The Electronic Chart of the Future

In FY 2003, we began our "Chart of the Future" an evolution of the Navigation Surface concept that also takes advantage of our expertise in visualization.

Image captured from the "GeoCoastPilot" showing approach to bridge in Portsmouth Harbor

We are taking a two-pronged approach at trying to define the electronic chart of the future. One track is an evolutionary approach to see how additional, non-standard layers (i.e. the navigation surface bathymetric grid, real-time tide information, etc.) can be added to existing electronic charts. This approach requires careful attention to present day standards and the very restrictive constraints of today's electronic charts. This work is being done in conjunction with the standards committees (represented by Center faculty member Lee Alexander) and the electronic chart manufacturers and is intended to provide short-term solutions for the need to see updated electronic charts. In concert with this evolutionary development we also have embarked on a revolutionary development with researchers in our Visualization Lab, exploring new paradigms in electronic chart design, unconstrained by existing standards or concepts. This exercise is taking full advantage of the psychology-based human-computer interaction expertise of our visualization researchers to explore optimal designs for displays, the role of 3-D, flow-visualization, stereo, multiple windows, etc. From this research we hope to establish a new approach to electronic charts that will set the standards for the future. Throughout this project (both the evolutionary and revolutionary efforts) our experienced NOAA mariners are playing a key role, ensuring that everything that is developed will be useful and functional.

Evolutionary

Electronic Chart Display Information System (ECDIS) is no longer a static display of primarily chart-related information. Instead, it has evolved into a decision-support system capable of providing predicted, forecast, and real-time information. To do so, Electronic Nautical Chart (ENC) data is being expanded to include both "vertical and time" dimensions. Using ENC data produced from high-density hydrographic surveys (e.g., multibeam sonar), a tidal value can be applied to ENC depth areas or contours at decimeter intervals. The ENC data is not changed, only the display of safe/unsafe water depending on under-keel clearance of the vessel (a parameter set by ECDIS user) or changes in tide/water levels (e.g., predicted or real-time values).

Lee Alexander is leading our effort to support current ECDIS and ENC's with new data layers through his work with two ENC production software companies (CARIS and SevenCs). The development process involves three phases: 1) incorporation of high-density depth information (based on Navigation Surface – discussed above) into existing IHO S-57 ENC data; 2) development of a "Tide Aware" ENC Product Specification," and; 3) integration of predicted, forecast, and real-time water level information services transmitted via a shore-based AIS communications broadcast. Based on Kurt Schwehr's work, tidal information is provided in XML format and transmitted via AIS Base Stations operated by USCG. This includes water level information from NOAA's Physical Oceanographic Real-time System (PORTS) and the Tidal Constituent and Residual Interpolation (TCARI) method. Other time-varying information also being investigated includes current flow, sea ice coverage, and weather information. The results of this research are being implemented into S-57 ENC datasets, and will help define the new ENC Product Specification under the future IHO Geospatial Data Standard (S-100.)

This past year, the Center participated in the Elizabeth River Demonstration Project held in conjunction with the 2007 US Hydro Conference in Norfolk, VA. At the U.S. Hydro 2007 Conference Kurt Schwehr demonstrated the "Tide Aware ENC" project. The software combines the Pydro hydrographic software with TCARI for finite element modeling of water surfaces. Real time water levels are delivered via internet based automatic identification system (I-AIS) messages pulled from the NOAA CO-OPS/PORTS database. Schwehr also worked with NOAA/OCS-employees Barry Gallagher, Jack Riley, and Rick Brennan on the integration of the AIS messages and tuning of the Pydro and TCARI software for real-time water level calculations and display. TCARI was sped up by an order of magnitude by Schwehr and Gallagher by converting the dispatch and looping of the finite element modeler from Python to C-Python. Schwehr implemented the real-time I-AIS using his noaadata-py software. Feedback at the conference was extremely positive and has lead to advances in the process of establishing an AIS binary message and procedure for NOAA CO-OPS/PORTS and the USCG to deliver real-time water level messages. Work continues with Darren Wright of NOAA and Irene Gonin of the USCG RDC on evaluating what needs to be done to bring PORTS data to ships via AIS. AIS binary messages are being discussed in the RTCM SC121 working group.

