Proteus FZC, a provider of satellite-derived marine mapping solutions, has teamed with TCarta Marine LLC to offer complete bathymetric data sets from the shallow near-shore coastal zone out to the continental shelf.
Proteus is the leading supplier of high-resolution bathymetric and seafloor classification maps derived from satellite imagery. Depending on water conditions, the Proteus bathymetric data is accurate to depths of 35 meters in the near-shore area extending several kilometers from the coastline. TCarta Marine, based in the U.S., is a renowned provider of medium-resolution bathymetric data from the littoral zone out to the continental shelf, hundreds of kilometers offshore.
“By selling each other’s products, Proteus and TCarta Marine can satisfy the bathymetric mapping needs of any coastal application anywhere in the world,” said Proteus CEO David Critchley. “Our product lines complement each other perfectly.”
“TCarta Marine is excited to team with Proteus because this new relationship enables us to offer a broader product line to our existing clients and expand into some new end-user markets globally,” said Clayton Simons, TCarta Marine Managing Partner.
Since 2011, Proteus has produced seafloor survey and seabed classification projects using multispectral satellite imagery. The product-generation technology can be carried out in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods. These mapping projects have been delivered for environmental, oil and gas, marine biology and other coastal zone applications in Europe, the Middle East and Caribbean. Derived products have high accuracy, meeting the requirements of engineering, environmental monitoring and strategic geospatial planning applications.
TCarta Marine aggregates bathymetric data from a wide variety of sources: navigational and bathymetric charts, ship tracklines, LiDAR surveys, satellite imagery, and sonar surveys (multi-beam and single-beam). The Wyoming firm applies a proprietary technique to reference each data set against the others and then merge them into a single, coherent bathymetric data model. The TCarta Marine off-the-shelf archive covers 80 percent of the world’s coastal zones including hard-to-find data sets for Southeast Asia, Africa and Central America.
“The traditional client base for our TCM Bathymetric GIS product has been oil and gas, mining, renewable energy, and environmental organizations,” said Simons. “By offering the higher-resolution Proteus data close to shore, we plan to expand our business in the environmental and engineering sectors.”
The primary TCarta Marine product is the TCM Bathymetric GIS Package, consisting of shapefiles comprised of spot-depth and contour-line values, 1:60,000 scale coastline, and a raster model that is typically gridded at 90m. The 90m model facilitates easy merging with Space Shuttle SRTM terrestrial DEM data. In areas where more data are available, TCarta Marine uses 50m and 30m grids.
“TCarta Marine is the only company in the world selling bathymetric data of the continental shelf at this quality and with such expansive coverage,” said Critchley.