The Development of a New Methodology for Automated Sounding Selection on Nautical Charts

摘要

Conducting a manual sounding selection for display on official nautical charts is time-consuming and is becoming more challenging because of the high-quality hydrographic data. Boosted by the development of surveying technology, research of automated sounding selection capabilities is a logical step in improving production of nautical charts. In this work a new methodology for automated sounding selection based on areas of sudden change in the sea floor relief is defined. Quantitative parameters of the seafloor obtained from the survey, slope and aspect are used to segregate and classify seafloor features significant for navigation. By detecting their boundaries, principles of sounding selection for each class are applied in order to represent all the relevant information regarding a specific feature. Spatial accuracy analysis is conducted on two large multibeam hydrographic surveys by comparing the obtained results with the automated sounding selection feature within dKart Editor and the manually selected soundings on official nautical charts. The RMSE (Root Mean Square Error) of vertical deviations and its relation to terrain characteristics within the initial quality assessment is encouraging and suggests that the proposed automated methodology represents an improvement compared to dKart and could be applied with the same effectiveness as a manual method.