Marine GeoGarage, "Pathfinder of the Seas"

GeoGarage, cloud-based nautical charts streaming platform
just the mapping apps for the 70% of the world that Google Maps does not cover...

Though datafication’s been fundamentally enabled by advances in computing technology, the baseline of the Marine GeoGarage is a reference to the work of 19th century naval officer Matthew Maury, who painstakingly sifted through records of nautical books, maps and charts and inventoried barometers, compasses, sextants and chronometers to assemble new navigational charts that revolutionized trans-Atlantic travel.

Matthew Maury nicknamed "Pathfinder of the Seas" 

and "Father of Modern Oceanography and Naval Meteorology"

and later, "Scientist of the Seas"

The “Pathfinder of the Seas” established and analyzed a huge body of data that ultimately led to cuts in the times of long voyages by a third.
Today, Maury would be a celebrated data scientist.

Chart by Lieutenant M.F. Maury, 1848

In some similar way, the goal of the Marine GeoGarage is to become the "Google Maps" of the seas, gathering all the nautical charts available at the international Hydrographic Offices, and proposing regular updates to keep the information the most precise possible.

Why using the Marine GeoGarage services ?

The Marine GeoGarage is an integrated online marine tool, providing functions such as :

• nautical charts display
• voyage planning
• waypoint and route monitoring
• bearing and distance calculations
• transfer displayed waypoints and routes to your Garmin GPS receiver via the Garmin Communicator plugin or save them in GPX format

NOTE : This chart display or derived product for mobile smartphone can be used as a planning or analysis tool and may not be used as a navigational aid.

Use the official, full scale National Hydrographic Service (HS) nautical charts for real navigation whenever possible. These are available from authorized HS nautical chart sales agents.

Screen captures of the on-line viewable charts available here do NOT fulfill chart carriage requirements for vessels.

Welcome to the Marine GeoGarage on Prezi

Welcome to Marine GeoGarage News

Our website is dedicated to any sailor or mariner who plans to study his next trip at sea, comfortably installed at home.

Marine GeoGarage has figured out a way to overlay a complete set of nautical raster charts over Google Maps.
So nautical charts can be viewed online with advanced quilting process (mosaic image with removed borders -map collars- for a seamless rendering display of multiple charts), zooming in and out, panning in a continuous way for selecting the specified map scale automatically (so the appropriate map), by simply sliding the mouse roll, with full transparency management via layer opacity sliders (for terrestrial maps and orthophoto overlay) and Google local search (marinas, harbour services...)

Marine GeoGarage proposes a feature (without any Login process) where the user can drop waypoints and create custom routes but which can also be saved if the user asks for a free account.

What is really cool about the site is that you can export out those saved routes and move them over directly to your Garmin GPS unit via the Garmin Communicator Plugin.

Marine GeoGarage is world's first nautical charts web portal with data coming from International Hydrographic Services built as a Software as a Service (SaaS) available in free and pay-per-use model.

Marine GeoGarage uses a Freemium business model -mix of ad supported and subscription-, offering these Web services (described above) for free while charging a Chart Premium for accessing to certain nautical charts layers and certain privileges (Ad-Free).
So Marine GeoGarage is and will be sustainably FREE but you need to pay a monthly subscription if you want to access the UK/Canada/Australia charts (and in a next future some other Hydrographic Services additional charts).
The reason is because Marine GeoGarage is required to royalty fees to display them online.



What Marine GeoGarage changes is the concept of nautical electronic charts viewing:
you don't "own" anymore the charts, just "use" them and share them, anytime, anywhere you are via computer, mobile phone or any other Internet enabled personal device.
The Cloud computing part of the service provides some resources in back-end to ensure regular processes for updating the charts.

Enjoy !

Welcome to Marine GeoGarage Blog

Daily press review with marine general thematic

This blog is mainly dedicated to share other sources of news and press articles relative to the maritime world (including marine electronics, ocean conservation, sailing, shipping, underwater adventures, maritime events & industry trends...).
This daily press review (tagged with 'marine' label) is proposed to sea-lovers all over the world having a common passion for exploring this thematic. 

Views expressed in the different articles are the opinions of their original author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the GeoGarage team. 

By the way, this blog (with articles tagged with the separate label 'marinenews') is also dedicated to give tips about the use of the GeoGarage platform and experimentations from international Hydrographic Offices, but also to promote some experimentations lead in parallel by the GeoGarage technical team.

"The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul" -Robert Wyland