Death to PAPER ! More Nails in the Paper Chart Coffin . . .

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by doug86

Therapy, I think I was speaking more in a sort of hypothetical sense, although what I wrote is about 90% happening now with some of the technology. NOAA raster scan charts are free, and the price of private vector charts will come down quickly as the technology to produce them reaches the crowd-source level.

That is a very US-centric comment, in fact for non-US hydrography, the price is rising as less state money is available and these organisations have a full profit mandate. ALso they realise that GIS data is valuable and will not part with it cheap.

In a year or two, most new chart plotters will have wifi or internet cell capability (including new Garmins), and they will be receiving live updates when ever an internet connection is present. This service will be pretty cheap at first, and then become almost free as more and more companies compete to provide you with up to date info. The chart plotter companies like Garmin are already feeling the competition from PC based software that can use free charts. And, in some cases the software is free too (like OpenCPN). For a few hundred bucks, you can have a full feature chart plotter; why invest $4k in a Garmin?

Theres a huge amount of asumptions here, PC based chartplotters have been around for 10 years, yet they have made alomost zero impact. Equally my comments re non-US charts, which are decidely not free is also valid here.

In 5 years, daily chart updates will be available over most of the globe via inexpensive oneway satellite downloads, similar to what the SPOT devices now work on. These updates will include depth data that is probably only a few days old, not decades old.

SPOT and iriduium SBD, rely on quite dated satellite systems, both companies struggle to stay in business and none can afford to replace teh constellaton. It could be that they will not survive at all, Equally I cant see 2400 bps, being used to update charts
Furthermore, Internet away from land, is a tiny market, hence there will never be a mass market cheap product, Inmarsat really have a clear run and are virtually a monopoly, they will never make it "cheap". The existence of land GSM systems, removed the whole business model for satellite companies. They missed the boat.

By the year 2020, anyone reading this thread will be laughing uproariously at the idea that cruisers wanted to use paper charts, just as we do for anyone who claims that they rely on an RDF unit today.

Maybe maybe not, paper provides a reasonably cheap, fairly robust form of backup. I suspect it will a very long time to die ( if at all)

Think of the internet; a wild, open world of information with thousands of resources using thousands of business models. You have many choices for just email. Some are free, some charge. You can subscribe to thousands of news feeds; some are free, some charge.

Imagine that system plugged into the needs of a navigator: thousands of ways to find the depths of a channel, some are free, some charge. Thousands of resources to provide you with a chart of the coastline if you have the software to see their product. Already, there are hundreds of sites that have tide data for the entire globe. Wind and weather at your mouse button for free.

Good hydrographic data is expensive to obtain, irrespective of method, equally the customer base is small and composed mainly of commercial shipping ( who today can get charts updates via VSAT, but at a cost)

There is nothing on the horizon thats suggests there will be low cost access to such data on an International basis.

The chart plotter companies (like Garmin) are still about 24 months behind the curve, and they are trying to catch up. Catching up with a web based service is very difficult for a hardware manufacturer. The task they are faced with is building a web browser, not a chart plotter. Christ, you can get a really great chart plotter for free if you own a cheap laptop. (OpenCPN)

The names in navigation today are Garmin, Furuno, Raymarine, Standard, Lowrance, Simrad etc. The names in navigation in 8 years might be Apple, Google, Mozilla, or ??

I doubt it, mass market equiopment will never be designed or suitable for deep sea use, nor is the marine market nowhere near big enough to interest the likes of the mainstream PC market. The use of smartphones etc, rely exclusively on access to cheap terrestorial systems, these will never be accesible at sea.

I suspect that in 10 years time the same names will be there. Chart plotter companies have no particular bussines reason to build web browers as online real time charting will remain inaccessible technically, ( well at low cost) possibly for ever.

Its a good story, but merely future gazing in itself it not particulary reliable.

Dave

[jackdale]

Here is the future; and it is not free.

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TANSTAAFL

[doug86]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

That is a very US-centric comment, in fact for non-US hydrography, the price is rising as less state money is available and these organisations have a full profit mandate.

I just had someone offer to send me the entire 2010 world catalogue charts for OpenCPN. For free. I'm so tired of the "US-centric" accusation, as if we have something to be apologizing for. It was the US that put the GPS system up in the first place, so I don't see that our taking the lead in providing free charts of OUR coasts is somehow a negative.

Maybe maybe not, paper provides a reasonably cheap, fairly robust form of backup.

How much would it cost to have all the paper charts to cover the South Pacific? I don't think anyone who owns all that paper would describe it as cheap.

