An international standard for electronic navigational charts was defined within the scope of EU transport research. This standard was adopted by the Danube Commission (Donaukommission), the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine (CCNR) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN-ECE). The Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie, bmvit) provides charts for the whole area of the Austrian Danube.

System requirements for the use of these charts:

• a PC with a resolution of at least 1024x768 pixels if possible 
• software for displaying Inland ECDIS charts in line with the standard

If the PC is connected to a GPS receiver, it is possible to display the own ship’s position and thus automated charting is facilitated. It is also possible to connect the PC to a radar device. Thus, the radar image can be combined with the chart and navigation made possible.

The corresponding software is currently available for example from the following companies: 

Chart World	www.chartworld.com
Command & Control Technologies	www.cct-international.com
Innovative Navigation	www.innovative-navigation.de
SevenCs AG & Co. KG	www.sevencs.com
NoorderSoft	www.noordersoft.com
Orca Navigator Österreich	www.orcanavigator.de
Periskal Group	www.periskal.com
Tresco Engineering	www.tresco.be
Videosail	www.videosail.de

  

Thanks to the company Seven Cs a freeware viewer is available, which provides the display of ENCs free of charge. This viewer can be downloaded on www.sevencs.com.

Please make sure to select "Inland Symbols" in the "Display" menu when you use the viewer. As the charts are stored in S-57 format, you can load these by clicking on the corresponding icon in the menu bar (second icon from the left); it is possible to load several cells simultaneously. If you view the import logfiles, these contain numerous error messages. These were checked and do not have any impact on the functionality of the charts. Furthermore, please note that you can open a maximum of 64 files at the same time. (Austrian ENCs comprise on the whole 68 files)

For reasons of performance, it is recommended not to open all of the data at the same time, but to load only shorter sections.