After taking part in a competitive tender process, CARIS is pleased to announce that it has been awarded the PLECO Project with the Norwegian Hydrographic Service (NHS).

The NHS, a division of the Norwegian Mapping Authority, is responsible for surveying the Norwegian coast, including polar waters, and for producing and updating nautical charts and Sailing Directions for these waters. To continue to achieve these mandates in the most efficient way possible, NHS had a requirement to establish a new system for the post-processing of multibeam echosounder data.

The CARIS solution has been selected to address the system requirements identified by NHS.  These include the ability to handle the high volumes of data produced by modern multibeam systems, efficiently visualize data in 3D, utilize statistical algorithms for data cleaning, and report identified shoal objects in an effective way.  

NHS will utilize components of the CARIS Ping-to-Chart solution, including HIPS Multibeam Professional and BASE Editor, for the processing and analysis of multibeam data collected by the NHS and also other contractors and external data contributors. This will include the processing and quality control of data from current survey areas, where the steep, rocky or sandy seabeds pose particular challenges, and future areas of operation.

Evert Flier, director of the Norwegian Hydrographic Service said, “Hydrographic offices all around the world struggle with their resources when looking at the enormous amount of uncharted, or badly charted, waters. It’s therefore vital to optimize the resources we have. I’m confident that PLECO will contribute significantly to optimize our processes from ‘Ping-to-Chart’.”

There are expected to be 18 simultaneous users of the new system, which will be located both in the field and in the office. In addition to the software solution, NHS will also receive system training from CARIS and at least five years of maintenance as part of the new system implementation.