Also under the "evolutionary" track of our Chart of the Future effort is Lee Alexander's work with the Office of Coast Survey on a project to convert existing coral reef habitat data into a suitable format for use as Marine Information Objects (MIOs) with ENCs in ECDIS and ECS. A key focus is to develop new IHO S-57/S-100 objects/attributes for biological and regulatory criteria associated with coral reef designation and management. Additionally, Lee's work with numerous committees (IHO Committee on Hydrographic Resource and Information Systems – CHRIS; IHO Transfer Standard Maintenance and Application Development Working Group – TSMAD; IEC Technical Committee 80/Working Group 13 – Display of Navigation Related Information, and; IHO-IEC Harmonization Group on Marine Information Objects – HGMIO) ensures that the lab stays on the forefront of standards issues.

Another aspect of our "evolutionary" track of the Chart of the Future has been our effort to develop efficient and robust approaches for the "generalization" of the dense bathymetric data sets such as those collected by modern multibeam sonars into products that are appropriate for display on current-day paper or electronic charts using standard cartographic protocols. For this effort, the Center brought in a visiting scholar, Lysandros Tsoulos, an internationally-known expert in electronic cartographic techniques from the National Technical University of Athens. Lysandros worked with NOAA physical scientist Nick Forfinski on Nick's Master's project entitled "An Algorithm for Assessing the Horizontal Displacement Resulting from Bathymetric Generalization." While techniques to assess the vertical displacement resulting from raster-based generalization (and thus assess the validity of the generalization approach) are well-established, there has been much less work done on approaches to assessing the horizontal displacements associated with raster-based generalization. Nick and Lysandros developed a hybrid (raster/vector) method to visually and quantitatively characterize the horizontal displacement resulting from generalization. The hybrid approach proved very useful as it produces a comprehensive assessment of vertical displacements by incorporating the depth differences associated with every node of both the original and generalized surface. With the establishment of a robust approach for the assessment of horizontal as well as vertical displacements, we are now in a much better position to test a range of approaches for generalization.

Revolutionary

Within the context of the "revolutionary" effort, Colin Ware, Kurt Schwehr, Matt Plumlee, and Roland Arsenault have been extending the capabilities of GeoZui-4D (as described above) as well as developing specific applications for the chart of the future. The GeoZui-4D version that has become the base for the Chart of the Future project is now called GeoNav-4D. Many of the new capabilities were described in past reports (and in the description of the flow visualization above). During the past few years, the Center has demonstrated a number of charting components that have gained wide notice. For example, these pieces include:

• Path planning with time dynamic depth contours for safe, caution, and grounding.
• Haptic perception of bathymetry.
• Pseudo-photo realistic renderings with billboards and 360 disk panorama models.
• Basic ship position decoding from AIS messages.
• Tide based flow modeling.
• Multi-ship and marine mammal coordinated displays.
• Multiple view coordination.
• Analysis of a predictor for ship behavior to assist novice ship drivers.

GeoCoastPilot

This past year a decision was made to create a relatively simple focal point for demonstrating some of these capabilities in a tangible, testable form that would not be too radical a change for mariners. The concept is to design a fully digital and interactive version of the commonly used Coast Pilot books. With such a digital product the mariner could, in real-time on the vessel, or before entering a harbor, explore through the click of a mouse, any object identified in the text and see a pictorial representation (in 2 or 3-D) of the object in geospatial context. Conversely a click on a picture of an object will link directly to the full description of the object as well as other relevant information (Fig. 8). Schwehr and Plumlee have been working on the initial design and development of a Digital Coast Pilot system for Portsmouth Harbor. The goal is to develop an XML format to represent the contents of the existing Coast Pilot books such that the contents can be geocoded and converted with style sheets (XSLT) to a range of end products that include a PDF of the book, an HTML web format, and 3D model files for use for 3D modeling with libgz4d, Google Earth, and other software. The style sheet system will automate the process of collecting and integrating the range of additional resources that are included with the Coast Pilot. For example, the style sheet processing can pull the text of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) for each referenced regulation and attach the text to the reference within the Coast Pilot.

We have created an initial version of a XML file format for storing the Digital Coast Pilot and ancillary data. We obtained the initial concept XML format and stylesheets from Tucker and Nyberg, at NOAA (Tucker and Nyberg, 2005). The initial concept by Tucker and Nyberg is focused on PDF and HTML output. Therefore, we have worked to alter their form into a prototype that can meet the additional requirements of being input to 3D graphics software. The system is designed around two core XML files for one Coast Pilot book. The first is the "CoastPilot" document that closely follows the text of the traditional Coast Pilot main chapters. References to legal documents, geographic names, and other references are tagged with unique identifiers. The geographic names are also contained in a second XML document. This "features" file contains the details of every geographic name contained in the CoastPilot. For each feature, a block of XML gives the textual name, geometry, GNIS (USGS name identifier) if available, references to S57 (or S100) ENC data, images, and feature classification (e.g. "Bay", "River", "Buoy"). For the geometry, we evaluated GML, but decided to avoid it as GML 3.0 is a set of schemas that must be instantiated into specific schemas. This makes GML reasonably undefined. We will try out the Open Geospatial Consortium's Well Known Text (WKT) as our initial representation of geometry.

