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Blue Kenue enhancements from 2014 to 2019

Barton, Alan J.

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26th Annual Telemac-Mascaret Users Conference, 2019-10-17

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 Blue Kenue enhancements from 2014 to 2019
Alan J. Barton
Ocean, Coastal and River Engineering (NRC-OCRE)
National Research Council Canada (NRC)
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
[email protected]

Abstract—Blue Kenue® has been under development for about

20 years, and provides a framework for pre-processing, post-
processing and visualization of hydrodynamic model data. The
National Research Council Canada makes this software freely
available for use by the open TELEMAC-MASCARET user
community and benefits significantly from the knowledge that
the community shares. The paper will briefly describe some of
the key changes to Blue Kenue that have been implemented over
the last 5 years (such as how attributes are improving, how
internal organization is changing and which new features have
been added) and will provide some initial thoughts about
potential future Blue Kenue enhancements (such as improved
data analytics and additional modelling support for ice-
hydrodynamics, microplastics and/or oil). The paper is intended
to help be a starting point to identify needs and priorities for
future development.
Blue Kenue’s conceptual predecessor was named HYDA
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Canadian Hydrological Model Stewardship (CHyMS)
This paper briefly describes Blue Kenue’s origin, the new
Blue Kenue development environment, some ways that the The original CHyMS server started to become operational
new environment is helping inform the development efforts, in November 2011. In 2014, a major upgrade was performed
and a few yearly examples of Blue Kenue additions since 2014 that addressed a number of security related issues. The original
to help understand where Blue Kenue is now. The paper CHyMS proposal can be found on CHyMS itself (in the Public
concludes by describing three possible Blue Kenue future Download Area). In essence, the proposal called for creation
development directions. of a safe haven for Canadian hydrological models. A number
of Canadian supporters were involved; including the Canadian
II. BLUE KENUE ORIGIN STORY Society for Hydrological Sciences. But how does CHyMS
relate to Blue Kenue? Well, NRC also offers Green Kenue for
Originally conceived by the Canadian Hydraulics Centre
free to the hydrological community. Therefore, Green Kenue
(CHC) of the National Research Council Canada in 1991,
developments and leading-edge installers were decided to be
HYDA was designed to provide a single consistent user
placed onto CHyMS for that community. And since the
interface and database for collection, preparation, and analysis
underlying technology behind Green Kenue overlaps with the
of hydro-numerical model data. Through use of powerful 3D
underlying technology for Blue Kenue, both applications and
visualization HYDA was designed to provide a real time
the underlying technology made their way onto CHyMS.
virtual environment for modellers regardless of simulation
Therefore, CHyMS plays a key role in the development of
methodology. HYDA’s solver neutral database architecture
Blue Kenue.
allowed for easy interchange of data between different models.
In 1994 CHC (then known as IMD’s Hydraulics Laboratory) B. What services does CHyMS offer in 2019?
entered into a collaborative agreement to commercialize and CHyMS has a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
further the development of HYDA technology. The result of webpage that is, co-incidentally, frequently updated. When
this collaboration was the commercial HYDA version 3.2. read sequentially the FAQ offers answers to a broad number
Then, in 1997, CHC stopped supporting HYDA development of questions, including what services are currently offered. In
in favour of the technology underlying Blue Kenue. 2019, CHyMS offers the Blue Kenue community the Public
III. BLUE KENUE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT Download Area for sharing. This sharing space is where NRC
places its alpha and beta versions of Blue Kenue, among other
Before 2014, Blue Kenue developers were using a version things.
control system called Microsoft Visual Source Safe. In 2019,
developers now rely on an online server called CHyMS; offering CHyMS also hosts both private and more open projects.
version control as one of its services. Each project has been created with specific people in mind.
Each project has tickets, version control, reporting, Kanban,
and email reminders (if configured). In addition to per project
 XXVIth Telemac & Mascaret User Club Toulouse, FR, 16-17 October, 2019

