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Let’s just assume
that you’d like as much flexibility with your electronic charts as
possible. One route is to use a PC charting program that supports multiple
formats. But wait, Maptech, vendor of the best-selling paper-like ChartKit
raster charts, just changed its data format to BSB4, and Nobeltec, developer
of probably the most popular PC navigation program, VNS, has no immediate
plans to support it. Huh? I can’t count the boats I’ve been
on that use VNS with ChartKits; there are a lot, but from now on the combination
won’t work (note that present and future versions of VNS will still
run BSB3 and prior).
The major change in
BSB4 is that the charts are encrypted, a move that’s unfortunately
long overdue. For years boaters and even dealers have been swiping Maptech
chart CDs like kids downloading tunes. Encryption is another hassle of
the digital world, involving phone calls or Web visits and long numbers
to be squirreled away for a day you hope won’t come, but Maptech
claims that its particular technology is thoroughly tested and easy to
use. Plus, as a bonus, owners of the format will receive any new chart
editions that are issued during the first year. Meanwhile, for the time
being, Nobeltec is keeping its software engineers working on current (and
interesting) projects rather than modifying VNS for BSB4. The decision
is based on the company’s confidence in its own Passport vector charts,
which are great (and encrypted, by the way), and the availability of its
own raster charts, not so great but to be improved eventually.
So if you are a VNS/ChartKit
user and want to get new charts, each of the companies will try for all
your business (Maptech, after all, has its own improved Offshore Navigator
program). Some folks are going to frown on this whole development, but
in my view the real monkey business is going on elsewhere, north of the
border.
In Canada a small, private
company called NDI (Nautical Data International) has the exclusive right
to sell or license electronic versions of CHS (Canadian Hydrographic Service)
charts. NDI has a history of irritating customers with an early flawed
encryption scheme. Now the company is apparently attempting to charge
unusually high royalties to the other vendors of Canadian charts. Sparks
are flying. Stories vary, but I can confirm that some of the companies
that have current agreements are unhappy, and the two that don’t—C-Map
and Navionics—are very unhappy. Both, in fact, have temporarily stopped
shipping Canadian charts (see www.navionics.com
for more information). Negotiations are underway and hopefully will successfully
be concluded without ghastly price increases. But it’s a disturbing
trend, especially as an NDI vice president told me that his company is
simply pioneering the way as hydrographic offices—and their for-profit
sidekicks, I guess—around the world begin to practice “cost
recovery.”
The situation on this
side of the border is strikingly different, and I look forward to detailing
NOAA’s efforts to vectorize all U.S. charts and give them away. For
now I will conclude with some of the big thinking that inspired the column
and also puts its worries in perspective. I believe that Enriquez would
tell us that the sort of cartography that I’ve been talking about
here is essentially completed; the maps that really sizzle today—the
maps that are shaping the future, the maps that might build empires—are
being drawn to nano scale by explorers of the human genome. We boat people have already charted the oceans pretty darn thoroughly. Now we’re
just dotting the “i’s” and getting our digital act together.
I like to picture a future when these monkey business issues are resolved
and perhaps our plotters/computers will even be nimble enough to pull
up an antique chart if desired. Just for old times’ sake.
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