In article . com,
says...
claus wrote:
... Is there a way to have some of these charts scanned and converted to
electronic raster charts? ...

You could try scanning them yourself and using something like
http://www.oziexplorer.com/. I tried this method some years ago when
Ozi first came out and had some problems. At that time the program
didn't work correctly for charts that crossed the 180 meridian and I
found that I got noticable edge to edge distortion on both the
individual scans and the stiched product. Your flat bed scanner might
be better than mine was and I'm sure that the program has been updated
since I last looked at it... However, if you use scanned charts to
naivgate with you should be aware that they my have distortions. If
you are still a Loran user you will want to be particularly careful of
scanned or copied charts. Given the possiblity for errors and the cost
of Ozi I can't honestly say this option makes much sense for places
that have digital charts commercially available, but it may be fun to
try and the demo ware is free.

--Tom.

Unfortunately, Canadian charts have a copyright notice at the bottom,
so the operator at a shop with a large scanner may refuse scan the
chart. You may be stuck with cutting or folding and using a smaller
scanner yourself. US charts don't have the copyright notice (that I
could find), but there isn't much point, as NOAA allows you to download
the raster scanned charts from their web site.

It cost me about $180 to get electronic Canadian charts for the inside
part of Vancouver Island and the mainland. I rationalized the
purchase because they came in a format that I could download into my
Garmin GPS76C.

Electronic charts or not, I still find it useful to put sticky
dots on a big paper chart to plan a week's cruise that will
get me back to the charter dock on time! ;-)


Mark Borgerson