Bsb Charts Canadian Free
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NOAA offers raster chart products in a variety of formats
Digital Charts from the Canadian Hydrographic Service. The CHS offers exceptional digital charts in two formats – Electronic Navigational Charts (ENCs) and raster (BSB) charts. Suggestion sent to organization: May 18, 2013. Status Updates; Status Updates; May 18, 2013.
How to transition from traditional NOAA paper nautical charts to ENC-based products, including paper NOAA Custom Charts.
- Canadian Hydrographic Services (CHS) is responsible for production, marketing, sales and distribution of its digital chart data and digital tide data, as well as licensing dealers. CHS offers Raster Navigational Charts in the BSB v4 format on CD.
- Hot 100; Billboard 200; Billboard Global 200; Billboard Global Excl. US; Artist 100; All Weekly Charts; YEAR-END. Year-End Hot 100 Songs; Year-End Billboard 200 Albums; 2020 Year.
- The Nautical Charts of Canada that we sell are produced by the Canadian Hydrographic Service. The Canadian coastline is vast, complex and highly indented, making it the longest coastline in the world. Accurate, up-to-date Nautical Charts of Canada are crucial to safe navigation within a country that has more than a third of its territory under water.
End of Traditional Paper Charts - In November 2019, NOAA initiated a five-year process to end all raster nautical chart production, including the five traditional paper chart products described on this webpage and within the expandable blue bars below. NOAA is intent on easing the transition to ENC-based products while continuing to support safe navigation. This includes improving data consistency and providing larger scale coverage for the electronic navigational chart (NOAA ENC®).
New Paper Chart Product - NOAA is aware that some chart users prefer paper charts. Although production of traditional paper charts will stop, a new form of paper nautical chart will be available through the NOAA Custom Chart capability (currently in prototype form). This system will enable users to create, customize, and print paper charts themselves, or have large format charts printed and delivered by a NOAA certified print-on-demand (POD) chart agent. We encourage those who want to continue using paper charts to become familiar with the NOAA Custom Chart prototype and let us know how to improve the system.
These documents provide more details about the sunsetting of NOAA raster/paper charts, ongoing improvements to NOAA’s premier electronic navigational chart product, and NOAA Custom Charts.
- Initial NOAA announcement to end production of traditional paper nautical charts – November 2019
- Sunsetting Traditional Paper Charts – Explains the sunsetting process, rationale, and affected products.
- Transforming the NOAA ENC® – Provides more information about ENC improvements.
- NOAA Nav-cast: How to obtain ENC-based paper nautical charts after NOAA ends production of traditional paper charts? – Recorded presentation that (1) discusses the decision and timeline to sunset raster charts, and (2) provides a demonstration of the NOAA Custom Chart prototype.
Five Raster Chart Products
NOAA produces raster charts in five formats:
- Paper nautical chart
- Full-size nautical chart
- Booklet Chart™
- Raster navigational chart (RNC)
- RNC Tile Service
Common Features of all NOAA Raster Charts, Including Paper Charts
Just as NOAA electronic navigational chart (NOAA ENC®) cells do, all raster charts portray water depths, coastlines, dangers, aids to navigation, landmarks, bottom characteristics and other features, as well as regulatory, tide, and other information. All raster chart products are based on and have the same appearance as the “traditional” paper charts that Coast Survey has provided for U.S. waters since the early 19th century.
They contain all critical corrections published in notices to mariners since the last new edition of the chart was released, as well as any newly compiled routine changes (see the “Chart Updates” sidebar on the right).
The U. S. Government no longer prints paper copies of its raster nautical charts. However, NOAA provides digital images of its raster charts to NOAA certified chart agents, from whom the public may purchase NOAA paper nautical charts.
Certified chart agents ensure that the charts are printed at the proper scale and quality to meet U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) chart carriage requirements. In fact, only charts printed by a NOAA certified chart agent are accepted by the USCG as meeting chart carriage requirements for commercial vessels. No other raster chart format meets USCG carriage requirements.
