FREDERICTON, N.B. and TAUNTON, U.K. —Teledyne CARIS and the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) have launched a multi-year strategic partnership aimed at transforming the way hydrographic data is processed, and nautical charts are produced. This marks a significant step forward for the global hydrographic community and promises to deliver direct benefits to the UKHO and users of its ADMIRALTY products and services through collaborative enhancements to the CARIS software suite.
The partnership includes a three-year initiative that aims to evolve existing systems such as CARIS HPD, Bathy DataBASE, and HIPS and SIPS – which have been collaboratively refined over the past two decades. Rather than replacing these systems, these efforts will propel them into a next-generation suite of cloud-based services and intuitive web applications that reflect the evolving needs of geospatial users.
The initiative officially kicked off on June 9, marked by an on-site visit from the CARIS team to the UKHO headquarters. This strategic partnership forms part of a broader five-year enterprise license agreement and builds on a decades-long history of successful collaboration between the two organizations.
The partnership will enable the UKHO to process hydrographic data more efficiently and effectively, ensuring it can deliver continued support to hydrographic offices, mariners and wider users of hydrographic data across the world. Dave Tomaney, Chief Data Officer at the UKHO, commented “Our partnership with Teledyne CARIS will enable us to transform the way we process hydrographic data that is critical to producing our navigational products and services – relied on by mariners worldwide. By harnessing technology to improve data management and processing, we can continue our work with other hydrographic organisations to support navigational safety and the sustainable use of our oceans – not just benefitting the UKHO, but the wider maritime geospatial community too.”
The initiative will focus on streamlining the ingestion of survey data and the production of charts through automation, cloud storage, and user-friendly interfaces that preserve a rich data interaction experience.
“This partnership is rooted in the true spirit of collaboration, with government defining relevant use cases and CARIS customizing tailored, agile solutions.,” said Andy Hoggarth, Vice-President of CARIS. “By evolving our tools and workflows, we’re laying the groundwork for UKHO and CARIS to be at the forefront of global hydrography.”
With regular onsite collaboration planned over the coming years, the initiative underscores the mutual benefits of public-private partnerships and highlights innovation leadership in both Canada and the United Kingdom.
Teledyne CARIS is part of the Teledyne Geospatial group. For 45 years, CARIS has been the World’s leading developer of marine mapping software. The company offers highly effective solutions for the processing and analysis of seabed datasets and enterprise solutions for the creation and Web enablement of nautical charts and digital data. CARIS is headquartered in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) is a world-leading centre for hydrography, delivering data and expertise to support safe, secure and thriving oceans. Based in Taunton, Somerset, experts at the UKHO work with a range of organisations worldwide to source, process and publish marine geospatial data from seabed to surface and beyond. It provides navigational products and services through its ADMIRALTY portfolio, relied upon by 90% of large ships trading internationally.
