Extended Operational and Trade Vocabulary

Marine Hydrography, Charting and ENC glossary (page 2)

The hydrographic-charting vocabulary: the ENC usage bands (A1 Overview through A5 Harbour) in the S-57 navigational-purpose hierarchy, the migration to S-100, survey orders under S-44, and the chart-production and ENC-encoding terms. Grounds each term in the IHO standard or the charting process it belongs to.

439 defined terms.

Showing 189 on this page (page 2 of 2).

M

MapMedia: A French ENC and chart format producer associated with TimeZero navigation software.
Marine Information Overlay: AIO from UKHO containing T&P NMs and selected ENC preliminaries.
Marine Protected Area: MPA, charted via S-122 product specification under S-100.
Mariner Information Object: MIO, a custom user-added object overlaid in an ECDIS without altering ENC source data.
Master plan: Port master plan for long term development.
MBES: Multibeam Echo Sounder, the principal modern bathymetric survey instrument.
MEHRA: Marine Environmental High Risk Area, charted via specific UK ENC overlays.
Member State: One of the parties to the IMO Convention, currently 176 plus three Associate Members.
Mercator projection: Conformal chart projection with rhumb lines as straight.
Meta Object: An S-57 object class describing metadata about a coverage area, such as M_CSCL, M_QUAL, M_COVR.
Mexican Hydrographic Service: Operated by the Secretaria de Marina (SEMAR) of Mexico.
MIO: Micaceous Iron Oxide, a lamellar pigment used in epoxy intermediates to enhance barrier performance.
Monaco: The seat of the IHO Secretariat since 1921.
Mont-Joli: A Canadian Hydrographic Service office, serving the Gulf of St Lawrence region.
MSC: Maritime Safety Committee.
MSDI: Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure, an IHO programme to integrate hydrographic data with broader marine geospatial holdings.
MSI: Maritime Strategies International, the London consultancy.
Multibeam: A bathymetric survey method using fan-shaped beam arrays for swath coverage.
Multibeam echo sounder: Hull or pole mounted sonar that ensonifies a swath of seabed in a single ping to produce high-resolution bathymetry.

N

Nautical mile: 1852 m international nautical mile.
NAVAREA: One of 21 navigational warning areas under the Worldwide Navigational Warning Service relevant to incident broadcasts.
Navigation Purpose: The ENC scale band (1-6); see also Usage Band.
Navigational warning: Notice broadcast to mariners about hazards to navigation.
NavSailor: See Furuno NavSailor.
NAVTOR: A Norwegian ENC distributor and digital services provider with the NavStation and NavBox products.
NAVTRACKER: An ENC management application from a regional ENC service provider.
New Edition: A complete reissue of an ENC cell, identified by the EDTN field, requiring base cell replacement.
New Zealand Hydrographic Authority: NZHA, the authority within LINZ producing NZ-prefix charts.
NEWNESS: ENC attribute encoding the temporal newness of a feature in some S-57 contexts.
NHS: Norwegian Hydrographic Service, the operational name within Kartverket.
NM: Notice to Mariners.
NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States.
NOAA Custom Chart: NCC, a NOAA service producing user-defined PDF chart areas derived from US ENCs after the sunset of legacy paper charts.
NOAA ENC: The US ENC dataset issued by the Office of Coast Survey.
NOAA Office of Coast Survey: OCS, the US federal hydrographic office, descendant of the 1807 Survey of the Coast.
Non-Authoritative Data: Data issued outside official HO channels; not compliant with SOLAS V chart carriage.
Norbit iWBMSh: Norbit compact wideband multibeam echo sounder used on small survey vessels and USVs.
Norrkoping: The headquarters of the Swedish Maritime Administration, Sjofartsverket.
North American Datum: NAD 83, a historical horizontal reference superseded for charting by WGS-84.
Norwegian Mapping Authority: Kartverket, parent of the Norwegian Hydrographic Service.
Notice to mariners: NM, updates to nautical charts and publications.
NPub: Naval Publications, the US Navy equivalent series of nautical reference documents, distributed by NGA.

