ELECTRONIC CHARTS - Vector

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"Electronic charts are not legal replacements for paper charts, and you must always have current and updated official paper charts on board and consult them frequently"

Vector Electronic Chart Producers

The privately owned producers of Vectorised Electronic Charts are as follows:-

Other formats of Vectorised Electronic Charts are as follows:-

Navionics

NMEA 1996 Best product awardWinners of the NMEA award in 1996 for best cartography, and the NMEA 1997 Best Product Award and now winners of many awards with their new Platinum charts.

Navionics is one of the first producers of Electronic Charts back in 1983 and since then NAVIONICS have equipped many naval ships, hydrographic vessels, and search and rescue boats for dozens of countries, along with tens of thousands of recreational and fishing boats.
Navionics professional staff of skilled cartographers and computer graphics experts take the most painstaking care in making sure that your electronic charts meet the highest standards of accuracy and precision.

NAVIONICS shows ALL the buoys and navigational aids. For example, there are over 7,000 navigational aids in NAVIONICS charts for the Gulf of Mexico and over 5,000 navigational aids in NAVIONICS charts for the Chesapeake Bay area alone!

NAVIONICS charts display all navigational aids because NAVIONICS updates all charts from Notices to Mariners and displays them precisely where they are on the paper charts. NAVIONICS takes information from the best scale chart of any area.

NAVIONICS leading edge seamless chart technology truly represents the world as it is, a single, seamless sphere. Navigators move from one detailed chart to another without changing scales. With NAVIONICS charts you avoid the ever-changing scales of paper charts that jump from one scale to another.

The NAVIONICS database has hundreds of layers available for storing different information types. Some NAVIONICS charts are made for coastal cruising or fishing and will not contain the large scale harbor charts. . In a particular area, there may be information from several overlaying charts of different scales, harbor and marina plans, and information from local cruising/fishing/diving clubs. Combine this with expert information from local marine electronics dealers, the local Coast Guard and Power Squadron, and local expert navigators, and you have a NAVIONICS electronic chart! NAVIONICS charts have all the information other types of charts have, plus are enhanced with extra detail so you always get more on-screen information with NAVIONICS than with any other type of electronic chart!
The Charts are distributed on various media including:-

Companies who supply Digimap compatible systems are:-

Companies who supply MicroChart compatible systems are:-

Companies who supply NavChart compatible systems are:-

Companies who supply EChart compatible systems are:-

Other companies who supply Navionics compatible systems for Macintosh computers are:-

Navionics Home Page

C-Map logo

C-MAP is the advanced cartridge-based cartography originally developed by C-MAP s.r.l., Italy.
C-MAP/USA, a subsidiary of C-MAP/ITALY, provides cartography for North, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Rim. A large number of the industry's electronic charting manufacturers have chosen C-MAP as the technology for their instruments.

C-MAP cartography is based on a precise digitizing process. Detailed local-area government charts are carefully chosen by navigational specialists to offer the best vantage points from which to navigate. Once the charts have been selected, Notice to Mariners corrections are applied. Then, the corrected charts are electronically transferred by skilled digitizers onto rugged EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) cartridges that have been designed specifically for the marine environment. Throughout the process, digitized charts are checked and rechecked for accuracy. The cartridges have been fashioned for speedy processing, seaworthiness, easy storage, and easy updating.
C-MAP has an extensive library of affordable, seaworthy cartridges. From the Mediterranean coast to Martha's Vineyard, from the East African coast to the West Coast of the United States, C-MAP covers the world.
C-MAP electronic charts are accurate digitized composites of all pertinent information from government charts. They're produced through structured encoding, which stores the data in user-selected layers that allow for less-cluttered video displays. In this way, you can access whatever information you want. You can call up coastlines, restrictions, depth contours, navigational aids, or other navigational data in any combinations when you need them. Other major features are:-

Thecharts are supplied in CF85 format cartridgesCF85, the newer and smaller C-Map CF95 NT cmap-ntor on CD in CM93 CM93

C-Map CF95 NT won the 1999 NMEA Best Electronic chart award

The CM93 database is intended for use on advanced electronic charting and navigation systems and an online update service is available via the internet or via Inmarsat. The format is also suitable for use on vessel tracking systems, port VTS as well military systems. Its format is based on the international IHO standards S52,S57 and DX90 and contains the S57 defined object classes. It is claimed to be a "topologically complete vector format" and is an SENC, not an ENC.

