ARCS for GIS is a technology which allows encrypted raster chart images, produced by the UK Hydrographic Office's Admiralty Raster Chart Service (ARCS), to be viewed within a GIS environment. The raster charts are decrypted and registered correctly within the target GIS and therefore can be tiled together regardless of scale or projection. The charts are simply added as another layer within the GIS which allows them to be viewed against other data sets, and more importantly, against a Users own asset data to greatly improve planning, monitoring and analysis.

The ARCS for GIS application consists of four components;

• ARCS for GIS Maintenance program.
• ARCS for GIS Hardware Key.
• ARCS for GIS 'GIS Specific' Viewer program (i.e. GeoMedia, MapInfo or ArcGIS).
• ARCS for GIS Lite Viewer program.
  

The ARCS data is delivered on one or more of eleven chart CDs (depending on your chart portfolio) and an update CD. The ARCS for GIS Maintenance program reads the Users licence and will install the charts that the user is licenced for onto the system. The charts are then available for use within the ARCS for GIS 'GIS' Viewer program. The maintenance program is also used to maintain the necessary chart and licence files on a User's system.

To ensure the ARCS data's security, ARCS for GIS uses a Hardware Key to store a User's unique ARCS chart licence details. The other three components of ARCS for GIS use this information to decrypt the chart data. Without a Hardware Key, no functionality within the ARCS for GIS system is possible. The Hardware Key is used both for accessing charts on a standalone machine or across a network. When used on a network the Hardware Key also controls the number of concurrent Users.

The ARCS for GIS 'GIS Specific' Viewer program allows the User to select a chart(s) and handles the decryption of the chosen chart(s) ready for employment within the GIS package. The ARCS for GIS application introduces new menus and a toolbar within the GIS which allow a User to load charts in or around an area of interest. For example, the route selection tool can be chosen to draw an intended route thereby only loading and displaying those charts which are intersected by the route. You can load as many charts into the GIS as your system's resources allow.

The ARCS for GIS Lite Viewer program is a simplified ARCS chart viewer designed to be an intermediary viewing program. This provides a quick and easy chart browsing method that can be used without having to initiate the full GIS package.