information, cross-project reporting is offered to a person for

those projects in which they have been granted access. Such
reporting helps inform decision makers.
CHyMS is also a place for communities to come together;
such as the Green Kenue Community and the pyEnSim
Community. There is also a Blue Kenue Community on
CHyMS, however, that mainly directs people to the
OpenTelemac forum [2]. These CHyMS communities will
expand depending on the specific community preferences.
C. How do Blue Kenue developers use CHyMS in 2019?
There are 4 main CHyMS services that Blue Kenue
developers use: (i) CHyMS Public Download Area, (ii)
CHyMS Project Hosting, (iii) CHyMS Gentle Reminder
Email Service, and (iv) CHyMS Kanban.
The left (right) column shows tickets that have not been agreed (have
The CHyMS Public Download Area is a web page on been agreed) to be worked on. There are 8 locations for a ticket’s
CHyMS that provides links to files such as: fact sheets, information to appear (the 8th is closed). A ticket appears in a location
executables, data files, tutorials, presentations, and videos based on its state; such as “Accepted”. More details are available in the
amongst other things. These freely shared items are created by CHyMS FAQ [3].
NRC and by other people and organizations that are also
is used by many other dlls and executables (exes) developed
willing to share.
by NRC-OCRE. For example, both Blue Kenue and Green
The CHyMS Project Hosting service offers a way for Kenue are executables that use the EnSimCore dll. The
source code to be version controlled, tickets to be created, wiki primary focus of the internal NRC-OCRE project is on: (i)
pages to be shared, timelines to be viewed and other helpful improving attribute implementation, (ii) performing many
things that most development projects might expect. One of code reviews to collect and describe potential errors, defects
the projects associated with Blue Kenue and hosted on and faults, (iii) holding internal EnSim related discussions, and
CHyMS in 2019 is called “EnSim Developer Stewardship (iv) providing a small amount of time to fix a few external
Project”. This project is a large internally funded NRC project issues raised on the OpenTelemac forum. However, this
with specific goals and deliverables. A more detailed internal project is not about building new features nor about
description follows in the next section. addressing large amounts of technical debt left by other
projects. Those things (and more) would be addressed under
The CHyMS Gentle Reminder Email Service is performed their own respective project(s).
once per week. Each Monday morning CHyMS will collect all
time-sensitive tickets across all hosted projects and will group Most of the known work is summarized (numerically) in
the tickets by owner. CHyMS will then sort each person’s the following table based on information stored on NRC’s
owned tickets by due date and send the sorted time-sensitive CHyMS server. Ideally, each piece of known work is fully
information to the person. In this way, a person only receives described in its own ticket such that there is a one-to-one
one email for all time-sensitive tickets that they may have mapping between known work and CHyMS tickets. It is also
open. This helps to keep on top of work with a deadline. important that each ticket is as unambiguous as possible so that
completed work means that an open ticket may be closed. A
The CHyMS Kanban is one way to visually represent a review of all 394 tickets was performed in order to classify
TODO list. This visual list typically comprises work, such as each ticket into one of four work directions. The 2 columns
action items, bug fix descriptions, new features, etc. Each of “open” and “closed” count (at a high-level) the number of
these items is called a ticket. Such tickets may have comments tickets that are either still to be performed (open – new,
such as status updates, attached files, images such as screen
snapshots or links to other issues encountered. Each ticket also
has attributes associated with it. These attributes can be BLUE KENUE (AND OTHERS) KNOWN-WORK SUMMARY
customized. The CHyMS Kanban displays information about
a few of the available ticket attributes and when a key attribute Work
Counts for Tickets in Project on CHyMS [3]
called “status” is changed, then the ticket automatically moves Direction Open Closed
“Growth”
Calculated
(Residual) (Residual) Strategy
to another location in the Kanban. More details such as best
Strategic
practices for how to use the CHyMS Kanban are in the (large)
85 (-17.5) 23 (8.0) -25.5 2
CHyMS FAQ. New Feature
22 (45.5) 12 (19.0) 26.5 3
(small)
IV. KNOWN WORK OVERVIEW Proactive
113 (-45.5) 38 (-7.0) -38.5 1
Maintenance
The EnSim Developer Stewardship Project is a large NRC-
Reactive
OCRE internally funded project that is primarily about 48 (19.5) 46 (-15.0) 34.5 4
Maintenance
refactoring the deepest part of Blue Kenue called EnSimCore.
Total (394) 270 124
This part of Blue Kenue is a dynamic linked library (dll) that
 XXVIth Telemac & Mascaret User Club Toulouse, FR, 16-17 October, 2019