Companies who supply NT (CF-95 Technology) compatible systems include:-

Cetrek Instrument, Autopilot and Chart Plotter manufacturer. Chart plotters include the Chartnav 3400 (Mono LCD), 342(CRT), 343(8" screen), 343 colour(8" colour screen), 345 (10" TFT LCD chart plotter). The Cetrek 775 Chart-Pilot system combines the C-Map cartography with an autopilot. See Cetrek Web Site
Datamarine Visit Datamarine Web Site
Hummingbird Visit Hummingbird web site
Interphase . Visit Interphase Web Site
JRC Visit JRC web site
Leica MK30 (Colour LCD)
Magellan Hand-Held GPS Chart Plotters using the cartridge based charts. The Nav 6500 uses a 320x249 pixel display and the NAV 6000 is a handheld chart plotter with a 240x320 pixel screen and using the C-Map NT cartography. See Magellan home page for details
Raytheon/Autohelm Instrument, Autopilot and Chart Plotter manufacturer. These include the R70RC, RL 70RC, RL 72RC, RL 74RC, R80RC, Raychart 620, Raychart 611T(14" colour plotter). An add-on for the XX & RL9 radars is also available (Raychart 601XX)
Simrad. The Simrad CE30 Chart Sounder . See the home page of Kongsberg-Simrad
Si-Tex Sitex produce a range of Chart Plotters including the NA1000NT (LCD chart plotter using CF-95), NA6000NT (Mono LCD), NA8000NT (Mono CRT ), NA9000 (upgrades a radar to use charts) and the FISH-12II.See Sitex home page for more details.
Standard Horizon GPS Chart 400 (Mono LCD). Visit Standard Horizon Web Site
VDO Logic Map8, 8E Plus, 10, 10E Plus.
The VDO Logic Chart Plotter Map 10 Colour LCD (10" TFT 640x480 pixel VGA) plotter has an optional internal 10 channel GPS. The unit has 4 level grey scalling and control is via soft keys and easy on-screen instructions. 500 Waypoints, multiple routes etc. Visit VDO's Web Site
Vision The Vision Nav 07 is an LCD (7" diagonal 320x240 pixel) plotter using the C-Map NT cartography. It has an optional internal 10 channel GPS. The unit has 4 level grey scalling and control is via soft keys and easy on-screen instructions. 500 Waypoints, multiple routes etc.

Companies who supply NT (C-Cards/PCMCIA) PC based systems include:-

Informatique & Mer MaxSea Navigator. See Maxsea web site

Companies who supply CM93 compatible systems include:-

Morintech Navigation dKart Navigator - shipboard chart presentation software available in several versions for different ship categories. All versions are based on the ECDIS performance standard and handle electronic nautical chart data compliant to the IMO/IHO S-57 specification. See Morintech Web Site for more information
Informatique & Mer - MaxSea can use CM93 vector charts. See Maxsea Home Page

Companies who supply CF85 compatible systems include:-

For more information about C-Map visit the C-Map web site

Transas

The Transas database is claimed to comprise of over 2800 electronic charts providing world-wide coverage and has taken over five years to build this collection which is claimed to be growing at a reported rate of 60-80 charts per month. All Transas electronic charts are vector-digitised from paper charts produced principally by UK Hydrographic Office, NOAA and the Russian Hydrographic Service. Where an improved coverage is required Transas utilizes paper charts published by Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, France, South Korea and New Zealand. Charts included in the "in-house" database as well as those "in-service" are kept corrected to date by using the Notices to Mariners distributed by the various National Authorities. Strict quality control is exercised during the database production which is supervised by a team of 15 fully qualified Hydrographers.

Transas's claims the main benefits are:

Transas also produce their own Navigation software for the PC called

These come in a range of different configurations for various sizes of vessels

For more information about Transas visit theTransas web site

Other companies who supply Transas compatible systems include:-

Livechart B

'Livechart B' format was originally designed and developed by Livechart Ltd., an independent producer of Electronic Charts (i.e. independent of a Chart Plotter manufacturer). The earlier format (Livechart A which was used with PC Maritime's chart plotter called PC Wayplanner) is no longer produced. Livechart Ltd produced detailed charts of the European area as well as some large area ocean charts for other parts of the world. The chart database was purchased by Euronav Ltd. in 1996 (a producer of Chart plotter software) and they now maintain the database.

Companies who supply 'Livechart B' compatible systems are:-

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