Charts go high-tech

RADM Max Hancock with paper charts soon be converted to computer.

Photo: LSPH Bill Louys

By Graham Davis.

Thirty years ago Australian Hydrographic Service cartographer Ken Burrows had a gleam in his eye that one day the paper charts of the seas and oceans around Australia would be transcribed to a computer data base.

It was therefore a proud Ken Burrows who watched as the $30 million Digital Hydrographic Data Base (DHDB) was formally commissioned into service at the Australian Hydrographic Office in Wollongong on October 22.

The Deputy Chief of Navy, RADM Max Hancock was one of the many dignitaries to attend the function.

Also in attendance was Kim Scott, the general manager of the Tenix Electronic Systems Divisions, the prime contractor for the data base, Wayne Ryan, of the Defence Materiel Organisation, who facilitated the contract and CAPT Bruce Kafer, the head of the Hydrographic FEG and the Australian Hydrographer.

Members from RANTEA and the local media attended the formal ceremony which saw Mr Scott present a special plaque to CAPT Kafer.

The DHDB had its conceptual origins in the early 1980s as the brainchild of Mr Burrows.

His concept of a General Integrated Survey Model of the Ocean, or GISMO, was well ahead of its time and well ahead of the technology of the day.

By the early 1990s Ken was the director of coordination and development at the AHS and he knew the time was right to bring the concept to reality.

Project SEA 1430 was initiated by the AHS and sponsored by the Director General of Maritime Development.

On May 7, 1999 the contract for the delivery of the DHDB was signed with Vision Abell Pty Ltd a company which later became a fully owned subsidiary of Tenix Defence Ltd.

The system has been developed to provide the AHS with the capability to accept and manage digital data and to enable it to compile and maintain a validated, non conflicting hydrographic data set from which all the AHS products can be sourced.

Phase One included a major conversion component which saw hydrographic data held on manuscripts (charts) being converted into digital format for loading into the DHDB.

Mariners can now buy a CD from the AHS which, played on a computer on the bridge of their ships, can provide them with an electronic chart for the course they plan to follow.

However there was a need to go further.

This called for AHS staff to be able to overlay the existing digital chart with any new information they received from the field.

In his address to the ceremony Mr Scott described the DHDB as “one of the most testing in his division”.

But he added, “no one else in the world has the system”.

He said the project had taken five years to complete.

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