Death to PAPER ! More Nails in the Paper Chart Coffin . . .

[doug86]

Originally Posted by hummingway

The U.S. gov't is still paying the same for the cartography whether you download or use print.

Yes, but we are not debating the process of cartography. The main reason that governments have traditionally been the cartographers is because they want accurate information for their military, not because recreational boaters were purchasing paper charts. In the US, the taxpayers have already paid the cost of cartography, so the gov't dispenses that information free of charge because duplicating and transmitting the data is practically cost free.

Yes, if you have a computer on your boat anyway and plan on maintaining it, use free software and have free electronic charts available then you can call it free. Many people don't.

They don't now, but this thread is about the future. In 1960, you could have said "many boaters don't have radios on board". That completely fails to predict today's reality.

Governments will still keep producing the cartography and I doubt that printed charts will disappear. To the government agencies creating the maps

NO! The cartographers are producing DATA, not maps. It's only a map (or chart) if its printed.

why would it make a difference how the end user uses them

That is exactly my point. It makes all the difference. If no one buys a paper chart, then no one will produce one. In the USA, NOAA charts are now available "print on demand" at many chandlers. Go ask them how that 60" long bed 4 color printer investment is working out for them. Its not, because every year, fewer and fewer people are paying to buy a paper chart, and I contend that paper charts will succumb to 'supply and demand' economics. If no one buys them, no one will print them.

[doug86]

Originally Posted by jackdale

A new report warns that society has become ‘dangerously over-reliant’ on satellite navigation systems, just two weeks after such a system was declared safe for guiding aircraft from space

http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publica...ems_Report.pdf

Well, now that is a useful topic for us to ponder....

Here is my 'take': The US military has now become totally dependent on a reliable, accurate location service, which GPS has certainly become. Every soldier, every tank, every cruise missile, aircraft, ship, truck... they all are using GPS. And in the civilian world, from farmers to pizza delivery, oil tankers to auto parts stores, we are now all using and depending on GPS. So, two things I take from this:

- The US Defense Department will insure that some kind of satellite based location system will remain available for its use
- The US Capitalists will insist that the signal be available for their use too.

IF some enemy manages to bring down the entire GPS constellation, then that enemy has capabilities beyond what I'm willing to contemplate.... in fact, that same enemy would probably already have attacked the internet, making this thread not only moot, but impossible.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by jackdale

A spanner in the works



The report itself is at:

http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publica...ems_Report.pdf

Yea, but, ummm having a gps signal/fix has nothing to do with whether one is looking at a paper chart or a digital image of a chart. If paper one makes a mark with with a pencil and with the other one makes a mark with a selection and then a mouse click. (The selection will "write" a lot of stuff for you too!)

[James Baines]

Originally Posted by doug86

Well, now that is a useful topic for us to ponder....

Doug, you have had a lot of input on this and you have worked hard to keep things on track but with your permission, I would like to take this a logical step further:
Let’s assume, just for the heck of it, that paper charts Do go the way of the Dodo;
Let’s assume that we Do become totally reliant upon E. Nav Systems;
The question then becomes “How do we cope in the event of the failure of those systems”?
In every form of technical progress, along with the step forward, there has ultimately been a backup plan “Just in case”. In many well recorded cases, those backup plans came too late, the “Unsinkable” Titanic is just one of many tragedies caused by an arrogant belief that the technology was superior to the point where lifeboats were no longer needed.
Early pilots learned that parachutes were rather nice to have, along with a dingy if you were flying over the wet stuff; I am a former navy pilot and having had to eject twice, I can assure you that I really appreciated the thinking that went into my survival gear.
So my challenge to the very bright people here is to come up with Your ideas on what we might need to do, or what basic things we might need to invent, in order that we can survive not if, but When our E. Nav systems fail.
I would really like to hear ideas on that issue: Your ideas, broadly distributed, even at this early stage of “E. Dependence” might well save lives at some point in the future. Serious stuff indeed.
Doug: If you think this is going too far away from your initial post, please let me know and I’ll start a new “Survival of E Failure" post.
James

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by doug86

Every soldier, every tank, every cruise missile, aircraft, ship, truck... they all are using GPS. And in the civilian world, from farmers to pizza delivery, oil tankers to auto parts stores, we are now all using and depending on GPS.

There's an important difference between reliance on electronic charting and reliance on GPS navigation. I don't think it's fair to correlate the two.

Lack of GPS, or failure or degradation of GPS, does not make electronic charts useless. All it does is put them on (at the very worst) the same level as paper charts. I can navigate (again, at worst) just as safely using my electronic chart systems as I can with a paper chart.

There is nothing magical about paper; it's just another medium for information storage.

[doug86]

Originally Posted by James Baines

Doug: If you think this is going too far away from your initial post, please let me know and I’ll start a new “Survival of E Failure" post.
James

James, not at all. In fact, you have framed the question eloquently, and I hope it continues here on "death to paper".

