New community-sourced social maps

Insight Genesis, the industry-leading online map-making service, announced today the recent launch of a beta version for Insight Genesis Social Map – a global, online database of coastal and inland maps generated by the Lowrance, Simrad and B&G fishing, cruising and sailing communities.

A revolution in underwater charting, Social Map harnesses the power of Insight Genesis –– an innovative cloud-based service that empowers users to create custom coastal and inland lake maps from recorded sonar data. Built on a base layer of existing contour data, Social Map is updated continuously, in near real-time, with sonar data contributed by the Insight Genesis community – giving users the most accurate charts available.

Social Map allows users to quickly locate mapped bodies of water around the globe, and then select the areas where they can contribute their own sonar recordings. This information can be marked 'Private' for personal use or easily shared with the entire Insight Genesis community. Both options keep trails, waypoints and other personal data private. Social Map charts can be viewed online, and on compatible Lowrance Elite HDI, HDS, Simrad NS Series or B&G Zeus chartplotters.

Data contributed to Social Map greatly enhances the ability for communities to work together and enhance the charts for local bodies of water. This exciting new crowd-sourcing functionality will lead to better charts for more productive fishing, regularly updated harbour and waterway charts for power cruisers – reflecting both manmade and natural changes that can affect passage – as well as more accurate maps of remote sailing destinations that have never been charted.

Offering a newly expanded feature set, a free Insight Genesis account includes the ability to upload, view and edit charts online; upload and view data in Social Map; store data in the Cloud; adjust contour lines to 10ft, 5ft, 3ft, and 1ft increments; create, edit and store waypoints directly in the Genesis Viewer; manually adjust water level offsets; and view and analyse weather trends for each trip. A premium subscription, available for $99 annually, allows users to also adjust privacy settings on each uploaded trip, view vegetation and bottom composition overlays, and export data to a chart card for use on a chartplotter display.

For more information go to: https://insightstore.navico.com/insightgenesis or the Genesis blog at http://insightgenesis.wordpress.com/