SSG No 4 - Shipgaz

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IT & COMMUNICATIONS 3D – the next generation of nautical charts A photo from the archipelago of Gothenburg. Below that is the same view in the 3D chart. In May last year Thomas Porathe from the Information Design Department of Innovation, Design and Product Development at Mälardalen University, defended his doctoral thesis about what he calls “The next generation of nautical charts”. He describes his work as “intuitive map reading” where a less cognitive workload is needed as the navigator is provided with a bridge view of the nautical chart during navigation. The 3D chart provides the navigator only with the most necessary information and this information is also presented in a more realistic way. In coastal navigation, landmarks like natural features or man-made constructions are important as they help the navigator to get the right bearings. This is independent of whether the landmark is real or presented in a virtual space. In daylight conditions landmarks also give the user an easy way to check and to gain confidence in the system. Thomas Porathe has therefore tried to achieve high realism, which enables the nautical officer to recognize the surrounding views when looking at his 3D chart. Traditional nautical charts provide the navigator with a bird’s eye perspective. This perspective has been proved best suited, when the task involves a need to understand the structure of space. When a task involves travel through a space, such as navigation, this perspective is less suitable. Instead a so-called egocentric view, which can be described as a very realistic virtual copy of the ship’s surroundings, is more suitable. The egocentric view provides the navigator with a virtual “bridge view” very similar to what he sees looking out of the windows. Mentally challenging Normally, traditional charts have a northup orientation and navigators are forced to perform mental rotations to align the nautical chart with their own course. This ability to perform mental rotations differs from person to person and is said to degenerate with increasing age. This operation is also mentally challenging, takes time and leads to an increase in an often already heavy cognitive workload, which in turn supports the risk of erroneous behaviour. This time-consuming and mentally demanding activity is perhaps most explicit in the operation of a high-speed craft. Accidents due to heavy mental load Two accidents that were due to high speed, heavy cognitive load and too short a decision time, were the high-speed ferries Sleipner and Baronen. The Sleipner sank in 1999 on the Norwegian west coast and 16 people drowned. In bad weather and darkness the Sleipner crashed into a rock, while the two officers were busy adjusting the radar sets and lost their bearings for 20 seconds while doing 35 knots. The other accident happened in 2000 when another Norwegian high-speed ferry, the Baronen, ran aground at full speed while the captain was informing the passengers over the PA system and the mate was loading the VCR with a safety video. “Mental rotations take time”, Thomas Porathe says and continues “As the speed of vessels increases, decision time may be in short supply”. The “bridge view” of the 3D charts means that the charts display information about land elevation, the appearance of buildings and air photographs covering 3D terrain. This new perspective provides the navigator with a better view of obstacles that lie in the forward path and also presents this information so that the navigator need not mentally rotate the chart when No-go area warning polygons added to the chart. The polygons show navigational waters for a vessel with a draft of four metres and the water level being one meter below mean. 32 SCANDINAVIAN SHIPPING GAZETTE • FEBRUARY 23, 2007
and the new egocentric, dynamic coastal view to the right. travelling on a course other than north. In addition to this the 3D nautical chart also contains all the information an electronic chart provides and can be used in the same way. The traditional way of displaying depth is by using numbers or soundings classified into depth intervals, which are then connected into isobars or so-called depth curves. Information presented in this way entails every number having to be read and compared to the ship’s draught, tidal level and wave amplitude before a decision can Thomas Porathe. be made. To further support the navigator and to reduce the cognitive workload the 3D charts show only two types of areas: No-Go and deep-water. Today’s use of waypoints has entailed a lot of traffic in narrow tracks. In areas with dense traffic, traffic separation schemes have been imposed. Thomas Porathe compares this to driving a car. “On the road we can drive without a lot of complicated navigation equipment and often we might even go on long trips without a map at all, by just following the road signs”, Thomas Porathe says, and compares the way points on the GPS navigator function to roads. Exocentric view To further explain what he means Thomas Porathe shows a screen dump from his prototype over the entrance to Mariehamn in the Åland archipelago in the Baltic Sea. The navigator’s own ship is travelling NE on the inbound lane to Mariehamn. The old pilot station at Kobbaklintar is on the starboard side. PETER LINEJUNG An example of the dual views of a 3D chart. The traditional exocentric north-up view to the left Partner at sea on navigation, communication and IT Zeatec Group, +46 304 670 680, sales@zeatec.com, www.zeatec.com IT & COMMUNICATIONS “This is an example of how a 3D chart display might look with the chart in a traditional exocentric north-up view to the left and the dynamic coastal view to the right” Thomas Porathe says. An approaching ferry is positioned dynamically from AIS transponder information and is visualised in the 3D chart view by a 3D model automatically picked from a library of ships. The dynamic safety contours (coloured blue-green) are set at 10 m for comparison with the standard 10 m depth curve in the exocentric view to the left. The grey box represents an unidentified radar echo not accounted for by land features, navigational aids or transponder equipped vessels. Thomas Porathe concludes his demonstration by saying: “The 3D nautical charts are intended as an initiative aid, not yet another technical mode that has to be mastered or a new manual that needs to be read”. monica andersson For more information, please visit www.idp.mdh.se/personal/tpe01/research
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