assigned, backlogged, accepted, waiting, under review) or A more careful analysis would need to be carried out to
completed (closed – fixed, duplicate, will not fix, etc). improve the accuracy of that year’s 32 bit and 64 bit counts
(top 2 rows values). In any case, the general trend, as would
For example, from the table we can see that 48 tickets are be expected, is that 32 bit versions of Blue Kenue are not being
open in the reactive maintenance work direction. In other downloaded as often as their 64 bit counterparts. What is
words, there are 48 (smallish) things that people have noticed surprising, however, is the fact that the 32 bit versions are not
about Blue Kenue (or its technological relatives) that would be zero; there are still a couple of hundred downloads.
good to fix and/or modify. There are a total of 270 possible
open work items to consider during the decision process of V. TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
asking the question “What should be worked on now?” and a
further 124 work items have been completed that do not need Blue Kenue is built on top of a number of libraries; similar
to be considered. In addition, a residual has been computed to Green Kenue, ECDE and others. The technology is mainly
and placed in parenthesis in the table. For the reactive written in the C++ language (some parts are in Fortran and,
maintenance work direction, the residual is 19.5, meaning that exceptionally, pyEnSim allows the underlying technology to
this work direction has about 20 fewer tickets than the average be exposed via the python language). This means that Blue
work direction (there are 4 work directions in the table). In Kenue needs to be fully compiled. Alternative language design
other words, all tickets having the same weight implies that approaches include, among others, interpreted languages, such
this work direction is performing well as compared to the other as python, perl, or scripting languages such as bat, bash,
work directions. Carrying the analysis of the residuals further, bourne, etc., or interpret-compile hybrids, such as javascript.
since we do not (yet) have trend information, we can see that The underlying technology relies on the OpenGL library to
the difference between the open and closed residuals may provide all rendering functionality while application
provide a sense of how each work direction has grown under framework, menus, dialogs etc. are implemented via the
the assumption that a ticket may belong to any of the 4 work Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) library.
directions with equal probability. A quick calculation may then Creating an installer for Blue Kenue means that over
provide an answer to the aforementioned question; and in our 300,000 lines of code are selectively combined together in a
case, following the logic to its conclusion means that we meaningful way via a number of automatic and manual steps.
should focus on the proactive work direction in order to lower Compilation means that one C++ source code file (*.cpp) is
the work in that area. used to create one object file (*.o) and a set of object files are
The flaw in this type of numerical analysis (automated or combined to make a static (*.lib) or dynamic (*.dll) library.
not), of course, is that all tickets are not equal weight for users Some object files and some of the static libraries are then
of Blue Kenue and some users place more importance on some linked together to make an executable (*.exe). The dlls are
things than other users; depending on which task they are loaded into memory only when they are used at runtime. In
working. Some types of observed faults should certainly be other words, for example, when a menu item in Blue Kenue is
resolved much more quickly compared against others. And
some types of new features should not wait forever to get
implemented. All of this to posit that funding, available
developer time, developer expertise and shared user needs all
jointly play a large role in the future success of Blue Kenue.
So, let’s all do our best to continue Blue Kenue’s success.
One measure of success for Blue Kenue is whether the
installer is continuing to be downloaded. The following table
shows the download counts in the last 5 years and more. From
the table, it seems like 2018 was a very prolific year; however,
there may be some data error due various internal changes [6].

