In this article, I will talk about a new feature: using Raster data. I would like to give some background to this. Geodesignhub is designed as a management support system that is primarily vector based since it enables “sketching” or “drawing” by participants. To enable informed interventions, project participants review existing conditions using simple “Red / Yellow / Green” maps, these are called as evaluation maps.
These maps can be created using GIS tools like QGIS or others (see Making Evaluation maps article). In some cases it is useful to build these maps as rasters in the form of GeoTIFFs. Previously, in order to upload data into Geodesignhub as a evaluation map, you would have to convert from GeoTIFF to a vector format: GeoJSON and then upload it.
However, we have enabled the ability to link externally hosted rasters as evaluation or impact maps. The rasters need to be hosted externally outside of Geodesignhub, symbolized appropriately and made available as a WMS layer. Once this is done the Raster file needs to be linked to the appropriate system as a “External Evaluation” so that they are available in Geodesignhub user interface. There is one caveat: When you link externally hosted rasters as evaluations, there are no impact calculations performed on them inside Geodesignhub. The impact calculations must be done externally and the generated impacts raster or vector must be linked as “Externally Linked Impacts” on Geodesignhub.
Take a look at the Linking External Models and data article to know more.