—Clint Padgett, Bowhead Science and Technology
The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are responsible for providing navigation information to the maritime community. The national channel framework (NCF) is the basis for portraying information about congressional authorized navigation channels. The most fundamental components of the NCF consist of the outside channel limits, TOELINES, construction centerlines, top of slope lines, TOSLINES and quartered sections of the channel as well as reaches locations within the channels. Up until recently, both agencies have been using CAD to build and maintain all channel framework data, creating design standards for the existing CAD products and transferring that data to the Mobile District eCoastal Enterprise GIS geodatabase. Through Internet Map Services (IMS) and Web Map services (WMS), the USACE is able to consolidate the channel framework data, and has been successful in sharing data with NOAA. With additional ARRA funding for this project, channel framework has grown to include the creation of 3D models for the 61 high tonnage channels maintained by USACE and has considerably helped push the task at hand to completion.