BLUE KENUE DOWNLOAD COUNTS (GRAND TOTAL: 15,044)

Pre- 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019a

[6]
2537 352 273 303 197 159 87
32 bit
[6]
1868 1126 1196 1648 1524 2137 952
64 bit
[3] Example demonstrating some of the complexity of the system (not intended
- - - 5 30 53 8 to be read in detail). Blue Kenue’s C++ code is organized into classes
32 bit
[3] (roughly 900). Each oval is one such class. Arrows go from one oval to
- - - 7 171 230 181 another; signifying that one class is a child of another class. This figure
64 bit
shows only those parent/child relationships directly related to one very core
Total 4405 1478 1469 1963 1922 2579 1228 class called CEnSimObject. In other words, this figure shows the connected
a. As of 16 August 2019 component in which CEnSimObject belongs. Such a figure is helpful for
developers learning the system architecture and for explanatory purposes.
 XXVIth Telemac & Mascaret User Club Toulouse, FR, 16-17 October, 2019

used then the underlying implementing (if from a dll) means of functionality to directly save to a *.pt2 file was added. A
that the dll would be loaded into memory and then invoked. number of related issues were also identified; some of which
The executable for Blue Kenue uses about 8 static and 12 were resolved.
dynamic libraries. The installer (*.msi) is then made by
combining the executable, the appropriate dynamic link Ticket #82 – Add double precision SELAFIN file support.
libraries, the documentation, the changelogs with a description A large effort was undertaken to add the required support. This
of new features, fixed bugs, experimental features, etc., and included, among many other things, modifying display
any required data files, such as base maps, databases, capabilities such as to add a “center of domain offset” and how
configuration files, etc. The resulting installer is also manually the mouse interacts with it.
edited after construction in order to allow installation within C. Examples created 2016 and now complete (5)
NRC’s new, and stricter, security environment. The installer is Ticket #103 – add “cell” drawing style to CRect2DScalar.
then placed onto CHyMS in the Public Download Area for A developer working on another application relying on parts
sharing. of Blue Kenue’s underlying technology submitted a patch file
VI. BLUE KENUE EXAMPLES to add a new small feature. The patch was applied, reviewed,
approved and committed to CHyMS. Subsequent Blue Kenue
Blue Kenue enhancements occur when a project funds releases have included the submitted patch with the new
development effort. One such project is called the EnSim display capability. In other words, a new drawing style has
Developer Stewardship Project and is hosted by CHyMS [3]. been added to Blue Kenue.
This NRC-OCRE internally funded project has almost 400
tickets in total; of which about 100 are related to completed D. Examples created 2017 and now complete (4)
work. The following subsections describe an assortment of the Ticket #106 – invalid y location for time series extraction.
tickets that were created in each of the years succeeding 2014 When extracting a time series at a point from a 2D spatial
until the year 2019 and for which the associated work is now object (Rect 2D Scalar), the resulting metadata for the point’s
(mid 2019) complete. CHyMS was instrumental in helping to y location was incorrect. In addition, the same fix was made
determine these examples through the creation of a wiki page for 3D spatial object (Rect 3D Scalar) time series extraction.
grouping tickets by year.
Ticket #114 – *.ts1 not properly displayed in 1D view. Blue
A. Examples created in 2014 and now complete (9) Kenue version 3.3.4 did not display the Time Series Type I file
Ticket #48 – AVI recording fails on 64 bit. One comment correctly. However, Blue Kenue version 3.9.5-beta displayed
on the ticket notes that the default encoder was Cinepak (that the time series as expected. In the future, the reporter of this
was not functioning properly) but that the other encoders do fault will check the most recent version of Blue Kenue and
behave correctly. The fix was to generalize the existing code only report a fault if it has not been fixed. Of course, this
so that only those encoders that are installed on a user’s assumes that a person is aware of where to find the most recent
machine (and for which Blue Kenue has implementations) will version (Available in the CHyMS Public Download Area [3]).
be presented within Blue Kenue for selection. This should stop E. Examples created 2018 and now complete (58)
situations where someone selects an encoder that they do not
have installed and therefore for which they cannot record The approval of a new NRC-OCRE internal project has
video. In other words, Blue Kenue has 4 implemented allowed almost 10 times as many tickets to be created during
encoders and only a subset of those will be able to be selected 2018. The resolution of which may have also occurred during
from within the Recording tab of the 2D View properties. For 2019 along with other tickets that had been created in previous
example, on one development machine there are 7 unusable years. A few of the 58 tickets created in 2018 include:
(by Blue Kenue) installed codecs and 3 usable (by Blue Ticket #180 – Create AAttributeSet. Pull out the attribute
Kenue) installed codecs. related functionality from the class hierarchy and localize it.
Ticket #65 – Time series tools not respecting missing data. The reason is to provide more consistency in dealing with
In particular, computation of flow duration curves, cumulative multiple attributes; including robustness improvements and in
sums, and integrals were reported to be not respecting the the long term, easing introduction of attribute-related new
missing data value. Also of note, was the computation of functionality along with some performance gains due to
distributions and performance statistics. The fix was to use a localized memory. Historically, this ticket was motivated by
recently generalized CAttributeSet class which was used in observed faults in a different application that, upon inspection
many more places that described in this ticket. In other words, resulting in the EnSim Developer Stewardship project being
a lot of proactive maintenance was also involved in the proposed to and funded by NRC-OCRE. In addition,
resolution. The full and complete resolution touches many historically, Blue Kenue only had one attribute and over time
aspects of the 900 classes and is still a work in progress. multiple attributes were slowly added on an as-needed basis to
the various data related classes. The work involved in this
B. Examples created 2015 and now complete (5) ticket was very detail oriented and involved reviewing
Ticket #78 – Cannot save points as (*.pt2). In other words, hundreds of lines of C++ code located in tens to hundreds of
creating a new XYZ point set using Blue Kenue resulted in classes depending on the specific aspect of the refactoring
creation of a new object in the workspace that could not be involved. As of mid-2019, the new AAttributeSet class has
directly saved as *.pt2. During the investigation, it was stabilized and the use of it by the subclasses in the hierarchy is
determined that there is a work around; however, the addition a work in progress; with, perhaps, 80% to 90% coverage. Of
 XXVIth Telemac & Mascaret User Club Toulouse, FR, 16-17 October, 2019

