Assistance Needed to Improve Future ECDIS

[Jens1]

Hi folks,
I am approaching you an behalf of an IHO working group called SNPWG (Standardizsation of Nautical Publication Working Group). We are working on product specifications and data models to make the nautical information compatible with future ECDIS.

To reflect the users need better we developed a questionnaire containing publication information items and candidates where the information can be assigned to.
Some further guidelines and the file can be downloaded at
SNPWG Taxonomy

We all know it is a lot of stuff and we thank you very much if you are so kind to make the ticks at the file and send it back to me. The email address it in the file.

Thanks in advance

[brak]

I don't know if this is going to be helpful but here is my take on this.

Trying to decide on fixed groupings for items, most of which are probably not of critical concern to small vessel operators is, in my view, not an ideal approach to nautical (or any other) information dissemination.

It may be best to consider a general purpose schema that de-couples information from presentation. Define basic data types (take your pick, from those in S57 data definitions to any modern language), define structures etc.

With that you can have data producers specify items as needed, together with a few *simple* presentation and and ordering suggestions. The data schema would also deal with updates, synchronization, data verification and other such issues.

Presentation would be separate and flexible, such that whatever data or object type you provide, can be grouped with and presented with other objects on a client side.

Then map this to a commonly accepted data format (XML will work for data interchange, and vendors can re-map for performance), perhaps make it compatible with GPX to maintain at least a small level of continuity. The result will be easier to use and good for everyone.

Just my 5 cents worth.

[Jens1]

brak,
Thanks for your comment. We know how it works an the procedure is well described and used. It is not intended to bother the forum with such data and model stuff.

The questionnaire is to figure out what people intend to see under which headline. The evaluation of the contributions received so far shows that e.g. marine service is as a term critical because it can be seen for radio service or supply / waste disposal /repair service. That means if one is providing a menu item "marine service" one can provide information different to the user's expectations.

[Jens1]

Admin or Moderator,
Can one close that topic. The questionnaire was investigated and we (SNPWG) have learnt a lot of mariner's request.
In detail, it was a misunderstanding of Marine Service between us and the crowd. The lesson is that we actually discuss the renaming of Marine Service into Marine Radio Service to make it more distinguishable.