An international standard for electronic navigational charts was defined within the scope of EU transport research. This standard was adopted by the Danube Commission (Donaukommission), the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine (CCNR) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN-ECE) and has been set in force by the European Union as Commission Regulation 909/2013 on basis of the RIS directive 2005/44/EC. The Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie, bmvit) provides charts for the whole area of the Austrian Danube.
System requirements for the use of these charts:
- a PC with a resolution of at least 1024x768 pixels if possible
- ECDIS-software for displaying Inland ENCs in line with the standard
If the PC is connected to a GPS receiver, it is possible to display the own ship’s position and thus automated charting is facilitated. It is also possible to connect the PC to a radar device. Thus, the radar image can be combined with the chart and navigation made possible.
The corresponding software is currently available for example from the following companies:
Inland ECDIS for navigation mode (with radar integration):
| Innovative Navigation | www.innovative-navigation.de |
| Periskal Group | www.periskal.com |
| Tresco Engineering | www.tresco.be |
| Swiss Radar | www.swissradar.com |
Inland ECDIS for information mode (without radar integration):
| Chart World | www.chartworld.com |
| Command & Control Technologies | www.cctcorp.com |
| Innovative Navigation | www.innovative-navigation.de |
| SevenCs AG & Co. KG | www.sevencs.com |
| PC-Navigo | www.pcnavigo.com |
| Orca Navigator Österreich | www.orca-navigator.de |
| Periskal Group | www.periskal.com |
| Tresco Engineering | www.tresco.be |
| YAHNAV | www.yahnav.nl |
| OpenCPN | www.opencpn.org |
| Swiss Radar | www.swissradar.com |
Thanks to the company Seven Cs a freeware viewer is available, which provides the display of ENCs free of charge. This viewer can be downloaded on www.sevencs.com.
Please make sure to select "Inland Symbols" in the "Display" menu when you use the viewer. As the charts are stored in S-57 format, you can load these by clicking on the corresponding icon in the menu bar (second icon from the left); it is possible to load several cells simultaneously. If you view the import logfiles, these contain numerous error messages. These were checked and do not have any impact on the functionality of the charts. Furthermore, please note that you can open a maximum of 64 files at the same time. (Austrian ENCs comprise on the whole 68 files)
For reasons of performance, it is recommended not to open all of the data at the same time, but to load only shorter sections.
