRAT) was developed in partnership with The Earth Genome and Sustainable Conservation. It’s a valuable decision support tool that enables Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) to identify and prioritize potential groundwater replenishment options to achieve sustainable groundwater supplies. This technical tool was originally created for the Madera and Tulare Irrigation Districts and the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District to help model recharge scenarios across different fields using various recharge types. The goal was to help these districts understand where water is, how it can get to crop fields, and how it can be used to prepare for droughts—all while being more sustainable.

Building Out the Application

With data from the districts and complex, analytical logic provided by The Earth Genome and Sustainable Conservation, Blue Raster was able to help design and develop GRAT using ArcGIS Enterprise and the ArcGIS API for JavaScript. The application allows users from select California water districts to adjust water availability scenarios, recharge types, and specific crops used in the analysis. The application details site locations, fields’ recharge suitability, and impacted crop types, and visually shows on the map sites where water is placed. A series of charts and graphs provide information on groundwater change, recharge by crop, unused water available for recharge, and costs associated with the proposed recharge.

Blue Raster was responsible for preparing the data for use in the application and converting the analysis logic to an interactive mapping application. Our team formatted the datasets provided by the districts to create the crop layer, apply indices that rank and prioritize sites as well as determine suitability, and allow for different scenarios to be run against the GRAT logic.

Looking Towards the Future of GRAT

With GRAT being utilized by other GSAs in California, various water districts have expressed the need for more map-centric, data-visualized applications. In 2022, we helped launch the Turlock Subbasin GRAT for the East and West Turlock Subbasins. Similar in purpose and design to the original GRAT tool, the Turlock Subbasin GRAT also features enhancements related to proposed projects that could impact how water reaches fields and is placed and introduces new recharge types.

With the concentrated efforts of The Earth Genome and Sustainable Conservation, and using the GRAT platform, additional water districts throughout Central California can implement more effective and environmental solutions for groundwater recharge. The Blue Raster team looks forward to partnering with both organizations to help ensure groundwater balance and effective management now and into the future.

Groundwater Recharge Assessment Tool (GRAT)

Interested in Learning More About GRAT?

Contact us to learn more about this application or to discuss how interactive mapping technology can enhance your data.

Esri ArcGIS Cloud Specialty: Elevating our clients’ GIS capabilities to the sky

Blue Raster is thrilled to be a member of the Esri ArcGIS Cloud Services Specialty. This specialty designates Blue Raster as an expert in deploying and managing ArcGIS in cloud environments such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. The Cloud Specialty program is designed to help Esri connect customers with recognized Partners that can best provide ArcGIS cloud solutions. Partners that meet the criteria for this specialty must demonstrate a track record of delivering value to their customers in implementing, managing, and designing cloud infrastructure in the Esri ArcGIS environment.  

Esri Cloud Services Specialty

To attain this specialty, Esri assessed Blue Raster’s expertise in the following areas of ArcGIS Cloud services: cloud deployments, system architecture and design, migrations, and managed services. Our deployments of ArcGIS Enterprise in the cloud include routine monitoring and maintenance to allow us to fine tune the system as needed, ensuring reliability and performance. Our system architecture and design experience encompasses single machine and multi machine architectures in both AWS and Azure that are customized to our clients’ specifications. We support all types of migrations including on-premises to cloud provider migrations, ArcGIS Online to ArcGIS Enterprise, and integration with third party providers.

Our portfolio of managed services includes the utilization of a wealth of Esri products and tools in the ArcGIS family such as ArcGIS Enterprise, Data Store, GIS Server, GeoAnalytics Server, GeoEvent Server, Notebooks, Image Server, Pro, Monitor, and Enterprise Geodatabases. Implementing these tools empowers us to provide a number of managed cloud services to our clients including design consultation, server construction, Esri software installation, infrastructure troubleshooting, distributed systems configuration, geographic redundancy configuration, OS patching, Esri security patching, routine Esri patch deployment, DevOps services, and user training services, among others. Blue Raster is primed and ready to meet our clients’ needs in all areas of the Esri ArcGIS cloud.

