Aeronautical Charting Services

Since 2002 the NSG Group, through its New Zealand member EGL, has been working with Airways Corporation New Zealand (Airways) and Civil Aviation Authority (NZ), (CAA), on a database approach to cartography and specifically the adoption of GIS technology from ESRI for the production of the Visual Navigation Charts. Completion of this project in 2003 was on-time and within the range of budget estimates provided to Airways and CAA.

In 2004 EGL was acknowledged by ESRI with the award of 1st place in “Best Chart or Map Series” at the annual user conference attended by over 10,000 users of ESRI technology. ESRI acknowledged EGL as a centre of excellence for the production of aeronautical charting based upon ESRI technology. The ongoing maintenance of the Visual Navigation Charts has proceeded using this design methodology.

Since 2004 NSG has been working with ESRI in regard to their customised aeronautical charting software, PLTS (Production Line Tool Set) Aeronautical. ESRI developed this to address specifically the charting requirements of a single database approach initially in relation to enroute charting. ESRI has been producing enroute charts worldwide since 2003 and has further expanded the toolset to cover many chart styles. EGL has worked on the migration of New Zealand data to the required charting database schema to support PLTS methodologies in the production of enroute charts.

EGL has proposed the extension of the database to include the creation of a centralised database environment that could support the production of all aeronautical charting required for in New Zealand. The PLTS Aeronautical database set up utilises the AICM schema based on AIXM 4.5/5.0. This schema utilises ICAO templates and meets ICAO Annex 4 specifications developed by Eurocontrol.

In 2007 the NSG Group was contracted by ESRI to provide specific domain experience for the development of functionality to be included in the new release of PLTS Aeronautical version 9.3. This functionality was in the evaluation and testing of the “feature builder” tool. This capability underpins the ability for airspace design.