O

OAS: Operational Area for Survey, used in survey planning documents.
Object Catalogue: The IHO S-57 Appendix A defining all ENC feature and attribute classes.
OCS: NOAA Office of Coast Survey.
Official ENC: An ENC issued by or under the authority of a national HO, the only category meeting SOLAS V/19.
OneOcean Group: The corporate group formed from ChartCo and Tototheo's digital fleet management businesses.
Open ECDIS Forum: An online practitioner forum (now defunct) for ECDIS users and providers.
OpenCPN: An open-source chart plotting software supporting unencrypted ENC display.
OpenSeaMap: A community-driven nautical chart layer derived from OpenStreetMap data.
Other Display: The S-52 layer containing objects not in Base or Standard display, shown at the mariner's option.
Overlay: A non-ENC layer (AIO, MIO, weather routing) shown above the underlying chart.
Overview: Usage band 1 in the ENC scale hierarchy.

P

Pacific Hydrographic Commission: PHC, an IHO regional commission for Pacific Ocean states.
Paper Chart: A printed nautical chart; remains permissible under SOLAS V as backup or with appropriate carriage exemption.
Pass: A swath or line of soundings collected by a survey vessel.
Permit File: An S-63 file containing cell-permit records authorising ENC decryption on a specific ECDIS.
Pilot boarding place: Charted symbol denoting a pilot boarding ground.
PLA: Port of Loading Acknowledgement.
PLAEM: Polar Low-Altitude Echo Mapping, an emerging survey method noted in IHO bulletins.
PLI: Position, Length and Identity, a fundamental object key triple in ENCs.
Plot: Graphical representation of vessel movement.
Plotter Sheet: A pre-printed blank chart used for manual position plotting in passage planning training.
Point Object: An S-57 object represented by a single coordinate, such as BOYLAT or LIGHTS.
Polar Stereographic: A projection used on high-latitude paper charts where Mercator distorts excessively.
Port Call Message Format: The IHO S-211 product specification for port call data exchange.
Portrayal: The S-52 process converting ENC features into the symbols and colours seen on an ECDIS.
Position Source Information: Attributes recording the origin and quality of feature positions in ENCs.
Preliminary Cell: An ENC cell whose data is under preliminary status pending finalisation.
Preliminary Notice: A P NM advising of forthcoming permanent changes to charted information.
Primar: The Norwegian RENC based in Stavanger, distributing ENCs from member HOs worldwide.
Producer Code: The IHO S-62 four-character agency code identifying the ENC producer.
Product Specification: An S-100-conformant document defining the structure and content of a hydrographic data product (S-101, S-102, S-104, S-111, S-122, S-124, S-129, S-201, S-211).
Projection: See Map Projection.
Publication 117: NGA Pub. 117 Radio Navigational Aids, the US counterpart of ALRS Volumes 1-2.

Q

Quality of Bathymetric Data: ENC meta object M_QUAL conveying CATZOC values per coverage area.
Quality of Data: The general S-57 concept covering source, accuracy, and survey age metadata.
Quality of Position: The S-57 attribute QUAPOS describing the certainty of a feature's position.
Quasi-Linear Feature: An S-57 representation suited to features such as breakwaters and piers.

R

R2Sonic 2024: R2Sonic ultra-wideband multibeam echo sounder for survey and offshore applications.
R2Sonic 2026: High-frequency variant of the R2Sonic 2024 with extended angular coverage.
Racon: Radar transponder marking AtoNs.
Raster Chart: A pixel-based digital chart; ARCS and BSB/KAP are widely used raster formats.
Raster Navigational Chart: RNC, a raster equivalent of an official paper chart; carriage permissible only where ENCs are unavailable under SOLAS V/19.2.1.5.
RCDS: Raster Chart Display System mode of an ECDIS used where ENCs are unavailable.
Re-Issue: A re-issue of an ENC cell consolidating all prior updates into a new base file without functional change.
RENC: Regional ENC Coordinating Centre, of which Primar (Stavanger) and IC-ENC (Taunton) are the principal global examples.
Resampling: The interpolation of bathymetric grids when converting between resolutions.
Restricted Area: ENC object RESARE describing an area with navigational restrictions.
RHC: Regional Hydrographic Commission, the IHO subregional coordination bodies (NSHC, BSHC, MBSHC, USCHC, etc.).
RoRo: Roll-on roll-off vessel, relevant to berthing-scale ENC depiction of linkspan structures.
Route Plan: A waypoint-based passage plan validated against an ENC by an ECDIS.
Route Sharing: An emerging S-421 product specification for exchange of route plans.
Royal Australian Navy: Naval service of Australia, RAN.