Good hydrographic data is expensive to obtain, irrespective of method

See Jeff Siegel's post on the collection of inshore depths via crowd sourcing. This method will dramatically reduce the costs of collecting accurate soundings. One of the pioneers in this idea is working in .... in Europe! (OMG, How Euro-centric!).

The use of smartphones etc, rely exclusively on access to cheap terrestorial systems, these will never be accesible at sea.

"Never" is a long time.... Also, how did these terrestrial systems get so cheap?

Chart plotter companies have no particular bussines reason to build web browers

You missed my point. I didn't mean that they would actually build a web browser. What I was pointing out is that most future charting hardware will include a way to connect to the internet and will get much of its information from the internet. Furuno, Raymarine and Garmin are all currently offering products that have update capabilities, and offer services like weather overlays and ActiveCaptain integration.

All of your objections boil down to the concept that there isn't enough demand for companies to find a way to get the data out to the distant parts of the world. And this will be a challenge for sure. However, the vast majority of boaters stay within cell phone range of the world, and those are the customers that drive the market advances.

GPS and Cell phones and the internet didn't even exist 25 years ago, and here we are debating whether a .99 smartphone app might be a valid replacement for a paper chart, compass, & tide tables all rolled into one. You think we have reached a plateau of advancement, I don't.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by doug86

Suppose someone told you that digital charts are updated every week, and paper charts are updated every six years? Your paper "big picture" could be wrong; in fact, it probably is out of date.

Do you (or anyone on this thread) actually pour over the Local Notice to Mariners every week, and actually make the corrections on your paper charts. On every single paper chart you own? Every week? Yeah, right, sure you do!

Paper chart system for noting a missing navaid: someone reports a normally floating buoy is sitting on a sand bar; high and dry. Someone else takes the discrepancy report and it gets put into an Marine Information Radio Broadcast for the next week or so. Once the issue is verified, it is reported as a discrepancy in the next issue of Local Notice to Mariners, which is then mailed to you if you subscribe. If the buoy is to be placed in a new location, that new position is reported in yet another LNM. In 5 or 6 years, the new buoy position shows up on a paper chart.

Digital version of same problem: As soon as buoy is verified as in the wrong place, it can be 'tagged' on digital charts as un-reliable or 'scheduled for re-placement'. People using up to date digital charts are quickly apprised of an issue with that buoy and take precautions transiting the area. As soon as a new buoy is placed, the new digital charts show its new position and folks using a chart plotter are getting the most up to date information..... folks using a 4 year old paper chart are wondering why that buoy is in the wrong place according to their charts.

It's a good point, but I could just as easily ask how many bother (or would bother) to download new digital charts every week? And what does that service cost? I don't know, because I don't own a chartplotter, but I do know that the ones I have used on other boats are not that sophisticated.

[Don1500]

Originally Posted by wannago

Maybe the people sticking to paper charts have a point when they have people trying to convince them GE is the way or the future and are just making stuff up.

Satellites, aerial photos, and all the current imaging technology that I'm aware of that works remotely over broad areas relies on light. Some of it uses color spectrum that aren't visible to the human eye. But they use light, and don't work well through things that block light, like water.

If the navy wants to map things, they send a boat or a sub. I'm sure some of the subs have collected some highly accurate data that we'll never see. But I'm sure there no unclassified methods to collect this via satellite, or even airplane.

Consider all those rumors about how clear the resolution of military satellites are, apply a little logic, and ask why they use those predator drones so much? They might have some really fancy stuff, but it still follows the laws of physics.....

Ya, and 20 years ago I was making stuff up about everyone walking around with a phone in their pocket. What is magic today is fact tomorrow. I did not say they had it, I said it will come. And some day it will be as common as GE.
I was talking to a physicist from Brookheaven Lab about 30 years ago. I asked him if he thought we could fit more transistors on a chip (I think about 10,000 was the limit then.) He told me that miniaturisation was about at the limit and he didn't think we could go any smaller. We now fit 10,000,000 transistors in the same package. So, ya, I was making stuff up, sue me.

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by James Baines

. . . The US Can and Does protect its secrets very well.
Have global ocean floor topography and “Resource Value” charts already been produced? I would bet my last Coors Light on it……James

Not only the US government - more than a decade ago the world spent billions on millimeter radar mapping of the whole planet Earth. After it was finished the data sort of vanished. Probably it is being kept in the same warehouse as that "Raiders of the Lost Arc" Arc of the Covenant is kept.
- - When I was talking to some Univ of Illinois archaelogists who were trying to uncover lost caves and such of Taino Indians - I asked why they didn't just access those millimeter radar maps that would show such things. They were astonished that such images existed and checked and found out there was no way to get access to them - even for a public university scientific project. So they were back with a pick and shovel doing it the old way.

