{"id":1732,"date":"2014-03-18T08:47:39","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T12:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noaacoastsurvey.wordpress.com\/?p=1732"},"modified":"2014-03-18T08:47:39","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T12:47:39","slug":"catch-the-digital-wave-in-noaa-navigation-products-data4coasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nauticalcharts.noaa.gov\/updates\/catch-the-digital-wave-in-noaa-navigation-products-data4coasts\/","title":{"rendered":"Catch the digital wave in NOAA navigation products #Data4Coasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Navigation<\/a>
Navigation manager Kyle Ward explains some of Coast Survey’s new products at the Savannah Boat Show.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThis week, NOAA\u2019s National Ocean Service is inviting you to explore #Data4Coasts<\/a>\u00a0that NOS provides to the public, to researchers and decision makers, and to the many industries involved in coastal resilience and maritime commerce. Much of Coast Survey’s data for the coasts is easily accessible by downloading or by using a web map. Other products, like our beautiful printed nautical charts, are available for purchase \u2013 as they have been since the mid-1800s \u2013 from chart agents. <\/span>
\nWe’ve been making charts for a long time \u2013 and\u00a0we’ve never been more excited about it!\u00a0<\/span>A quickly evolving (r)evolution is transforming the way we plan voyages and navigate, and Coast Survey is reconstructing our nautical product line for the millions of boaters and commercial pilots who are catching the new digital wave.
\n
\nIMPROVING NAUTICAL CHARTS
\nKeeping paper charts more up-to-date
\n<\/i>Everyone recognizes the comfort of using paper charts. They are reliable, easy to use, and incredibly informative. They are undeniably beautiful. However, with the bulk printing process<\/a> we\u2019ve used for the last 150 years, paper charts were often out of date on the day you purchased them. Sometimes they were way <\/i>out of date, and you would have to spend hours manually applying critical updates. With the vast improvements in digital technology, we can now offer paper charts that are printed-on-demand<\/a> \u2013 delivered where and when you want them \u2012 with the critical corrections already incorporated into the charts.
\nImproving shoreline and feature accuracy
\n<\/i>The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey<\/a>, one of NOAA\u2019s predecessor organizations, established the geospatial foundation of America, with surveyors setting the grid, so to speak, by triangulating their way down the coasts and across the continent. Now we have GPS. We find that although the manual positioning was incredibly accurate for its time, remote sensing by NOAA LiDAR systems can produce a correction of 10 meters or more for feature positions on charts at the 1:15,000 scale. Those are vital corrections for precision navigation by vessels that can exceed a thousand feet long. The National Geodetic Survey\u2019s Remote Sensing Division<\/a> is flying the missions<\/a> and gathering the precise data that we apply to our charts, to improve chart accuracy and update the ever-changing coastline.
\nGETTING MORE NAVIGATION INFORMATION INTO BOATERS\u2019 HANDS
\n
\"Coast<\/a>
Coast Survey’s map-based interactive chart catalog makes it easy to find and download your pick of over a thousand charts.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nAdding free PDF charts to the product line
\n<\/i>Nearly 2.3 million charts were downloaded within 90 days of last autumn\u2019s beta release of NOAA\u2019s new free PDF nautical charts<\/a>. To us, that represents more than two million opportunities to avoid an accident at sea. So we decided to keep the thousand free PDFs as a permanent NOAA chart product. (Find and download your chart from Coast Survey\u2019s interactive chart catalog<\/a>.)
\nThe PDF charts are exact images of NOAA\u2019s traditional nautical charts. It\u2019s important to remember, though, that printing PDFs may alter a chart\u2019s scale, color, or legibility. Ships that are required to carry a navigational chart published by the National Ocean Service should obtain up-to-date printed charts from chart agents<\/a>.
\nProviding format choices for the United States Coast Pilot
\n<\/i>There are literally thousands of pages of navigation information that we can\u2019t fit on to the charts. Nine volumes of the United States Coast Pilot\u00ae<\/i><\/a> provide information on navigation regulations, facility locations, weather, and more \u2013 and now you have a choice of formats. If you need information for a specific bay or harbor, you might want to download a chapter. If you\u2019re planning a longer voyage, you may want to keep an entire volume handy \u2013\u00a0so you should order it from a print-on-demand chart agent<\/a>. Either way, with the U.S. Coast Pilot<\/i>, you\u2019ve got authoritative information.
