SeaZone History
SeaZone was born as a direct result of Mike Osborne's pioneering work with the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) and other marine data providers, within his role as Technical Director at Metoc plc.
Metoc, a leading UK marine consultancy, required data in formats suitable for use in its newly acquired Geographic Information System (GIS). However, surprising to land geographers, who at that time had a range of digital mapping products available to them from Ordnance Survey, there was no such equivalent for the marine environment.
The History Timeline below shows the evolution of SeaZone, since the mid nineties, through to the launch of its ground breaking authoritative geographic information data product, SeaZone Hydrospatial, at the Association of Geographic Information (AGI) Conference and Exhibition in Nov 2005.
SeaZone's aim has always been to create, improve and maintain true marine geographic information from source, being distinct both in nature and purpose to data derived from navigational charting. As a consequence of this, SeaZone is encouraging the creation of marine geographic information and its re-use across government in the UK and overseas, and is developing datasets that are inter-operable with land geographic information.
SeaZone is now at the forefront of using geographic information technology and is providing support to organisations wishing to use spatial data in their own business environments. In essence, SeaZone is extending the UK’s Digital National Framework (DNF) (or Spatial Data Infrastructure) to the coastal zone and marine environment.
SeaZone Hydrospatial has received great reviews from customers and industry recognition from the Association of Geographic Information by winning the AGI 2006 Exhibition Technical Innovations Award this September and to be presented at the AGI Dinner in November 2006.
SeaZone continues to develop its data, software and services to assist those working in the marine environment and coastal zone to deliver better informed decision making, improved project efficiency and cost savings.
History timeline
Sep 1995
Metoc began digitising paper copies of Admiralty charts, or using third-party data acquired from private producers of digital navigational products, under licence from the UKHO for internal project work
Nov 2001
Metoc appointed value added reseller of UKHO to resell the data to customers from November 2001 onwards.
Sep 2002
Metoc joins UKHO Licensed Partnering programme.
Jun 2003
SeaZone launched as data service by Metoc plc.
Apr 2004
SeaZone Solutions Ltd (SSL) established as a joint venture company between Metoc and Admiralty Holdings Ltd (AHL). AHL is owned by the UK Secretary of State for Defence and operated on his behalf by the UKHO.
Sep 2005
Metoc relinquished its stake in the business and SeaZone Solutions Limited became wholly-owned by Admiralty Holdings Ltd (AHL), one of many companies wholly owned by Government.
Nov 2005
SeaZone becomes a world leader in the field of marine geographic information as a result of launching authoritative base reference layer - SeaZone Hydrospatial in the UK.
Sep 2006
SeaZone wins AGI 2006 Exhibitors Technical Innovation Award for SeaZone Hydrospatial.
(read article)
(read article)
(read article)
(read article)
