ENC Bathymetry Plotter Product Release

The contouring process is based on a shoal-biased Nautical Elevation Model and creates contour lines that have a smooth appearance and do not require any further generalization. Moreover, ENC Bathymetry Plotter supports the creation of selected soundings at configurable density. This product can be used to improve ENC data irrespective of the type of ENC production system in use by a particular HO.

In addition ENC Bathymetry Plotter is the ideal tool to support the recent recommendation from IHO. IHO suggests that HOs should “increase the resolution of bathymetric contour lines within ENCs” in order to improve ENC Data Quality.

In the future S-100 is definitely the right way to go. It will eventually sort out many current issues of ENC data and its use on board. However, S-100 will need quite some time until the data itself and type approved ECDIS capable of handling such data will be available. Meanwhile systems that have been developed and type approved according to the standards currently in force are getting widely available as the ECDIS carriage requirement affects the majority of SOLAS vessels by 2018. In our opinion industry and HOs should help as much as possible to increase the usability of ECDIS/ENCs that are already in place today.