One thing I should say; I have not advocated that we end paper. In fact, I just this month finished building some chart drawers on my boat, which was somehow built in 1978 without a single place to store a paper chart. But, I see that paper will end, at least as we know it, in the way that chemically developed film is gone. Technology marches on, and you can cling to your 35mm film camera as long as you want; or until there is nowhere to get the film developed. Eventually, there will few places that even have the capability to print you a chart, even if you want to pay for it.

For those crossing oceans, I wonder who will invent the digital sextant. A device with a built in database of the daily pages and HO249, powered by 4 AAA batteries. All one would have to do is get a good sunsight, and voila!, here is your fix. This kind of thing would allow you to plot the fix on paper or into a chartplotter, but at least it would be completely separate from a GPS signal. It would rely on the sun or stars.

The essence of global navigation is simple: know where you are, and know the Lat/Lon of where you want to go. With those two data points, a simple compass course will get you there. All the rest; paper, pencils, rulers chartplotters, GPS etc. are merely tools to make that process simpler.

[doug86]

Originally Posted by Therapy

Yea, but, ummm having a gps signal/fix has nothing to do with whether one is looking at a paper chart or a digital image of a chart. If paper one makes a mark with with a pencil and with the other one makes a mark with a selection and then a mouse click. (The selection will "write" a lot of stuff for you too!)

Originally Posted by Arch Stanton

There's an important difference between reliance on electronic charting and reliance on GPS navigation. I don't think it's fair to correlate the two.

Lack of GPS, or failure or degradation of GPS, does not make electronic charts useless. All it does is put them on (at the very worst) the same level as paper charts. I can navigate (again, at worst) just as safely using my electronic chart systems as I can with a paper chart.

There is nothing magical about paper; it's just another medium for information storage.

Both good points, but lets be honest. In the real world, digital navigation and the equipment that makes use of digital charts also makes us of an instant and updated position: as provided by GPS. You are correct that the chart remains useful as a chart without the position information, but for all practical purposes, the two are linked and in fact, as has been pointed out ad naseum, far too many boaters would be lost without that GPS signal, even though they are looking at a fine chart on a screen. But I don't think they would be less lost if they were looking at a paper chart.

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by doug86

far too many boaters would be lost with that GPS signal, even though they are looking at a fine chart on a screen. But I don't think they would be less lost if they were looking at a paper chart.

I don't understand how information on a screen can be considered less useful than the exact same information on paper?

[doug86]

Originally Posted by Arch Stanton

I don't understand how information on a screen can be considered less useful than the exact same information on paper?

meant to write "lost WITHOUT that GPS signal"

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Arch Stanton

I don't understand how information on a screen can be considered less useful than the exact same information on paper?

It is not the information, it is the functionality.

I can do a set and drift calculation on a paper chart, I can also do it on my laptop; the paper chart method is faster. The same is true for a three bearing fix.

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by doug86

meant to write "lost WITHOUT that GPS signal"

I get your meaning. I just don't agree that the exact same charting information (with no GPS) is somehow less useful if it's on a computer screen.

[James Baines]

Originally Posted by doug86

For those crossing oceans, I wonder who will invent the digital sextant. A device with a built in database of the daily pages and HO249, powered by 4 AAA batteries. All one would have to do is get a good sunsight, and voila!, here is your fix.

Doug, now that you have suggested it, I have no doubt that some enterprising soul will have it on the market within twelve months!!!.

That's the wonderful thing about asking "What If" questions; there is no end to what you can learn by simply asking "What If". I look forward to buying your lower cost "Wind Up" version of the digital sextant...James

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by jackdale

It is not the information, it is the functionality.

I can do a set and drift calculation on a paper chart, I can also do it on my laptop; the paper chart method is faster. The same is true for a three bearing fix.

Maybe it just boils down to what medium you're most comfortable with.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by doug86

For those crossing oceans, I wonder who will invent the digital sextant. A device with a built in database of the daily pages and HO249, powered by 4 AAA batteries. All one would have to do is get a good sunsight, and voila!, here is your fix.

Originally Posted by James Baines

Doug, now that you have suggested it, I have no doubt that some enterprising soul will have it on the market within twelve months!!!.

That's the wonderful thing about asking "What If" questions; there is no end to what you can learn by simply asking "What If". I look forward to buying your lower cost "Wind Up" version of the digital sextant...James

Dang Doug!

What a great idea.

[boatman61]

Soorry guys I'm back.....

Tom Tom is the most stupid system ever invented for roads in the UK... its caused chaos... why... because a bunch of brain dead 'Techies' looked at a Road Atlas and programed the routes...
No considerations of one ways systems... or the B roads as we call them... and a few other things... result drivers following a voice that takes them into oncoming traffic... Articulated wagons getting jammed between houses in villages on roads they should not be on to name a few... never happened before Tom Tom...
What you guys out there forget is... your 'Wonder Machine' is only as intelligent as the moron who programmed it... and I know a lot of 'Experts/Specialists' who in every other sense are total morons...
For some reason you 'Kids' out there think you invented cartography... you did not... artists with skill did... you guys just added a few dots and dashes here and there...
Jesus... talk about telling your Grandparents how to suck eggs...