ArcGIS Cloud Solutions by Blue Raster

With over 10 years of experience providing ArcGIS Cloud consulting services, Blue Raster is proud to be a trusted resource for a variety of cloud solutions, including: 

    • Cloud ArcGIS Enterprise implementation 
    • Data migration 
    • System architecture and design 
    • Enterprise migration 
    • Security 

We use our cloud expertise to assist a variety of clients with a range of projects. Our dedicated DevOps team supports our cloud projects from requirements gathering through completion. Keep checking our blog posts for our latest projects as we continually grow and evolve our cloud-based service offerings.  

Are you looking to expand your ArcGIS capabilities in the cloud?
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help!

Haverford College Campus Placefinder

Like most colleges, Haverford College has a dynamic campus life that requires significant management and planning to run smoothly. But recently, Haverford College decided to make this planning easier on themselves by using the power of GIS to their advantage. They were looking for a better solution for their campus planning, so they partnered with Blue Raster to create the Campus Placefinder.

The Campus Placefinder is an application built for Haverford’s facilities management team that provides an easy-to-use interface to access information about facilities on campus. The application allows users to interact with floor plans, and see details such as capacity and occupancy for every room on campus. The app also creates graphs that detail the area of rooms by building, department, or division. With drawing and printing capabilities, this application serves as a way for users to note changes to campus buildings as soon as they’re needed, and easily create a printout to distribute.

Haverford

Blue Raster built this application to be user-friendly by using custom filters and a search bar so users can quickly find the space they need. Whether the user is looking for a certain building, department on campus, or primary occupant, Campus Placefinder will find the answer, and immediately take the user to the location on the map. With an admin login, a user can edit room information, so the facilities management department can keep all room information up to date. Because the data is hosted through ArcGIS Online, the changes are then immediately available to all other users.

Through this application Blue Raster helped Haverford College improve their facilities data process which will serve the facilities management department as well as Haverford College’s faculty, staff, and students.

Contact Blue Raster today to learn how you can create GIS solutions to meet your needs!

Disposal of Debris after Disaster: Blue Raster partners with CDR Maguire to quantify and monitor disposal of debris material

Following a catastrophic event, the assessment and removal of debris and clean-up efforts of those impacted can create a ripple effect of challenges that communities are forced to overcome. To aid in an efficient approach, crews need assistance quantifying the damages incurred and coordination of how best to begin to confront the disposal of debris. After a referral from ROK Tech, CDR Maguire GIS Manager Deepali Datre reached out to Blue Raster to begin work on deploying the Esri Debris Management Solution with a custom enhancement to support online and offline use.

Debris Management

In this data collection phase of disaster response, Blue Raster and CDR Maguire:

  • Customized and extended the Esri Emergency Debris Management Solution to work offline
  • Configured complex and innovative Survey123 forms
  • Authored and deployed custom Python and JavaScript scripts
  • Recorded information including vehicles in operation, field monitors, type of debris accumulated, method of disposal, and total weight removed per truck load
  • Calculated total weight removed using the truck’s empty and full weight measurements obtained from the weight scales at the final dump location
  • Isolated categorical information including truck certifications, loading tickets by address or parcel, and the amount and type of material removed from each designated site

To manage and visualize the data for CDR Maguire, Blue Raster configured an ArcGIS Experience Builder Reviewer Tool. Utilizing this tool, field contractors can submit field survey forms to develop initial damage reports. The Experience Builder Dashboard provides real-time data to increase oversight and efficiency. These methods provide CDR Maguire with accurate data collection for FEMA reimbursement requirements. Throughout this project, the CDR Maguire team was knowledgeable and a collaborative partner to ensure that a workable solution was created.

Example of ArcGIS Emergency Debris Management Solution, courtesy Esri

While this solution was initially developed to assist in the removal of debris from the Boulder County Marshall Fire, this technology has already been employed to address a similar situation following a wildfire in Texas. The applications of this solution translate to a multitude of circumstances in which the efficiency of response can allow for a swift reaction to any type of natural or man-made catalyst.

 


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