For more than ten years, since NOAA introduced its electronic navigational charts, you have needed to purchase a specialized chart display system to view the NOAA ENC® as a seamless chart database. Starting today, you don’t need a system to view the ENC depictions; you can use Coast Survey’s new web-based viewer called NOAA ENC® Online .
(IMMEDIATE CAVEAT: You still need a specialized display system to use the multi-layered functional data that make ENCs so valuable. NOAA ENC downloads are still free to the public.)
Since NOAA ENC Online is web-based, there is nothing to download. Users can click on the web map and zoom to selected features or locations, to see the information contained in over a thousand ENCs of NOAA-charted waters. Each zoom moves you through an ENC depiction that takes into account the ENC scale band and other attributes that are encoded in the ENC, such as scale minimum and feature masking. This allows the user to seamlessly zoom from the high level of detail of the large scale Band 5 ENCs, to small-scale overviews available on Band 1. Viewers can measure areas and distance, and use other functions.
In addition to providing public access to chart data, ENC Online will also help NOAA cartographers improve our current suite of ENCs. For instance, this web service allows cartographers to more easily pinpoint areas that may need additional hydrographic surveys for chart updates and corrections.
ENCs are increasingly popular with commercial mariners, who value the charts’ flexibility and multi-layered information. Starting today, we hope other chart users will plumb the depths of ENC Online and discover its many uses as a practical resource.
NOAA ENC Online is not certified for navigation. It does NOT fulfill chart carriage requirements for regulated commercial vessels under Titles 33 and 46 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
The web-based ENC viewer is at: http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/ENCOnline/