particular note is the use of 2 distinct types of attributes by one in order to reduce future maintenance costs in terms of writing
particular class in the hierarchy that will require a future new code and also for easing understanding existing code by
change to this new class in order to support that functionality. new developers.
For now, the specific customization is localized to the subclass
and has become a TODO note for future consideration. Ticket #209 – pull AEnSimWorkspaceObject out of
CEnSimObject. The work in this ticket will make it easier for
Ticket #218 – pull current attribute information out of developers to understand the coupling between the two
EnSimDrawableObject. With the newly created AAttributeSet aspects; now separated into two distinct classes. In the best
class, it became easier to localize current attribute selection case if the work was done well, a Blue Kenue user would not
information; further aiding developers and lowering future even know that something has changed with respect to how
maintenance costs due to reducing the number of touch points data objects interact with the work space. Further future
required to understand how current attributes are maintained. enhancements in this area are planned.
Ticket #214 – pull *m_TimeAttribute out of CTableObject. Ticket #210 – pull AEnSimContextMenu out of
With the new AAttributeSet class implemented, it was fairly CEnSimObject, CDecoObject, CStationsTableView and
straightforward to remove the no-longer needed code from this CEnSimView. Similar to #209, a Blue Kenue user would not
class. For this work, a search of the 1,545 files revealed 32 be able to notice that this deep internal work had occurred.
possible locations that needed to be reviewed and adjusted From a development point of view, this ticket removed
appropriately. redundant code in order to ease future maintenance and
understanding.

A popup for a point in a time series shown with values aligned

The new colour scale showing both category and value. Ticket #259 – popup does not align numbers. When
clicking on a point, line, cell, etc, the popup did not align the
Ticket #197 – CColourScale should display “oneof" values in a column. This was resolved in multiple places.
category and not value. After improvements to multiple
attributes a number of “ripple-effects” occurred; one of which Ticket #263 – attribute properties should also display
was the incorrect display of a “oneof” value instead of its attribute type in properties dialogs. 13 dialogs were modified
associated category. in order to display each attribute’s type (e.g. double) and to
display both the category value and index (e.g. ABC=123).
Ticket #236 – CColourScale dialog should display See also #236.
ABC=123 for “oneof" attributes. After improvements to
multiple attributes it also became much easier to add the new Ticket #275 – duplicated metadata is quietly overwritten.
feature of displaying both the category and the associated Metadata handling improvements are slowly starting to be
value; making Blue Kenue slightly easier to use operationally. made now that multiple attribute improvements have
stabilized. In this case, when the same metadata is used more
Ticket #249 – default colour scale does not work for than once in a data file then a warning is displayed and the
ATR_INTEGER. For example, if an integer attribute had ability to select which value to use is presented.
values 1 to 6 then 10 intervals could not be created; causing a
fault. This ticket resolved that issue.
Ticket #186 – Modernize code that starts a thread. This
work is related to making the source code easier for developers
to use and enhance with new features. Historically, the set of
lines of code to start a thread were all copy and pasted
including the associated switch statement on all possible
return states. Now a new function at the root of the class
hierarchy has been added in order to localize the functionality
 XXVIth Telemac & Mascaret User Club Toulouse, FR, 16-17 October, 2019