Some NOAA certified chart agents offer additional premium services, such as printing charts on waterproof materials, and printing user overlays on charts.
NOAA paper charts fulfill IMO requirements for ECDIS backup.
To purchase a paper nautical chart, contact a NOAA certified chart agent
These are full size Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) images of NOAA paper nautical charts. PDFs may be viewed with free PDF readers such as Adobe Reader. Others may be found with an Internet search for “free PDF reader.”
PDFs may be downloaded free from the NOAA chart locator.
Most, but not all, charts may be printed at true chart scale on plotters that accommodate 36” wide paper.
Paper plots of Full-size nautical chart PDFs DO NOT meet USCG chart carriage requirements for commercial vessels. Only NOAA paper nautical charts printed by a NOAA certified chart agent, who will ensure that the charts are printed at the proper scale and quality, meet USCG chart carriage requirements.
Full-size nautical chart PDFs may be downloaded free from the NOAA chart locator.
NOAA Booklet Chart Example
Booklet charts are reduced scale copies of NOAA paper nautical charts divided into a set of a dozen 8.5” x 11” pages that show different portions of a chart.
The image at left shows the index of the 12 chart pages of booklet chart 13246 of Cape Cod Bay. The extent of each page extends past the boundaries shown in the index, so that the coverage of each page overlaps a bit with adjacent pages.
These pages can be printed at home (double-sided or affixed back-to-back) and assembled into a booklet.
Other pages in the booklet include excerpts from the U.S. Coast Pilot® and other information such as descriptions of navigational aids and hazards in the area. Emergency information for the charted area is printed on the back cover.
Booklet charts DO NOT meet USCG chart carriage requirements for commercial vessels.
Booklet chart PDFs may be downloaded free from the NOAA chart locator.
NOAA RNC® charts are full-color, geo-referenced, digital images of NOAA paper nautical charts.
RNCs can be used with global positioning system (GPS) enabled electronic chart systems or other “chart plotter” display systems to provide real-time vessel positioning.
NOAA RNCs comply with the International Hydrographic Organization RNC Product Specification.
RNCs are approved for use by IMO ECDIS mandated vessels only if adequate ENC data is not available. Since complete ENC coverage is available in all U.S. waters, vessels required to use ECDIS may not navigate with NOAA RNCs.
NOAA RNCs DO NOT meet USCG chart carriage requirements for commercial vessels.
NOAA RNCs may be downloaded free from the NOAA chart locator.
The NOAA RNC Tile Service is comprised of 15 million individual chart tile images.
Each full RNC is cut into thousands of smaller “tiles” that display much faster than full RNC images.
The tile service provides geo-referenced, nautical chart tile sets for the public that comply with several web map and map tile standards.
NOAA RNC tiles can be used with GPS enabled electronic chart systems or other “chart plotter” display systems to provide real-time vessel positioning. Tiles are also being used on third party nautical data integration websites.
NOAA RNC tile service data DOES NOT meet USCG chart carriage requirements for commercial vessels.
More information about accessing RNC tiles is available at the RNC tile service webpage.
Three Ways to Download Raster Products
The Chart Locator is an online, interactive map that enables users to locate, view, and download individual RNCs, Full-size nautical charts, and BookletCharts, as well as ENCs.
The NOAA Nautical Chart Catalogs are seven sets of 8.5”x11” formatted, regionally based, catalogs that are easy to print at home. The chart catalog webpage enables you to download the catalogs, as well as to view and download individual raster chart products.
The RNC listing provides several options for downloading individual RNCs or groups of RNCs bundled by state, U.S. Coast Guard District, and other groupings, including downloading all RNCs at once.
Related Links
Three ways to download Raster Products
Bsb Charts Canadian Freestyle
The Chart Locator is an online, interactive map that enables users to locate, view, and download individual RNCs, Full-size nautical charts, and BookletCharts, as well as ENCs.
The NOAA Nautical Chart Catalogs are seven sets of 8.5”x11” formatted, regionally based, catalogs that are easy to print at home. The chart catalog webpage enables you to download the catalogs, as well as to view and download individual raster chart products.
