July 16, 2005 05:49
ReeferJon Wrote:Usually, the hydrographic office / government of the country concerned. In the UK it's the UKHO. They chart about £15 a chart!
In Europe official maritime ENCs are either distributed by Primar or IC ENC via their official chart distributers. Unfortunately both have a tight encryption scheme to discourage copying (and tampering) with the data. To work with these ENCs the chart display software needs to be compatible with their licensing set-up that requires user codes, etc. I do hope that the wonderful GPSNavX team are willing to go through this effort.
The discusssion if taxpayers have to pay again for ENCs is presently going on with regard to ENC for inland waterways. As a first European country Austria has decided to distribute their Inland ENCs for free, see <http://www.doris.bmvit.gv.at/index.php?id=2513&L=0>. At this site you can also find links to free Inland ENCs from some other Danube countries. It looks like also Belgium is going to distribute the Inland ENCs for free and I keep my hope up for the Netherlands, but this has not been decided yet. Test data is however available at <http://www.risserver.nl/ENC/>
On the other hand Inland ENCs use an extended set of symbols. To see all the traffic signs and specific inland bouys and beacons, these need to be added to MacENC. Being involved in the standardisation of Inland ECDIS and a harmonisation effort with the US Corps of Army Engineers I would be happy to assist the GPSNavX/ MacENC team to do these extensions.
Best regards, Peter
Peter Kluytenaar
Serendipity UnLtd,
Veerkade 15, 3016 DE Rotterdam, the Netherlands
T. +31 10 4361954