Here's a little follow-up on what NOAA is doing with the nautical
charts.

The NOAA Electronic Navigational Charts (ENCs) are available for free
download over the Internet. Weekly updates are also available for free
download. About 540 of these vector-based electronic charts are
available, and more are added as NOAA finishes them. They comply with
the International Hydrographic Organization standard S-57. The
download site starts at
http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/MCD/enc/index.htm.

The NOAA Raster Navigational Charts (RNCs) are also available for free
download over the Internet. Cumulative updates of Notice to Mariners
corrections are available weekly at the RNC download site. Nearly all
of NOAA's 1,021 charts are available. The RNCs are in the .BSB format,
and conform to the International Hydrographic Organization standard
S-61. The download site starts at
http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/Raster/Index.htm.

NOAA has also posted nearly all of its charts on the Internet for free
viewing using any web browser. These posted charts are updated weekly
for all Notices to Mariners. The On-Line Viewer site starts at
www.NauticalCharts.gov/viewer. This is a new service, and NOAA has
provided a "Click Here to tell us what you think" button on the site to
solicit your comments.

For those who are GIS users, NOAA is providing a free, on-line
translator to query the ENCs for selected feature categories, and then
translate and download those feature categories in popular GIS formats.
The service is called "ENC Direct to GIS", and the Internet site
starts at http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/csdl/...direct_new.htm.