CHARTING THE OCEANS FOR SAFE NAVIGATION 71 



compiled. Large scale photogrammetric compilations have been 

 prepared for many special uses, including the selection and 

 development of a suitable site and the installation of a desalina- 

 tion plant on the Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba. Currently, 

 general development maps of a number of naval bases are being 

 produced to aid in the future planning and development of the 

 bases. 



Only a few of the many types of special purpose charts 

 issued by the Oceanographic Office have been described in the 

 foregoing paragraphs; all pertain directly to Navy missions and 

 maritime operational needs. Despite the large increase in the 

 number and quantities of such charts produced, requirements 

 continue to grow. It is to be expected that special purpose charts and 

 graphics will play a greater and greater role as the oceanographic 

 programs of the Navy and the nation move forward to greater 

 accomplishment. 



AUTOMATION OF CHART PRODUCTION 



The solution to an ever increasing demand for charts lies in the 

 employment of high speed computers and other precision devices in 

 automated cartographic production. Today the photogrammetrist 

 has instruments at his disposal that can record values to the 

 nearest micron. He also has computers to assist him in estab- 

 lishing supplementary control or in calibrating his cameras. For 

 the future, automated systems utilizing aerial photographs may 

 well perform the greater part of the work required in coastal 

 chart construction and in chart revision. Recent technological 

 advances in echo-sounding equipment and automated techniques for 

 collecting and processing data — many of which are already 

 operational — have considerably speeded up the conducting of 

 surveys by eliminating former time-consuming manual methods. 

 A finished chart is now available soon after completion 

 of the field survey. For example, modern computers process the 

 data and feed it to mechanical plotters which plot up to 28,000 

 accurately positioned soundings in an eight-hour day compared to 

 300 by former manual methods. 



The initial steps to automate cartographic production in the 

 Oceanographic Office were taken in 1960, when development was 



