Raster
charts are simply made by scanning a paper chart (or in
the case of ARCS the original photo masters) and then geo-referenced.
The advantage of raster charts is that they are an exact
replica of the original paper chart, with no change of data
being left off. The downside is that they are just an image,
and cannot give the facilities a vector chart can give.
They are relatively low cost to produce, and coverage is
consequently very good.
HCRF format:
ARCS - are official raster charts produced
by the British Admiralty which offer world-wide coverage.
An ARCS catalogue is provided within seaPro and on the seaPro
demo CD.
The charts can either be purchased outright (skipper service)
or leased with an update service for a year (Navigator service)).
Seafarer - are official raster charts produced
by the Australian Hydrographic Office which cover Australasian
waters.
.
NZ Mariner - New Zealand Hydrographic Office
Charts.
BSB - Available from a number of manufacturers
throughout the world, the prime supplier is Maptech (especially
in the USA) including the new BSB 4 version
Note: There are a number
of BSB 'dialects', most are supported but compliance with non-Maptech BSB cannot be guaranteed.
Euronav is a distributor for the above products
Maptech PCX - some older chart formats such as
PCX are supported, but not recommended due to the age of the data.
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