New ECDIS Standards
In 2014 and 2015 several of the international standards related to ECDIS (IEC 61174 Standard, i.e. edition 4.0; IHO S-52 Presentation Library, i.e. edition 4.0; IHO S-64 Test Standard, i.e. edition 3.0) underwent revisions. This was done in order to reduce implementation irregularities, increase the clarity of the standards, and improve the overall usability of ECDIS.
The date of entry into force of the new editions of the S-52 and S-64 standards will be synchronized with the date of publication of the new edition of IEC 61174. From that date on, the new editions will be available for the type-approval of a new ECDIS. The previous editions of S-52 and S-64 will remain valid for twelve months beyond the date when the new editions will come into force, which is likely to be in autumn 2015.
An area of focus in the EC2007 ECDIS Kernel release version 5.20 has been detection and indication of danger and caution objects. Now it is specified which objects have to be treated as:
- Navigational hazards
- Areas for which special conditions exist
- Safety-contour-related objects
The following new functions have been added to the SDK. Now it is possible to
- reflect the revised and new definitions for the chart and mariner’s settings, i.e. display categories, viewing group layers, and so-called display selectors.
- enable the display of a chart's status at any past time or time interval, based on the applied chart updates.
- list only those objects in a pick report which are displayed according to the chart settings
The Kernel is provided with a test frame which includes all S-64 chart display tests. In order to demonstrate the implementation, tests are provided as source code as well.
