ShipTracker - near real-time mapping of ship locations and sensor data

Tiffany Vance and Dennis Shields
OAR/PMEL and OMAO

This website provides graphical plots illustrating the current location of various ships in the NOAA fleet and the latest detailed weather and ocean conditions received from each ship. The site utilizes an existing installation of a Geographical Information System (GIS) web mapping software (ArcIMS) to generate the maps displayed on the site in near real time. Messages are sent automatically by the Shipboard Computer System (SCS) on NOAA vessels. The messages reach a server at PMEL through email. From there these messages are processed and the data are uploaded into a central database. Periodically the process examines the database for new information and re-generates the images displayed on the website as appropriate. The service was implemented using the Java programming language. It communicates with the ArcIMS GIS map service through HTTP requests written in Extensible Markup Language (XML). The website itself is a combination of static HTML pages, images updated by the map service and Java Server Pages (JSP) for interactive portions of the site.

Auditorium - Demonstration Wednesday - 8:50 - 9:10 A.M.