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Articles

1992: Vol. LXIX, No. 1

Automated Cartographic Sounding Selection

Submitted
July 30, 2015
Published
2015-05-19

Abstract

Soundings on nautical charts provide information about the shape of the ocean bottom between chart depth curves. A single chart may have thousands of soundings posted on it. Today, the selection of soundings for chart display is usually performed manually. This paper describes a computer system which automatically selects soundings for display on a nautical chart. The system is composed of several computer programs which make use of a grid-based model of the ocean bottom. The ocean bottom model is initialized by gridding the depth curves and shoreline displayed on the nautical chart. Soundings which deviate from the ocean bottom model are selected for chart display. Based on initial results obtained from testing these programs, it appears that a significant part of the work required to select soundings for chart display can be automated.