The RNC Listing provides several options for downloading individual RNCs or groups of RNCs bundled by state, U.S. Coast Guard District, and other groupings, including downloading all RNCs at once.
Related Links
Canadian paper charts serve well, indeed, some mariners even are biased toward Canadian paper charts when they have an option of US or CND. Obtaining and using these are the same as always. Catalogs work the same, prices about the same, and outlets the same.
Bsb Charts
What is dramatically different once we cross the border, however, is the use of echarts, which is more and more a part of our routine navigation–or at least it should be considered if not yet done. Even if one does not choose to navigate point to point by ECS (electronic charting system), echars remain extremely valuable for route planning, since many ECS include one button display of tides and currents–some will even pull in the latest weather map and forecasts.
The big difference for US mariners is, unlike the US NOAA echarts, which are all free of charge, Canadian echarts are not free. Being not free, also means they are encrypted, which adds a layer of complexity to their use.
Another layer of complexity is the new generation of echart programs from Nobeltec and MaxSea called Time Zero do not run standard format echarts at all, which has pros and cons for users and suppliers. If we were all running Macs, we would be accustomed to this control for the sake of conformity–it is not all a matter of revenue. Otherwise, modern echart programs like Coastal Explorer, Memory-Map, and OpenCPN will run echarts from any source.
Next we have the common decision to make that applies to all echarts: Do we want raster charts (called RNC), which are graphic images of the actual printed charts, or do we want vector charts (called ENC), which are essentially formulas for the various components of the chart, which are then drawn on the fly as the ECS displays them. There are pros and cons to each, which we discuss in a forthcoming post.
I would venture to say that most mariners entering into the use of echarts for the first time will prefer the RNC, since they look like the charts they are used to. If asked, that would also be our strong recommendation. RNC are large files; Enc are small files.
Both sides of Vancouver Island and Puget Sound is 1500 MB from one source as RNC, where as the same region covered by ENC would be about 100 MB or less.
There are several sources for the Canadian echarts. The primary one is the Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) who actually make the charts. They in turn have licensed the rights to sell the charts to several other companies worldwide.
CHS has also licensed them to be incorporated into proprietary GPS charting systems, but that is not the topic at hand.These are usually sold on cartridges that plug into the GPS units. For now we are discussing echarts purchased to be viewed and used in your own ECS system, meaning some echart navigation software program.
(1) CHS price $175 each, sold separately for inside and outside.
Runs in most programs that will run BSB4 format. (Will not run on Time Zero products). They seem to still include a chart viewer on the CD, but this viewer will not work on 64-bit systems such as Vista and Win7.
(2) MapMedia charts $300 for inside and outside, sold together.
Bsb Charts Canadian Freedom
These run on the new Time Zero ECS from Nobeltec and MaxSea. Includes 3d data and satellite images. They also include some inland waterways, and some related 3d and sat photo data.
Both offer free updates for the first year. MapMedia plans to charge half price after that, and CHS plans to sell us a new set after that…. but both of these programs will certainly change.
(1) CHS price is $600, for each side.
Bsb Charts Canadian Free Online
The inflated price is because these are certified for use on commercial shipping, which (A) require more rigorous format standards (ECDIS), and (B) the customer base has more money. Recall again, that the US counterparts of these are free, but they do not offer any Canadian charts... in fact, Canada has prohibited even any overlap of these as of July 2012 (see www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/enc/USCanada_Atlantic.htm)
(2) MapMedia S-57 $300
Covers inside and outside, but there is not option but to include 3d data and satellite images. The extra products provided are not needed for navigation, but added in large part to justify the high costs for these files. These charts do not meet the ECDIS standards, nor other standards for vessels required to carry charts on board.
In principle there is an advantage to the MapMedia vector chart base besides the price, in that they offer for sale vector charts from several sources, including Jeppsen and Navionics. Vector charts are not all the same (this is not one of their advantages over raster charts!), so with inside information we can chose the ones that work best for a given region.