In the next few months, once the Coast Pilot and Features XML files have been defined for a test subset of a Coast Pilot book, we will be working on style sheets and software to convert these files into 3D representations for a displayable 3D Digital Coast Pilot. The target platform is libgz4d with OpenSceneGraph (osg) using X3D as the file format to represent the geometry. In addition, we will create a prototype of a Google Earth representation to evaluate how off-the-shelf virtual world's software might be utilized. The plan is to make this prototype available to mariners for testing in the spring of 2008.

Specification Format for AIS Binary Messages and Real-Time Vessel Monitoring

As part of the Chart of The Future project, we have been exploring the power of using the Automatic Identification System (AIS) carried by many vessels for a variety of applications including sending binary messages from shore to ships. Dr. Schwehr's work on this has reached the point where the work is being discussed by NOAA CO-OPS/PORTS, USCG, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services. Lee Alexander attended a coordination meeting in June between many of these parties and Lockheed Martin to discuss the path for deploying AIS Binary Messages. Schwehr attended the second meeting in November. As discussed above the concept of using AIS to send real-time water level data for "tide-aware" charts was presented at the Hydro 2007 by Brennan et al. and is now being evaluated by NOAA CO-OPS/PORTS.

Schwehr has received an AIS base station for testing and development from ICAN Marine. Initial work has begun on understanding how to correctly send VHF AIS binary messages and Schwehr met with ICAN Marine and the staff of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (SBNMS) to discuss the needs for AIS infrastructure and testing. The SBNMS will be a prototype/demonstration of the AIS broadcast capability for the USCG. An earlier demonstration of the power of AIS to track vessel traffic approaching Boston Harbor using the AIS system and monitor compliance with the change in shipping lanes prescribed by NOAA to avoid a whale migration route in SBNMS was very successful.

The success of this effort has led to a much more sophisticated whale monitoring/vessel notification project that is funded by North East Gateway (LNG carriers) and is being carried out in collaboration with researchers at Cornell University. Schwehr has been continuing to talk to North East Gateway and Cornell on how to best implement a right whale notification system using AIS to meet the environmental mitigation requirements created by NOAA and the USCG.

Finally, the AIS system has been used for collision and oil spill analysis. Schwehr and Dr. Phil McGillivary, from the USCG PACREA-Icebreaker liaison, published a concept paper at the September 2007 IEEE/MTS meeting that described how investigators might use AIS for selecting vessels, and to investigate how that might be the source of the mystery oil spills. During November 2007, the USCG New York Detachment began using this technique for an investigation of 500 gallons of oil that washed ashore in New York. Using this technique Schwehr was able to create a visualization of the containership Cosco Busan's collision with the San Francisco Bay Bridge in Google Earth. This visualization was provided to NOAA PORTS and USCG VTS personnel at their request. Schwehr has also aided in the development of the Emergency Response Mapping Application, a web-based tool developed by the Coastal Response Research Center at UNH to instantly and interactively provide emergency response workers with a range of critical situational awareness information so that they can best respond to an oil-spill or other emergency.

Google Earth for Marine Users

Google Earth is becoming a ubiquitous tool for visualizing geospatial data. Taking advantage of this, Schwehr has started working on tools for processing marine data into usable Google Earth visualizations to support planning and data processing tasks at NOAA, CCOM, and elsewhere. Demonstration visualization has been created that shows acoustic tracking of whales in the Gulf of Maine (see discussion below). Additionally visualizations that combine S57 electronic navigation charts (ENC) and ship tracks from AIS position reports have been generated. Both GDAL's S57 conversion tools and the EarthNC chart products from Destin Shark have been evaluated in this context. While these charts are visually appealing, they do not comply with any display standard. Schwehr continues to have discussions about the maritime communities' requirements directly with engineers from Google Earth, and Google is now aware of the limitations of their time format for large datasets. Finally, work towards a "Google Oceans" continues; the recent agreement between NOAA and Google bodes well for the creation of an official ocean product.