NOORDERSOFT
PC-Navigo (VP) and PC-Navigo ENC
PC-Navigo (VP) is a Voyage Planner for the inland waterways of Europe, and so is PC-Navigo ENC. All functions available in the VP version are also available in the ENC version. But although the standard VP version of PC-Navigo contains maps and charts, there is an important difference between the navigation charts that can be shown with the help of PC-Navigo ENC and the overview charts in PC-Navigo VP:
Above you see a chart screen picture of the "ordinary" PC-Navigo VP. Sailing from the Lek River into the Merwede Canal the junction at Nieuwegein ist visible. There is not an awful lot of detail, although the contours of the river will more or less show the meanders. The voyage planning functionality does not require more: as long as the GPS position will determine the vessel's position somewhere near the river contour, the computer is perfectly able to calculate the necessary (long) distances. If you zoom in any further, you won't find more detail (in fact, PC-Navigo VP's zoom factor used to be limited, for this very reason).
Below you see the same junction, but now in an official navigation chart of Rijkswaterstaat, presented by PC-Navigo 2007 ENC. The chart image is compiled by means of the official ENC's (Electronic Nautical Charts) and all features that have an impact on the navigation are show in great detail, including buoys, beacons, traffic signs and marks, and constructions. The navigable channel and everything in it is show with a remarkable accuracy, and by means of a GPS reliable navigation conclusions can be drawn from the chart.
If you consult PC-Navigo for matters that involve a larger area (e.g. if you want to plan a voyage to Budapest) then this detailed chart presentation is useless: the computer would not be able to handle all the details simultaneously. The voyage planning software in PC-Navigo ENC, however, will "step back" to an overview level that allows it to perform the long distance planning task first. As soon as this task is done and the user zooms in to a certain level of detail, the overview charts are replaced by the detailed and accurate ENC's (if these are available for the concerned area!).
Thus the combination of PLANNING and LOGISTICS for the long term decisions and NAVIGATION and MANOEUVRING for the short term decisions of the skipper is facilitated. The change from one type of chart to the other works fully automatic in PC-Navigo ENC.
Another example from PC-Navigo VP , the Oranje Locks near Amsterdam: without the ENC information this area looks like this:
With the additional ENC information the same area looks as shown below. If you navigate with the help of a Global Positioning System (GPS) the difference is even more important. The GPS can show the position of the vessel accurately, but in order to define this position in a chart, this chart has to be at least as accurate. Not only the RELATIVE distances must be as accurate as possible, but also the ABSOLUTE position expressed in latitude and longitude of each and every object. If this would not be the case, the GPS position of the ship in the chart would lead to the wrong conclusions as for the vessel's real position.
It's obvious that the overview charts of PC-Navigo could never reach this precision. The ENC's can guarantee an accuracy within a range of only a few meters.
Inland ECDIS charts (ENC's) are part of the European Union's "River Information Services" approach: national waterway authorities are obliged to make these charts available for all waterways of class IV and higher. Any "open" type of ENC can be used with the apropriate PC-Navigo ENC version, if it is located within the geographical range of that version. It is therefore possible to view (open) "maritime" ENC's of an area along the British coast with PC-Navigo ENC UK, even though it is not situated inland, but it would NOT be possible to view an ENC of the Danube river with PC-Navigo ENC France: both may be in inland waterways, but the version coverage doesn't match the geographical area.
Please note, that the charts themselves are NOT part of PC-Navigo ENC : the official versions of the charts are the responsability of the various waterway authorities in Europe. PC-Navigo ENC is only the software tool that can make the charts visible. Many countries now make the ENC's available free of charge. Where such free ENC's are available these ENC's are pre-installed with the software. Thus users of the program have access to chart data for extremely low costs.
Nevertheless the availability of ENC's differs greatly in Europe: in The Netherlands, Austria, Serbia and Croatia ENC's of the main waterways are made available for free: the basic sets of these charts are pre-installed, and additional or updated charts can be downloaded from the web sites of the various national waterways authorities. Germany sells its ENC's (via distributors, a.o. NoorderSoft), while Belgium, France and the UK do not seem to provide any public coverage yet. In some countries private ENC cells are available, and even NoorderSoft produces private ENC's now (see below).
In PC-Navigo ENC all details can of course be shown in the voyage planning mode as well as in the ENC mode: as before, all details of locks, bridges, harbours and wharves is shown in the specification screens to the right of the chart. If you don't need this presentation, you simply switch your PC-Navigo ENC screen to "full screen view", so that all screen space is reserved for your chart.
Conclusion: if you need LONG DISTANCE information of your voyage, you may want to use PC-Navigo. If you need detailed information of the immediate vicinity of your boat, you may consider using PC-Navigo-ENC!
* Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch waterways authority, has produced Inland ECDIS charts (ENC's) in the order of importance of the waterways for transport. According to the E.U. directives, waterways of class IV and higher (these are waterways where ships of some 80 by 9,5 meter can navigate) must be covered. Not all of the remaining waterways are therefore covered. And although many of the smaller waterways that connect to class IV and V waterways are shown in the available ENC's, the amount of detail in these side branches is not always as one would want. The available coverage (april 2008) is show in the overview chart below.
The ENC's that PC-Navigo ENC uses are not part of the software: they are the responsability of the waterway authority. Additional charts, whenever they come available, can be downloaded and installed seperately and imported into PC-Navigo ENC. ENC's can be obtained from these waterway authorities:
The available coverage in the other countries of Europe, Germany, Austria and Croatia in particular, is shown below. Areas marked with a $ are areas where the charts must be bought (prices on demand at NoorderSoft).
NoorderSoft is busy to provide chart coverage for those areas that have not been covered by public ENC until now. The first of these private ENC, the series covering Belgium, will be available in september 2008.
