Ice Charting System in the Baltic- an example

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Ice Charting System in the Baltic-an example

• Robin Berglund,
• VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
• IICWG 5th meeting, Hamburg/Rostock
• April 19-22, 2004

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Presentation purpose and contents

• Purpose to give an overview of the present
  status of IceMap and to present how ice
  information is transferred and used by one
  important end user group the icebreakers.
• Contents
• IceMap
• IBNet, IBPlott systems

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VTT Information Technology

• A government owned research institute
• We help companies derive maximum benefit from the
  rapid progress in microelectronics, information
  technology and media technology.
• About 400 employees, annual turnover 40 M
• Remote sensing is one of the research areas
• IceMap is one example of a Customer specific
  systems development

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IceMap

• An interactive editing tool for creating maps
  using satellite images as templates
• Based on polygon networks attibutes can be
  assigned to areas defined as polygons. These
  attributes are related to the visual appearance
  (hatching), but also to properties like ice
  thickness etc.
• Output formats Postscript, Grid (attribute
  values at regular sampled intervals), area sizes
  and types per area. Other formats can be
  generated from the Postscript output (PDF,
  raster)
• Possibility to read temperature measurements
  directly from file and plot them on the map
• Isotherm generation
• Tailored to the needs of the Ice services around
  the Baltic Sea.
• Runs on a Unix workstation (HP-Unix, Digital
  Unix, SUN Solaris, Linux)
• Implemented using C, X-Windows, Motif

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FINNISH ICE SERVICE FLOW OF DATA AND
INFORMATION PRODUCTS
 
 
 
Sending
to
Receiving
Format

change
 
ViewIce

NOAA
 
ships

processing

compression
 
Check
AVHRR
 
 

adjust
 
 
 
 
 
Geometric
 
Sending
to
RADARSAT
 
Down-
transformation
 
icebreakers
SAR
 
loading
area cuts
 
 
resolution
 
ViewIce

 
reduction
 
Check
SST
 
compression
 

adjust
 
 
 
 
Users of all
Ground
 
Automatic
kind
Automatic

truth
 
Classification
-
Classification
 
Call-fax
-Icebreakers
 
Ice
chart
-Ships
 
ECMWF
-Pilots
 
-Fishermen
 
e-mail
ICEMAP
-Coast
 
Line reduction
guard
HIRLAM
 
-Military
 
-Strategic
 
Ice
drift
Ice drift in text
transpor-
Ice
forecast
 
chart
format

tation
 
Wave

WAM
planning
WAM
 
gauge
-General
Wave

forecast
 
data
 
public
charts
 
Wave forecasts in text
 
 
 
 
 
 
Formats
.
pdf
,
.ice
,
.tiff
, .
postcript
,
.grid,
Output product
Server
Processes
Model
Interactive operations on
In flow
Model
Manual
computer
operation
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IceMap status today

• Development mainly in Linux, latest version 3.2.
  This version used as a tool in research projects
  (IRIS Ice Ridging Information for Decision
  Making in Shipping Operations )
• Versions in operational use
• FIMR HP, ver 3.1.2.3
• BSH Sun Solaris 7, ver 3.0.3
• SMHI. Digital Unix, ver 2.8.4
• Windows version prototyped

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ICEMAP recent additions and future enhancement
ideas

• Possibility to run IceMap in batch-mode. Enables
  automated production of charts for separate areas
  and in different formats (including grid-files).
  Used at FIMR Ice Service.
• Automatic coloring of charts according to ice
  polygon attributes using color standard
  guidelines. Experimental at this stage
• Additional attributes for the ice polygons
  related to ice ridging. Enables dynamic addition
  of new attributes.
• Line simplification to reduce size of output
  file. Useful for possible transfer of vector
  formats over slow links or for resolution
  reduction for other purposes.
• Windows version (requires Cygwin license)
• Output according to SIGRID-3 (if required,
  implementation not there yet)

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IceMap on Linux - licensing options

• Linux-version is prototyped in a research project
  (IRIS). Prototype will be made available to
  participants in the IRIS project (FIMR, SMHI)
• Licensing option including source code access may
  be offered to anybody interested. Enables
  development of enhancements and in-house support
  without dependency on VTT. Terms and conditions
  available on request.
• copy of corrections/improvements also sent back
  to VTT
• for use within own organization only

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IBNet the End User System on the icebreakers

• Traffic information system for icebreakers
• Contract assignment by the Finnish and Swedish
  Maritime Authorities (jointly)
• Now in operational use in 2 centers 20 nodes,
  about 50 client installations, 24/7 utilization
  in wintertime.
• During a season over 200 Mbytes of data is
  generated in one replicated database (excluding
  satellite image data)
• Utilization of satellite images essential

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Interconnected Systems
Ice Service
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IBNet overall view
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IBNet geographically
VSAT satellite connection to the big
icebreakers , up to 512 kbit/s
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IBNet main modules

• Input on one IBNet node, on an icebreaker for
  example, is automaticaly replicated, i.e
  transferred to the other IBNet nodes.
• Certain operations can only be input by the
  IBNet Operator, such as ice restrictions for
  ports, ship register information etc.

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Message screen
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Satellite Data flow in the Baltic Sea
Data Provider
Server
Client Software
Client software
Data provider
Server
-Image preprocessing and geocoding -Compression
1.1 km pixel, visible and infrared
Icebreakers
FMA,
FMA,
NOAA satellites
SMA
SMA
FMI
Ice services (FIMR, SMHI)
NOAA weather satellite images
- Image delivery
- Icemaps
KSAT
RADARSAT
30 - 100 m pixel, all weather
Merchant ships
FMI Finnish Meteorological Institute
IBPlott
SMHI Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological
Possible link
Institute
FIMR Finnish Institute for Marine research
ViewIce
FMA Finnish Maritime Administration
Mobile link
SMA Swedish Maritime Adminstration
KSAT Kongsberg Satellite Service AS
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IBPlott lt-gt IBBridge connection
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IBPlott

• Satellite images
• NOAA and RADARSAT, now also ENVISAT
• Traffic situation
• Both icebreakers and ships
• DirWays
• Icechart
• Weather forecast and observations

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ViewIce ( IBPlott for merchant ships)

• Functionality as in IBPlott, but no traffic
  situation information
• Ice charts
• Satellite images
• Weather prognosis
• Wave forecasts

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ViewIce 2
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ViewIce3
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ViewIce 4
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ViewIce 4
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ViewIce 5
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ViewIce 6
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Viewice 7
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Viewice 8
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General data flow from providers to ViewIce
Data files
Data file
Pre-existing data transfer system (e.g. AMOS
mail)
Data file
...
ViewIce
Data file
Classified images and ice charts
Wind, pressure, water level observations
Wind, pressure forecast
NOAA images
Text forecasts
Wave forecasts
Radarsat images
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VTT focus in the future

• Distribution and delivery aspects
• the Facade
• delivery tailored to customer capabilities and
  needs
• Architecture of distributed systems
• interoperability
• open systems
• (Archive)
• internally
• externally
• And VTT sees no reason why IceMap could not have
  a central role in the Ice Services still for many
  years to come.

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Additional information

• www.vtt.fi/tte/pub/tte1/viewice/
• Robin.berglund_at_vtt.fi
• Ville.kotovirta_at_vtt.fi
• Markku.kylanpaa_at_vtt.fi (IceMap)