Introduction to the charting production environment

The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) provides standards for paper charting. These standards are provided as general guidelines allowing each region, agency, and/or company the ability to produce charts that fall within these guidelines while allowing these entities to maintain a unique graphic appearance for their charts. The Nautical Solution provides you with the ability to customize the tools and workflows to meet your specific requirements. For more information on nautical chart products, see Understanding cartographic navigational products.

There are two common data workflows for the creation of nautical chart products. These two supported workflows are described as enterprise or desktop production environments. The implementation details will vary from one production environment to another, depending on your requirements, workflows, and objectives. It is important to note, however, that even within these two production environments there can be many variations, interchangeable options, and custom steps.

There are also two common map document management workflows: Structured (Map Books) and Custom (Traditional).

To get started with using the Nautical Solution, you must

• Decide between enterprise or desktop production environments.
• Decide what map document management workflow will be used.
• Configure nautical properties for settings such as your product library, Central Data Repository (such as the NIS), and unit conversion and rounding rules.
• Obtain source data and/or transfer or create new features in the geodatabase.

Data workflows

Enterprise production environment

An enterprise production environment allows many editors to change and update data using a relational database management system (RDBMS) via ArcSDE. Generic geometry and attribute edits usually occur in this database, such as in the Nautical Information System (NIS) database. These edits are then migrated to the product databases when product-specific editing occurs.

Desktop production environment

A desktop production environment will involve, in most cases, the use of ArcSDE for Microsoft SQL Server Express licensed for ArcGIS Desktop. Data management usually occurs in a single database that contains features based on a limited extent, which is usually the extent of the product being created. Only a limited number of people can work on the product at one time.

System databases

Nautical Solution relies on configured system tables to ensure product integrity. These system tables are distributed between two types of databases: product library and the product databases. The product library database holds systemwide settings that will be used across all products. Creating library entries and implementing an instance are used to make the desired outputs, for example, electronic or paper charts, over a specific geographic extent. Over time, there will be many product databases, and these databases hold information that is unique to that individual product.

The product library is configured, set, and managed in ArcMap from the Production Properties dialog box. The product databases are managed in the Product Library window in ArcMap.

Populating chart geodatabase with existing S-57 data (Desktop production)

Once you have implemented the product instance, you need to register some of the database objects for versioning and archiving before you can load existing S-57 data into your production geodatabase. You need to register for versioning and archiving all the feature classes and some of the tables. Versioning allows you to create a version from your DEFAULT version where you can edit data and maintain its integrity by reconciling and posting verified changes back to the DEFAULT version. Archiving allows you to keep records of the changes to the data and products.

Steps:

1. Start ArcMap.
   Tip:

   If the ArcMap - Getting Started dialog box appears, you can open a new or existing map document. You can also check the Do not show this dialog box in the future check box and click Open.

2. Use the steps outlined in Checking products out to prepare the product for importing data.
3. Click the Catalog window button on the Standard toolbar in ArcMap.
4. Right-click each of the database objects outlined in red in the image below for your ENC, AML, or Chart product and click Register as Versioned.
5. Right-click each database object you registered for versioning and choose Archiving > Enable Archiving.

   If you are creating an ENC or AML product, you can stop here. If you are creating a Chart product, continue with steps 7–8 to register to version and archive-enable additional database objects.

6. Right-click each of the additional Chart database objects listed below and click Register as Versioned:
   • CartographicFeatures
   • GRD_Grids
   • Masks
7. Right-click each additional Chart database object you registered for versioning and click Archiving > Enable Archiving.

   All the database objects for Chart products outlined in red in the image below should be registered for versioning and archive enabled:

   
8. Close ArcMap.

Once you have set up the tables needed for the desktop production environment for existing products, you can use the S-57 to Geodatabase tool to load any S-57 cell into your production geodatabase. You can then use the nautical editing tools to modify the existing S-57 data to fit your production needs.

Steps:

1. Start ArcCatalog.
2. In the Catalog tree, right-click the feature dataset into which you want to import and click Import > S-57 to Geodatabase.

   The S-57 to Geodatabase dialog box appears.

   S-57 to Geodatabase dialog box for importing into an NIS database

   Note:

   If you are importing into a non-NIS production database, the override options will not be available.

3. Click the browse button (...) next to the Input S-57 Cell text box.
4. Navigate to and choose the S-57 cell you want to import.
5. Click Open.
   Note:

   If you are importing S-57 data into a non-NIS production database or do not want to use the override options for your NIS database, skip to step 8; otherwise, continue to the next step to override CSCL and M_CSCL values.

6. Check the Override CSCL and M_CSCL values check box to enable the grid view for editing.

   If you are importing into NIS, the Override CSCL and M_CSCL values grid is populated with rows that show the imported cell(s) DSPM:CSCL and M_CSCL:CSCALE values.

7. Click the cell in the Override column and type the new value for the DSPM:CSCL and/or M_CSCL:CSCALE value.

   The updated values are populated into the COMP_SCALE property during import.

8. Click OK.

   A status dialog box appears.

   When the process is complete, the S-57 to Geodatabase dialog box appears and asks you if you want to view the log file.

9. Click Yes to open and review the log file.

   The log file shows the following information:

   • Metadata information that was imported, such as dataset ID (DSID), dataset structure information (DSSI), and dataset parameter (DSPM)
   • The new value, if you have imported into an NIS database and replaced the imported cell's CSCL value with one of your own
   • The number of features and primitives that were imported
   • The amount of time it took to import
   • Any errors that occurred (listed at the top of the log file)
   • The import version name that was created and populated, if you imported into an ArcSDE geodatabase
   • The amount of time it took to read the file for the override option (NIS only)
10. Close the log file once you are finished reviewing it.
    Tip:

    If importing into an ArcSDE database, you will need to reconcile and post your data in the import version to the Default version.