XYZ file has been loaded into the Workspace and inspected
within a 2D View. Note that Blue Kenue has many types of
point set files; here we added functionality specifically for the
XYZ Point Set object containing 1 frame of data. General
Point Sets or Parcel Sets possibly containing multiple data
frames may be considered in the future. Also note that Blue
Kenue has its own native XYZ Point Set file format that differs
from other XYZ formats due to the addition of a more detailed
header section before the data section of the file.

AVAILABLE BLUE KENUE REDUCTIONS FOR TOOLS -> MAP FILE(S)…

Selected
Available Reductions based File type that
Object in the
on the Selected Object can be selected
Workspace
 Assign all DEMs  *.dem
 Sum all Rect 2D Scalars  *.r2s
10 examples of creating simple new geometries in Blue Kenue  Average all Rect 2D Scalars  *.r2s
Rect 2D Scalar
(some are scaled and/or rotated) architecture  Sum all grib files  *.grib, *.grib2
 Average all grib files  *.grib, *.grib2
Ticket #243 – Add new functionality to create circle and  More in Green Kenue  *.fst, etc.
rectangle 2-d line sets. The ticket’s description proposed to XYZ Point Set  Append all XYZ files  *.xyz
add new functionality to be able to create a circle with a
specified radius and origin. During review, the request was Ticket #334 – Tools -> Map File(s). Is a larger piece of new
seen to be generalizable to points, lines, triangles, squares, functionality now available in Blue Kenue. It will likely take
pentagons, and, in general, scalable and rotatable n-gons years before all possibilities are completed and made available
(circles are n-gons with large n and ellipses are scaled circles). to the community. The main idea of this new feature was
F. Examples created in first half of 2019 and complete (12) inspired by the already existing Map Object functionality
within Blue Kenue, where one object is selected in the
Ticket #337 – display time in a consistent user readable
workspace and then one other object is mapped onto it. One
string. The time is presented in slightly differing ways
drawback of this approach happens when we have a large
throughout Blue Kenue. The work in the ticket was to find and
number of mappings that we need to perform because we need
resolve the differences. It was found that 34 different locations
to load the files into the workspace and then map one object at
needed to become localized to one function; that was
a time onto the object of interest. Thus was born the idea of
subsequently enhanced, thus propagating the enhancements to
Map File(s) where we start by selecting one object in the
all 34 locations.
workspace but then we don’t map one loaded object but we
instead directly map one or more files containing data. As a
matter of terminology, since there may be more than one file
that is being selected and since we are mapping down to one
selected object, we can call this operation a “reduction”. There
are currently 6 available reduction methods (see table above)
within Blue Kenue.
The first reduction method, interestingly, was motivated by
a need within another application called Green Kenue – a
hydrology oriented software that relies on a shared underlying
technology with Blue Kenue. In that first motivating example,
the idea was to summarize the mean precipitation over an area
of interest as collected from about a year’s worth of
precipitation data (about 1,200 files stored in grib format). In
Swapping X and Y in an XYZ Point Set object (lat/lon vs. lon/lat) this case, a Rect 2D Scalar was created via Green Kenue’s grid
generation functionality to cover the area of interest (all “data”
Ticket #408 – Swap attributes in an XYZ Point Set. XYZ was initially set to 0mm). Then the empty grid was selected in
Files contain 3 columns of data. Different software the workspace and the “Average all grib files” reduction was
applications create these files in different ways; some use performed in order to summarize the years’ worth of data in
space to delimit the columns, some use comma, some use the grid.
semicolon etc. In addition, there may or may not exist a first
line containing column names. Therefore, Blue Kenue has no An example relevant to pre-processing of data for input to
way to determine if latitude (or longitude) will be in the first TELEMAC using Blue Kenue has since been implemented. In
column (called X) or the second column (called Y). A new this case, a user was interested in developing a digital
menu item was created (Edit -> Point Set -> Swap X and Y) to elevation model combining multiple tiles of high resolution
let the Blue Kenue user decide what should be done after an Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data over a region of
 XXVIth Telemac & Mascaret User Club Toulouse, FR, 16-17 October, 2019

