Blog GIS & Territories

ENC (Electronic Navigational Charts) are now the standard for digital marine cartography.

With the latest update to the S57Manager plugin, QGIS now features a module dedicated to the official NOAA ENC catalog, allowing users to easily search, filter, and import ENC cells directly from the QGIS interface.

This new tool greatly simplifies the work of users working with marine, port, or coastal data.

🔎 The NOAA ENC catalog: what is it?

The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) provides an official catalog containing several thousand ENC cells covering:

• U.S. coastlines,
• ports and harbors,
• estuaries,
• inland waterways.

Each ENC cell is described by:

• a unique identifier (e.g. US5NYCDF),
• a purpose (usage level, from overview to very high detail),
• a nominal scale,
• a precise geographic extent,
• an official download URL.

Until now, accessing this catalog required external tools or manual searches.
The NOAA module in S57Manager completely changes this workflow.

🧩 A NOAA module fully integrated into S57Manager

The new NOAA module is fully integrated into S57Manager and follows its core philosophy:

centralize all ENC-related tools in a single, coherent and efficient interface.

From QGIS, users can now:

• load the official NOAA catalog (XML),
• browse the complete list of available ENC cells,
• dynamically filter the catalog,
• import only the cells that are truly relevant.

🎛️ Filters designed for real cartographic workflows

The NOAA module provides several combinable filters.

🔹 Filtering by purpose

NOAA ENC cells are classified by purpose (1 to 6):

Users can precisely select the desired usage levels.

🔹 Filtering by scale

Each ENC cell has a nominal scale (e.g. 1:10,000; 1:50,000).
The module allows defining minimum and maximum scales to avoid loading:

• overly generalized data,
• or excessively detailed data.

💡 Tip:
Purpose 5 and 6 cells typically use very fine scales (≈ 1:2,000 to 1:12,000).
To display them correctly, it is recommended to set the minimum display scale around 1:1,500.

🔹 Filtering by QGIS map canvas extent

This is one of the strongest features of the module.

Users can choose to list only ENC cells that intersect the current QGIS map canvas extent.

Workflow:

• zoom to your area of interest,
• activate the extent filter,
• only relevant ENC cells are listed.

Technically, this relies on:

• NOAA extents stored in EPSG:4326,
• automatic reprojection to the current QGIS CRS.

⬇️ Importing a NOAA ENC cell in just a few clicks

Once a cell is selected:

• the ENC file is downloaded from the official NOAA URL;
• it is validated and processed by the S57Manager S-57 workflow;
• layers are imported into the configured GeoPackage or PostGIS database;
• standard S57Manager organization and symbology are automatically applied.

No manual handling is required.

🌍 Multilingual and fully integrated in QGIS

Like the rest of S57Manager, the NOAA module is:

• fully multilingual (FR / EN / ES / PT),
• compatible with recent QGIS versions (Qt6),
• fully consistent with other ENC tools in the plugin.

It is not a standalone tool, but a natural extension of the ENC workflow in QGIS.

Conclusion

With this new NOAA module, S57Manager reaches a new milestone:

• direct access to the official ENC catalog,
• precise data selection,
• fast and controlled import,
• seamless integration into QGIS.

Whether you work on:

• port cartography,
• coastal analysis,
• inland waterway management,
• or institutional marine data,

this module provides a real productivity gain and better control over ENC data.

Atilio Francois