Introduction to Additional Military Layers (AML) production (Maritime Charting)
The Additional Military Layer (AML) is a collection of individual profiles, both vector and raster, that adhere to various transfer standards. ArcGIS for Maritime: Charting currently supports six vector profiles:
- Contour Line Bathymetry (CLB)
- Environment, Seabed, and Beach (ESB)
- Large Bottom Objects (LBO)
- Maritime Foundation Facilities (MFF)
- Routes, Areas, and Limits (RAL)
- Small Bottom Objects (SBO)
All six of the AML vector profiles support the S-57 exchange standard for digital data conversion. Maritime Charting provides an AML data model that is packaged in the Esri workspace XML format. This data model is imported into a production database through the New Nautical Product wizard.
This guide book provides information needed to either load an AML cell into your AML production database or compile new data within the AML production database, modify the data, and export the AML content to an S-57 cell.
About creating the AML production database
Your initial entry into the AML product creation process will be through the product library. Within the product library, you will access the New Nautical Product wizard, which is the tool used to create your AML production database. The New Nautical Product wizard is used to create all S-57 products.
There are two ways to create AML products through the New Nautical Product wizard. You can either compile new data from resources such as scanned specialist charts, digital hydrographic data, and nautical publications, or you can import an existing S-57 cell into your production database.
Both workflows are designed to have one product (that is, an AML cell) per production database. The desktop workflows are recommended when creating and managing a small number of products.
After the New Nautical Product wizard is run and completed, you need to check out your AML production database from the product library. This attaches your AML production database to your local Data Server since this geodatabase is hosted on an ArcSDE geodatabase for SQL Server Express licensed for ArcGIS for Desktop
About producing an AML
The Maritime Charting AML production environment is performed in a versioning environment. With the desktop production environments, you can create new data or load existing data into your AML production database, perform edits, insert and delete edit actions, and then export your changes to an AML-S-57 file. Below is the list of steps for creating an AML product.
Both workflows are designed to have one product (that is, an AML cell) per production database. The desktop workflows are recommended when creating and managing a small number of products.
Step | Creating new data | Loading existing data |
|---|---|---|
1 | Setting up the AML production environment | Setting up the AML production environment |
2 | Loading source data | Loading source data |
3 | Creating new AML data | Importing and baselining existing AML data |
4 | Editing features | Editing features |
5 | Creating and modifying primitive features | Creating and modifying primitive features |
6 | Verifying your data | Verifying your data |
7 | Exporting, publishing, and packaging your AML product | Exporting, publishing, and packaging your AML product |