system called LaTeX [5]. These new files will be managed

through CHyMS [3]. Once the migration process has
completed then the LaTeX files will be updated to bring them
closer to the current Blue Kenue features. Such placement
under version control (in CHyMS) may help to more easily
keep the information aligned in the future.
For example, Blue Kenue Community members interested
in participating in keeping the user manual updated could
request access to CHyMS (in 2020) and then request changes
to the LaTeX files by submitting a patch file. The patch file
would then be reviewed and considered to be applied.
Examples of changes via patch files could be: (i) to fix small
typos, (ii) to correct processes, or (iii) to add large paragraphs
of helpful background and/or clarifying information. The idea
is for the patches to be curated and for those that pass
631 XYZ files appended onto an XYZ Point Set object using Map File(s) inspection to be applied to the reference manual. Proper
(In this case, each XYZ file is LiDAR topographic data [7]) acknowledgement would also be included in the subsequent
Blue Kenue release.
interest in New Brunswick, on the east coast of Canada. The
user collected 632 topographic files and converted each of C. Micro-plastic particles in the Marine Environment
them to XYZ format. Blue Kenue was used to load one of the Modern numerical models can be effective in predicting
XYZ files; which was then selected in the workspace and Map the movement and fate of particles in oceans and waterways,
File(s) was used to append all of the other 631 files onto the and are routinely applied in other water quality contexts. Blue
selected XYZ Point Set object. The result was one XYZ Point Kenue is proposed to aid research (where appropriate) in: (i)
Set object in the Blue Kenue workspace containing points developing techniques for simulating the behaviour and
from all 632 XYZ files. In addition, Blue Kenue did 2 more transport of micro-plastics across a broad range of spatial and
things; first it created a new table object containing a list of all temporal scales of relevance; (ii) characterizing particle
files that were used during the reduction operation and added properties and degradation processes in diverse aquatic
it as a child of the selected object in the workspace, and environments; (iii) helping to fill gaps in the availability of
second, some new metadata was added onto the object in order field observations for input to, and verification of numerical
to record which reduction operation was performed, models; and (iv) suitability for other challenges in marine and
approximately how long it took and how many files were freshwater environments such as debris transport and
selected by the user to map. This additional information may accumulation, ice jams and related flooding in rivers, oil spill
then be used in the future to help trace the origin of the simulation and emergency response, ecological or agent-based
processing and to support modelling quality assurance / modelling
control.
For example, Blue Kenue enhancements may include new
VII. POTENTIAL FUTURE BLUE KENUE WORK components for: (i) analysis of remote sensing data to estimate
This section describes a few possible future activities micro-plastic concentrations in waterbodies; (ii) integration of
related to Blue Kenue that may be of direct interest to the Blue numerical simulation results of hydrodynamics in lakes,
Kenue community of users. Contributions, collaborations rivers, estuaries and oceans, and (iii) prediction of micro-
and/or contracts are very much welcome at any time. plastic transport, dispersion, degradation and accumulation.

