Chart Services Bulletin
April 15, 2014
Welcome to our "inaugural issue" of the Chart Services Bulletin. We plan to use this as a quick way to inform charting businesses and high-power chart users about service interruptions (planned and unplanned), future new editions, and technical updates. 

We also want to hear from you. What are your issues, problems, concerns, ideas? We have an inquiry system that we encourage you to bookmark and use. Putting your comments into the system allows us to maintain an accurate archive, and lets us track problems so we can see if a trend is emerging. We promise to direct your inquiry to the person who can best answer it, and we'll get back to you as soon as we have an answer.

Thanks for your support of Coast Survey, as we work to harness the new wave of digital technology. We all know that waves are a source of renewable energy -- and we plan to use the energy to build a stronger partnership with you and the charting community.

Now to today's bulletin...

Upcoming new editions for May
Around the 15th of every month, Coast Survey posts advance notice of new chart editions, with descriptions that summarize significant updates. We just posted our notice about the upcoming May editions

This advance notice used to be called the "Standing Order Notice," which was a term related to the lithographic printing process. With the switch from federal lithographic printing to our new digital process, we are retiring "SON," in favor of the plain language substitute: upcoming new editions.

Please note that the editions may be published any time during May.
NOAA raster charts now easier to read

The resolution of the entire suite of NOAA RNCs has been upgraded, as of April 4, increasing to 400 dots per inch (DPI) from the original 254 DPI. The change improves the clarity, readability, and aesthetics of this highly popular digital charting product.

 

Before making the change, we had an evaluation period from October to December 2013, to give a diverse group of users and developers ample time to test the 400 DPI RNCs and provide feedback. Although we initially had some compatibility issues with map tiling scripts (GDAL) used by a number of mobile app developers, we resolved the issues. Additionally, a mobile app developer documented a discrepancy in the internal coding of the BSB format -- that was not detected in the original 254 DPI version -- and we corrected that. Many thanks to those who helped in the testing of this improvement.  

 

~  Read more about NOAA RNCs ~
We plan to issue these bulletins at least once a month, and more often as products or events develop. In the meantime, you might want to check out the NOAA Coast Survey blog and follow us on Twitter @NOAACharts.

Sincerely,

Capt. Shep Smith
Chief, Marine Chart Division
Office of Coast Survey