Sperry software generates map displays

U.S. Navy leaders are due to begin sea trials later this year of a software package that provides users with a direct output of National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) cartographic data. The reader takes data from a CD-ROM or hard disk and produces a color image of the nautical chart for shipboard display. The software, developed at Sperry Marine Inc. in Charlottesville, Va., a Litton Marine Systems company, outputs map data in a vector display format. Sperry experts developed the Windows NT-based direct chart reader under a cooperative research and development agreement with NIMA and will be available for purchase after the trials to commercial and military customers from Litton Marine Systems. - J.R.