\nMAKING DATA MORE ACCESSIBLE
\nMore forecast information from nowCOAST
\n<\/i>For the past 11 years, Coast Survey\u2019s nowCOAST<\/a>, a GIS-based web-mapping portal, has provided the coastal community with near-real-time surface observations, analyses, forecasts, model guidance, and selected warnings. Soon, nowCOAST will ask the public to test a new interactive map viewer that allows animation, and provides a suite of new \u201ctime-enabled\u201d web map services.
\n
\"NOAA<\/a>
NOAA ENC Online lets you see the ENC data without a specialized system.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nENC data available for viewing without a specialized system
\n<\/i>Coast Survey provides free electronic navigational charts (NOAA ENC\u00ae<\/a>) to the public, but you need a specialized chart display system to use ENCs for navigation. Coast Survey recently introduced NOAA ENC Online<\/a>, so you can view the data without the system. (IMMEDIATE CAVEAT FOR NAVIGATION: You still need a specialized display system to use the multi-layered functional data that makes ENCs so valuable.) Since NOAA ENC Online is web-based, there is nothing to download. Users can click on the web map and zoom to selected features or locations, to see the information contained in over a thousand ENCs of NOAA-charted waters.
\nENC data available in GIS\/CAD formats
\n<\/i>While NOAA ENC Online lets you see the charted data and use it as a basemap, ENC Direct to GIS<\/a> is a product for GIS experts who want to extract sets of features or themes for use in GIS analysis. Coast Survey has translated the electronic navigational chart data from S-57 format<\/a> (the standard set by the International Hydrographic Organization<\/a>) to a GIS-friendly format.
\nBUILDING ENCs FOR THE FUTURE
\nThe International Convention on the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) requires ships to carry to up-to-date nautical charts and publications for the intended voyage. Beginning in 2012, certain classes of vessels are required to use an Electronic Chart Display and Information System<\/a> (ECDIS). The adoption of ECDIS is on a transition schedule, under U.S. Coast Guard regulations for ships in U.S. waters. Coast Survey is aggressively enlarging our suite of over a thousand ENC charts, as indicated by the recent addition of ENCs for the St. Lawrence Seaway. Coast Survey also worked with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency<\/a> to make their digital Panama Canal charts available as ENCs.
\nWhy ENCs? They are the chart of the future, giving ships real-time navigation tools to avoid collisions and groundings. The navigation system software can continuously monitor the ship’s position relative to all of the features contained in the NOAA ENC, whether displayed or not, and sound alarms if it detects a hazardous situation. Similarly, the software can check that planned routes will provide safe passage for the vessel by checking for proximity to dangers and crossing areas with insufficient depth.
\nWHAT\u2019S NEXT?
\nMyNOAACharts app popularity leads to better charting service for private innovation
\n<\/i>As good as current electronic charting systems are, future possibilities hold even greater promise. While Coast Survey looks inward to build better ENCs, faster, we also look to the innovative power of private enterprise. We learned some productive lessons during a recent beta test of a limited (and very popular!) mobile app, MyNOAACharts<\/a>. Coast Survey is removing the app from the Google Play Store<\/a> on March 29, but cartographers are\u00a0already working on the next level of innovation in the private mobile app and chart plotter markets.\u00a0Our goal is to provide all mariners with access to the most updated charts and publications.
\nTile services coming to application developers
\n<\/i>Coast Survey is planning several initiatives to improve interfaces between charts and mobile apps. This summer, we plan to announce a new raster tile service that will make it easier for app developers to use NOAA charts in their products. By providing tilesets (both single chart and quilted) and metadata, we will bolster the new wave of digital charting services and products. And it\u2019s just the beginning\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, NOAA\u2019s National Ocean Service is inviting you to explore #Data4Coasts\u00a0that NOS provides to the public, to researchers and decision makers, and to the many industries involved in coastal resilience and maritime commerce. Much of Coast Survey’s data for the coasts is easily accessible by downloading or by using a web map. Other products, … <\/p>\n

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