DEVELOPMENT OF A SYMBOL CATALOGUE APPLICATION TOOL FOR EFFICIENT COMPILATION OF PAPER CHARTS INTO ELECTRONIC NAVIGATIONAL CHARTS

Abstract

Electronic Navigational Chart (ENC) is a new hydrographic product recognized by international marine organizations as the equivalent of the traditional paper chart designed for use in Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) onboard ships. Data acquisition and updating are time-consuming and very cost-effective processes. As a result, there is inadequate coverage of ENCs over the world. However, paper charts are still used with sufficient coverage. Therefore, if ENCs could be compiled using existing paper charts, it would be more productive. Nowadays, there are different software packages to produce ENCs. There are some differences in performance and available operations among those. However, the technology has been evolving and the ENC production processes are being updated even at that moment. When producing ENCs using existing paper charts, intense focus should be given for many factors such as topology, product specification, selection of symbols, and validation. The purpose of this study was to encounter problems that occur with the production of ENCs using paper charts. First, the ENC product for Galle Harbour was produced utilizing the paper chart following the IHO S-57 standard, known as the transfer standard for digital hydrographic data using CARIS S-57 Composer. ENC symbology is different from paper chart symbology. Therefore, when assigning symbols to the ENC product, the correct attribute values for Select/ Object attribute dialog box should be filled. Otherwise, incorrect ENC symbols will appear and cause to mislead mariners. Then considering the difficulties in symbol assigning through the compilation process, a new external tool was introduced to overcome those difficulties.