Remapping the Ocean Floor
With thousands of recreational boaters and anglers on the Pacific Ocean, some of them are contributing to a project led by NAVICO, the creators of Lowrance and Simrad.
It's called Insight Genesis. This project is two-fold; first it allows anglers to map their own uncharted waters. For instance, if you're fishing a lake and there is no contour map available, you can record the soundings from your fishing trips (a feature on all of these new units) then, using the supplied chip, upload to their site when you get home then download your new, custom-made map back onto your chip and presto, your unit now has a custom map, made by you, detailing your new-found waters.
For areas with existing maps/charts, your new actual data will rebuild and integrate into your existing maps to include the details which you have sounded. It's surprising how different, and much more detailed, the actual soundings are from the supplied chart. This is very helpful for bottom fishing when trying to find those intricate features which hold Halibut.
The second aspect is on the global scale. If you opt-in to share your data, Insight Genesis will add those new soundings to their future productions of maps, which will supersede the ones provided by government-researched soundings.
Participation in the project is free for basic privileges, but there is a subscription fee for add-ons.