S

S-100: IHO Universal Hydrographic Data Model framework.
S-101: IHO product specification for the next-generation Electronic Navigational Chart (ENC).
S-102: IHO product specification for bathymetric surface data.
S-104: Water Level Information for Surface Navigation, an S-100 product specification.
S-111: Surface Currents Product Specification under S-100.
S-122: Marine Protected Areas Product Specification under S-100.
S-124: Navigational Warnings Product Specification under S-100.
S-128: Catalogue of Nautical Products, an S-100 product specification.
S-129: Under Keel Clearance Management Product Specification under S-100.
S-201: Aids to Navigation Product Specification under S-100.
S-211: Port Call Message Format Product Specification under S-100.
S-32: IHO Hydrographic Dictionary, the multilingual reference of hydrographic terms.
S-4: IHO Regulations of the IHO for International (INT) Charts and Chart Specifications.
S-44: IHO Standards for Hydrographic Surveys; current editions are 5 (2008) and 6 (2020).
S-52: IHO standard for ECDIS chart content and display.
S-57: IHO transfer standard for ENCs.
S-58: IHO Recommended ENC Validation Checks.
S-61: IHO Product Specification for Raster Navigational Charts.
S-62: IHO ENC Producer Codes register.
S-63: IHO standard for ENC data protection.
S-64: IHO Test Data Sets for ECDIS.
S-65: IHO ENC Production, Maintenance and Distribution Guidance.
S-66: IHO Facts about Electronic Charts and Carriage Requirements.
Safety contour: Depth contour on ECDIS dividing safe from unsafe water for the vessel.
Safety depth: ECDIS parameter highlighting soundings shallower than the value.
Sailing directions: Coastal pilots describing harbors, routes and dangers.
SANHO: South African Hydrographic Office, at Tokai, Western Cape.
Scale: The display scale chosen for a chart product; ENCs encode compilation scale in M_CSCL.
Scout: A vessel deployed for advance hydrographic reconnaissance ahead of a survey vessel.
SeaBat: Teledyne Reson's multibeam echo sounder series, including the SeaBat 7125, T20, T50, and T51 variants.
Seabed 2030: Nippon Foundation-GEBCO initiative to map the entire seafloor by 2030.
Secretaria de Marina: SEMAR, the Mexican Navy department under which the national hydrographic service operates.
SENC: System ENC, the internal optimised representation of ENC data inside an ECDIS.
Service Hydrographique et Oceanographique de la Marine: SHOM, the French national HO at Brest.
SHN: Servicio de Hidrografia Naval, the Argentine HO at Buenos Aires.
SHOA: Servicio Hidrografico y Oceanografico de la Armada, the Chilean HO at Valparaiso.
Shoal: Shallow place.
SHOM: Service Hydrographique et Oceanographique de la Marine.
SI Units: The International System of Units used throughout IHO publications.
Side-scan sonar: Towed sonar producing acoustic images of the seafloor on either side of the towfish.
Sidney BC: The Pacific regional office of the Canadian Hydrographic Service.
Singapore Hydrographic Office: Within the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.
Single Beam Echo Sounder: Sonar producing a single depth value per ping.
Sjofartsverket: The Swedish Maritime Administration in Norrkoping, the Swedish HO.
Sjokartverket: The historical Norwegian term for the hydrographic chart authority, now within Kartverket.
Sodena: A French ECDIS and electronic chart system manufacturer.
SOLAS V/19.2.1.4: The SOLAS Chapter V regulation requiring ECDIS carriage on new ships.
SOLAS V/19.2.10: The SOLAS regulation framing nautical chart and publication carriage requirements.
Sounding: Measured depth.
Source Diagram: A paper-chart diagram showing the surveys that contributed to charted depths; equivalent in ENCs via CATZOC and M_QUAL.
South African Hydrographic Office: SANHO, at Tokai, Western Cape.
Standard Display: The S-52 minimum display category required by IMO for ECDIS.
Stavanger: The headquarters of Primar, the Norwegian RENC; also a major Norwegian survey base.
Sub-Bottom Profiler: Acoustic survey instrument used in cable and pipeline route surveys to image sediment layers.
Survey vessel: Hydrographic or geophysical survey ship.
SWATH: Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull pilot vessel design used at exposed pilot stations.