[Dustymc]

Originally Posted by jackdale

Here is the future; and it is not free.

subscription | Tidetech

TANSTAAFL

Future: time that is to be or come hereafter. Pretty sure that's "present, and getting crusty."

My chartplotter seems to get tides and current data magically - I really have no idea where it comes from, but there it is and it hasn't been wrong yet.

I could also get XM Weather updates, which are getting cheaper but not as fast as I'd have predicted, probably because internet radio pretty much removed any possibility of growth from XM radio.

Originally Posted by sneuman

It's a good point, but I could just as easily ask how many bother (or would bother) to download new digital charts every week? And what does that service cost? I don't know, because I don't own a chartplotter, but I do know that the ones I have used on other boats are not that sophisticated.

How often do you download new Google maps to your PC?

If you don't own a chartplotter, I wonder how it is that you're forming all these strong opinions of the technology?

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by Dustymc

Future: time that is to be or come hereafter. Pretty sure that's "present, and getting crusty."

My chartplotter seems to get tides and current data magically - I really have no idea where it comes from, but there it is and it hasn't been wrong yet.

I could also get XM Weather updates, which are getting cheaper but not as fast as I'd have predicted, probably because internet radio pretty much removed any possibility of growth from XM radio.



How often do you download new Google maps to your PC?

If you don't own a chartplotter, I wonder how it is that you're forming all these strong opinions of the technology?

I have used them on OPBs. A few years back, I used to help a friend with deliveries in the Gulf of Thailand and Andaman Sea. I got a lot of experience on cruising cats and with chartplotters then. Not 100% convinced by either of them.

More recently, I am often on friends' boats in the Chessie. I am one of the few I know that doesn't own a chartplotter. If I had $2000-$5000 to spare right now, it would be a new suit of sails and NOT some new electronic gadget. If I had $10K to spare, I would probably get a chartplotter myself. Priorities.

[Dustymc]

Originally Posted by Don1500

Ya, and 20 years ago I was making stuff up about everyone walking around with a phone in their pocket. What is magic today is fact tomorrow. I did not say they had it, I said it will come. And some day it will be as common as GE.
I was talking to a physicist from Brookheaven Lab about 30 years ago. I asked him if he thought we could fit more transistors on a chip (I think about 10,000 was the limit then.) He told me that miniaturisation was about at the limit and he didn't think we could go any smaller. We now fit 10,000,000 transistors in the same package. So, ya, I was making stuff up, sue me.

Intel's latest server chip holds 2,600,000,000 transistors. Miniaturization of the standard transistor really is now at it's limits: physical limits, not ones of imagination. So we're at the end of Moore's Law, right? Well, we might be if someone hadn't come up with the clever idea of changing the geometry of the transistors and essentially starting the progression over. Technology is cool like that - evolutions lead to revolutions, and then it just starts all over, building on what's already there.

[Dustymc]

Originally Posted by osirissail

Not only the US government - more than a decade ago the world spent billions on millimeter radar mapping of the whole planet Earth. After it was finished the data sort of vanished. Probably it is being kept in the same warehouse as that "Raiders of the Lost Arc" Arc of the Covenant is kept.
- - When I was talking to some Univ of Illinois archaelogists who were trying to uncover lost caves and such of Taino Indians - I asked why they didn't just access those millimeter radar maps that would show such things. They were astonished that such images existed and checked and found out there was no way to get access to them - even for a public university scientific project. So they were back with a pick and shovel doing it the old way.

[citation needed]

[goboatingnow]

I just had someone offer to send me the entire 2010 world catalogue charts for OpenCPN. For free. I'm so tired of the "US-centric" accusation, as if we have something to be apologizing for. It was the US that put the GPS system up in the first place, so I don't see that our taking the lead in providing free charts of OUR coasts is somehow a negative.

Doug86, keep your underwear on!. I was merely making the point that , your point of cheap charts driving down chartplotting , only really applies to teh US, where an enligthened view that the public has already paid and hence shouldnt be asked to pay again. There is no free equivalent charts in other parts of the world. ( ireespective of whose sending you what). I was merely drawing your attention to that fact. As to GPS,who said is negative, I just wish we had Gallileo up and running.