A. Additional Reductions for Map File(s)… D. Tool(s) to Ease Preparation of Environmental Inputs
More reduction methods are certainly possible, either as An ongoing new addition to TELEMAC2D is a river ice
additions to the current set of reductions for the 2 previously module named KHIONE. This module is to simulate main
mentioned objects, or as reductions on new objects depending river ice processes including frazil ice formation and transport,
on the needs of the Blue Kenue users. For example, merging border and dynamic ice and ice jam and its impact on river
multiple *.slf files (containing a single frame or multiple surface elevation and potential flooding. Main inputs to
frames) may be of interest for some users. This may include KHIONE in addition to usual inputs to open water version of
preserving part of a model mesh and modifying another part TELEMAC2D are air and sky conditions as well as initial
and then merging them back together; or merging channel river temperature and frazil concentration. Blue Kenue can
meshes with regular meshes, among other things. This would currently visualize outputs of the existing version of KHIONE.
be a more direct methodology than the existing approach. It is, however, worth exploring how and if Blue Kenue can be
further developed to facilitate pre- and post-processing for
B. Blue Kenue Reference Manual Migration and Update TELEMAC2D river ice simulations.
The current manual [1] was last modified about 8 years ago For example, one possibility could be the development of
and used software call FrameMaker [4] for its production. The tools to ease the preparation of format compatible
last portion of 2019 will be used to migrate the existing environmental inputs. This includes automatic conversion of
information in this system to a new documentation preparation main data formats of climate models providing data such as
 XXVIth Telemac & Mascaret User Club Toulouse, FR, 16-17 October, 2019

cloud coverage, wind, precipitation, air temperature and REFERENCES

humidity. [1] Canadian Hydraulics Centre, National Research Council Canada
(September 2011). “Blue Kenue Reference Manual”
CONCLUSIONS [2] TELEMAC-MASCARET consortium (August 2019). “open
CHyMS is important within the context of possible future TELEMAC-MASCARET – The mathematically superior suite of solvers
Blue Kenue developments because it allows more than one – forum”. Retrieved from http://www.opentelemac.org
developer to work on the code at a time and also helps [3] Ocean, Coastal and River Engineering, National Research Council
Canada (August 2019). “Canadian Hydrological Model Stewardship
transition (i.e. handing over) of code from one person to Frequently Asked Questions”. Retrieved from https://chyms.nrc.gc.ca
another during times of change. CHyMS is also very [4] Wikipedia® (August 2019). “Adobe FrameMaker”. Retrieved from
beneficial from the point of view of a communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_FrameMaker
mechanism between developers and users and/or to [5] LaTeX3 Project (August 2019). “The LaTeX Project”. Retrieved from
management and/or other sources of funding for new features https://www.latex-project.org/
and maintenance activities. CHyMS significantly helps to [6] National Research Council Canada (August 2019), “Blue Kenue:
organize and stay on top of the most pressing issues facing software tool for hydraulic modellers”. Retrieved from
Blue Kenue, Green Kenue, pyEnSim and ECDE along with https://nrc.canada.ca
continuing to keep historical applications such as [7] Province of New Brunswick, Canada (October 2019), “GeoNB Data
AnemoScope, MarKE and others up-to-date with the latest Catalogue”. From http://www.snb.ca/geonb1/e/DC/catalogue-E.asp
improvements to the shared underlying technology.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
All OpenTelemac forum users are thanked for taking their
time to carefully explain any Blue Kenue issues they have
encountered. They are also thanked for their patience. The
NRC-OCRE is thanked for their sponsorship of this work over
the past years. All NRC-OCRE past and present employees are
thanked for their helpful feedback present in many CHyMS
tickets. Martin Serrer is thanked for all of the work he has put
into Blue Kenue over the years. I hope that he is now enjoying
his well-earned retirement. Ivana Vouk is thanked for the need
of new Green Kenue functionality that led to my design of the
new Map File(s) functionality. Sean Ferguson is thanked for
sharing 632 LiDAR datasets in XYZ format with me. Parishat
Tanakoor is thanked for his excellent work migrating and
helping to update the Blue and Green Kenue User Manuals
that will make their way into future installers. Vahid Pilechi is
thanked for this ideas in the section on possible Blue Kenue
and micro-plastics related future directions and Hossein
Babaei is thanked for his ideas in the section related to Blue
Kenue and KHIONE. The anonymous reviewer is thanked for
their time spent reading and commenting on the first submitted
version of this paper. And lastly, Enda Murphy is thanked for
his insightful internal review comments for both the initial and
final submissions of this paper.