As
digital technology moves forward at an ever-increasing speed, a bewildering
array of chart products are out in the consumer marketplace, with
more coming. Now, in a major development, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will soon, if it hasn’t done
so by presstime, make its full suite of 970 raster electronic charts
of U.S. waters available free to the public via the Internet.
Up until now, boaters with navigation software had to purchase their
charts from a vendor or pay a vendor for a subscription to a chart
updating service. Now all of the charts, plus weekly “patches”
of chart updates, can be downloaded from NOAA at no cost. The site
is www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov.
The change has come about following the expiration of an exclusive
agreement between NOAA and Maptech, a private company that co-developed
the electronic chart format with the federal agency. Maptech’s
Cooperative Research and Development Agreement ended in June, freeing
up NOAA to release electronic raster charts to the public since it
co-owns the resulting format and files.
The new free charts must be downloaded into a navigational software
program that runs on a personal computer. The standard computer format
co-developed by Maptech and NOAA is called BSB and all navigational
software is compatible with BSB, such as programs sold by Nobletec,
Raymarine, Fugawi and Maptech. They are all Windows-based.
With the Maptech exclusive now ended, it’s likely new software
and chart product developers will get into the act and offer even
more products for the lucrative boating market. NOAA is putting in
place technical standards to govern quality control of any new products
coming out.
But before you have visions of hitting “print” on your
computer and getting a high resolution quality chart, boaters need
to understand the terms “raster” and “vector”
charts. A raster chart is essentially a snapshot of a paper chart,
composed of a bunch of dots, like a newspaper photo. While the resolution
is not good enough for printing, it’s fine for a computer program
and screen display. NOAA is enhancing the raster charts with geo-referencing
so that a navigational program that is connected to a GPS can place
an icon of the owner’s boat onto the chart in its correct position.
Raster charts are “flat” and the data contained on the
chart cannot be manipulated. Vector charts, on the other hand, are
compiled with layers of chart data in digital format that can be manipulated.
These are commonly called Electronic Navigation Charts, or ENCs, and
right now only about 506 out of 970 NOAA charts have been converted
to vector format. It will take about another five years to complete
the work.
“We’ve completed all the 40 major ports and are about
70% done with interconnecting waterways,” said Capt. Jim Gardner,
Chief of NOAA’s Marine Chart Division. The work was prioritized
by the most heavily used waterways, he said.
ENCs require higher-end equipment to run, such as those used by commercial
ships. The worldwide Electronic Chart and Data Information System
(ECDIS) is the international standard for electronic charting on commercial
vessels. ENCs now meet the chart carriage requirements of ships. The
506 ENCs already completed are also available to download into a system
for free.
But what about the consumer grade chartplotters filling the shelves
of marine stores? These are GPS receivers combined with chart displays
on a black and white or color screen. Can raster charts be downloaded
and used in GPS chartplotters sold by Garmin, Navionics, Magellan
or Lowrance?
“Chartplotters are somewhat of a different beast,” said
Gardner. The short answer is no. According to Gardner, these companies
took NOAA raster charts, scanned them and digitized them to build
their own formats, which are not the standard BSB format. They can
be customized with added information, such as the location of marinas.
But they are based on paper charts and mariners must buy the proprietary
chart disk that fits that particular plotter. For instance, Garmin
takes a product called Blue Chart that is not interchangeable among
different manufacturers. In addition, none of the digitized raster
charts meet the carriage requirements for commercial vessels.
However, the International Electro-Technical Commission is drafting
an international standard for consumer grade systems so eventually
these chart cards will be more standardized and able to be loaded
into PDAs and cell phones, many of which now include a GPS receiver.
Some of the higher-end systems display both raster charts and ENC
vector charts as well as integrate other equipment into the display
such as a fishfinder and radar.
And what of the old standby, the paper chart? Gardner said they will
not disappear anytime soon as NOAA maintains its high quality lithograph
presses and sold half a million paper charts last year.
In addition, NOAA’s Print On Demand vendor, Ocean Grafix, sold
66,000 printed charts that are current to within the past week’s
U.S. Coast Guard Local Notices to Mariners. In fact, two West Marine
stores, San Diego and Ft. Lauderdale, have set up large-format printers
at their locations so customers can get an updated, freshly printed
chart on the spot.
— By Elaine Dickinson
©BOATU.S. MAGAZINE November 2005