All of your objections boil down to the concept that there isn't enough demand for companies to find a way to get the data out to the distant parts of the world. And this will be a challenge for sure. However, the vast majority of boaters stay within cell phone range of the world, and those are the customers that drive the market advances.

GPS and Cell phones and the internet didn't even exist 25 years ago, and here we are debating whether a .99 smartphone app might be a valid replacement for a paper chart, compass, & tide tables all rolled into one. You think we have reached a plateau of advancement, I don't.

Im not arguing against technology progress, I dont just beleive that the generic PC marketplace, will over take specialist marine electronics. but I accept that such equipment will continue to get more sophisicated. In reality electronics are a small fraction fo teh costs of boats and boating and hence that market price point will continue.

The fact is that a 0.99 cent app on a iphone is NOT a valid replacement and few are advocating that it is.

Dave

[doug86]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

There is no free equivalent charts in other parts of the world.

yeah, and there was no free long distance phone service 15 years ago either. It wasn't customer demand that drove the long distance carriers away, and it wasn't the phone companies who willingly gave that revenue up; it was the synergy of cellular technology that pretty much ended the concept of a long distance fee. As more people want to get your attention, they might just find ways to get your the charts for free. A chart with a banner ad at the top, for instance. There are many ways I can think of that will bring more charts to more people for less money. Who would have thought that you could access high quality satellite photos of the earth for FREE?? Just click, zoom and there it is. Who is to say that Google won't start Google Marine? With buoys and depths and markers, all free.

Im not arguing against technology progress, I dont just beleive that the generic PC marketplace, will over take specialist marine electronics. but I accept that such equipment will continue to get more sophisicated.

You seem to miss my point. We are already seeing a blurring of the distinction between specialist marine electronics and the generic PC. What I am proposing is that those two technologies are in fact merging, not competing for their own niche. I am saying that in 10 years, you will be able to do everything on your chart plotter that you now can do on your PC, and vise-versa. There will be no difference.

I base this theory on what has happened in the phone market in the past 8 years. Your phone is now a computer and web connected device, and your web connected desktop PC is also a phone (Skype) and a movie theater (streaming NetFlix) and a library (Kindle) and a newspaper. There has been an almost complete merging of computer and phone technology in just a few short years, and it revolutionized the hardware, and the hardware has revolutionized the web, and that has pushed the software to become more adaptable. It isn't just a linear progression, it sort of all is happening at once do to the synergy of all the technology (hardware, software and connectivity) all coming together.

I see no reason that this synergy will not continue into the marine navigation area, and in fact that is already happening.

[Don1500]

I do believe a $.99 app for the (then current) iPhone will replace the (Now current) Chart Plotter. It's just that by then the Marine Electronics Industry will have far out stripped the current technogy. We will have gagets doing things we never even thought of doing, and we will wonder how we ever got along without knowing the water temperature at 1000'. BTW the $.99 app won't do those other things either.

[wannago]

Panasonic is the only major manufacture that has made a waterproof (or at least resistant) laptop. Even my cell phone isn't designed to be out too long in the rain.

And some of the marine electronics will remain specialty, depth sounders and speed paddles, radar, etc. will never be common consumer items. And there's financial incentives for the manufactures to "package" them with purpose based hardware, at least purpose based in it's package, which might very well be just a waterproofed PC with the case designed by Garmin and an Intel Motherboard. They aren't doing anything that special inside them black box processing units... They are making them easy to plug in out of the box and work (relatively speaking).

But that's just the technology behind the presentation. The charts probably won't change too much in the foreseeable future. Just like the Kindle may have changed how books are read and distributed, the authors and publishers still want money for there work. Of course in the US, government publications including NOAA charts are free, some fee is possible for distribution and media, but if you are downloading a PDF to read on kindle, there really isn't any distribution or media to charge for. Thus, NOAA charts downloaded to your chartplotter just oughta be free.

The rest of the world that isn't charted by NOAA is a whole host of other issues.

And the market for those charts is a lot smaller than that for chart plotters. I'd be willing to bet 80% of the chart plotters sold never leave site of land. And more than 50% of never leave areas charted by NOAA. I just don't see how anyone's going to get a return on there investment for sending survey vessels out to South Pacific islands...

[MarkJ]

I use my laptop below. Thats where paper chart people use their paper charts.

As for an IPad. You can just shove them in a Lock and Lock box.... and wipe your fingers dry before dabbling.

At 1/3 of the price for a 9 inch screen the iPad is winning. And one can watch dirty movies at the same time whereas raymarine et al only let you see the engine room. Dirty, but not dirty