Research on Web Mapping of Vector Nautical Charts Based on HTML5

Abstract

According to the issues encountered by traditional web chart technologies, the paper, following the boom of HTML5, did a research into web mapping of vector nautical charts based on HTML5. The research mainly includes: 1) System architecture for the HTML5 based web chart application, in which HTML5, CSS and Javascript are used to build and style the client Web chart pages, and Node. Js is used to construct the server-side to provide both HTTP and Web Socket services, 2) Organization of vector chart data to obtain more efficiency of data network transmission and data procession, for which original S-57 charts are converted into Shape files and a Javascript framework is designed to read and parse the Shape files for the client, 3) Vector nautical charts display on Web page, for which a Javascript display framework and rendering functions for chart points, lines and areas symbols are designed based on HTML5 Canvas. An application of web chart based vessel tracking is tested further to verify the proposed methods. The results showed that HTML5 is suitable to develop web vector chart applications, although there are several problems waiting to be solved such as it can't comply with S-52 display standard completely.