T

T NM: Temporary Notice to Mariners covering changes expected to last less than a defined period.
T&P NM: Temporary and Preliminary Notices to Mariners published collectively in Admiralty NMs.
Taunton: The headquarters of the UKHO since 1968.
Teledyne Reson: Teledyne Marine business segment covering the SeaBat multibeam echo sounder family.
Temporary Notice: See T NM.
Test Dataset: A reference ENC dataset distributed in IHO S-64 for ECDIS validation.
Tidal stream atlas: Admiralty tidal stream publication.
Tide Pole: A graduated staff used to observe water level for survey reduction to chart datum.
Tide tables: Publications giving tidal predictions; see ATT and NP201 to NP204.
TimeZero: A MapMedia and Furuno navigation application using their proprietary chart format.
Tokai: The location of SANHO, the South African Hydrographic Office.
Tokyo: The headquarters city of JHOD, the Japan Hydrographic and Oceanographic Department.
Total Propagated Uncertainty: TPU, the combined horizontal and vertical uncertainty assigned to each sounding under S-44.
Track: Path actually followed over the ground.
Traffic Separation Scheme: TSS, an IMO-adopted routeing measure charted via the TSSLPT, TSSCRS, and TSEZNE object classes.
Transas Navigator: The Navi-Sailor 4000 ECDIS product line, now part of Wartsila Voyage.

U

UKHO: United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, publisher of Admiralty charts.
UN-GGIM: United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management, partner of the IHO on marine geospatial data.
Under-keel clearance: UKC, key safety margin verified during pilotage of deep-draft vessels.
Update: A .001 or higher S-57 file updating a base ENC cell.
Updating Cycle: The maintenance cycle by which an HO issues NMs and ENC updates, typically weekly.
USACE: United States Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for federal navigation channels and locks.
Usage Band: The S-57 numeric category (1-6) representing the scale and intended navigational use of an ENC cell.
UTC: Coordinated Universal Time; AIS timestamps are referenced to UTC seconds.
UWTROC: ENC object class for underwater rocks and obstructions, with depth attributes.

V

Vayla: The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, the Finnish HO.
Vector Chart: Layered digital chart used in ECDIS.
Vertical Datum: Reference surface for elevations or depths.
VPF: Vector Product Format, the military vector chart format used in NGA Digital Nautical Chart products.

W

Wartsila Voyage: Business unit of Wartsila that integrates the former Transas portfolio, including NTPRO 5000 simulators and ECDIS products.
Water Level Information: The S-104 product specification within S-100.
Waypoint: Programmed position on a passage plan.
WEND: Worldwide Electronic Navigational Chart Database, the IHO global ENC coverage and distribution framework, now WENDWG.
WENDWG: The IHO WEND Working Group coordinating global ENC coverage.
WGS-84: World Geodetic System 1984, GNSS datum.
Wollongong: The headquarters of the Australian Hydrographic Office.
World Magnetic Model: WMM, the US-UK joint model used to compute magnetic variation values on charts.

X

XML: The encoding language used by S-100 product specifications for metadata and dataset exchange.

Z

Zone of Confidence: ZOC, the qualitative classification of survey reliability encoded in S-57 attribute CATZOC and visualised on ENCs.