Features
Crafted from the source.
Every ChartGlo chart begins with NOAA’s own data: the official chart for your waters, and the exact record of every light, beacon and buoy within it. Here is what goes into each one.
01 · Official charts
The real NOAA chart, not an illustration.
Your chart is NOAA’s official chart display for exactly the area you choose: soundings, depth contours, channels, shoals and shorelines. It is fetched fresh when you design, so it is always current.
- Printed with symbols and soundings at true chart size
- The most detailed chart available is used at every spot
- Nothing is stored. Your chart is composed on demand
Naples Bay & Gordon Pass · 12 × 16 in
02 · True light rhythms
Every light, timed to the millisecond.
NOAA’s electronic charts record the exact on-and-off sequence of each light. ChartGlo decodes all 26115 lights in our waters, with their colors, and plays them back just as they appear from the water.
- Exact sequences where NOAA records them
- Built from the published characteristic otherwise, and clearly marked
- Neighboring lights keep their own timing, never blinking in lockstep
Live from the lights of San Carlos Bay
03 · How the lights work
A point of light, exactly where it belongs.
Behind your chart, every light has its own LED. A fine fiber-optic strand carries that light to a tiny hole drilled through the print at the light’s charted position, so it shines as a small, crisp point, the way a lighthouse looks from miles out at sea.
- One fiber strand for each lighted marker
- Each LED programmed to its light’s real color and rhythm
- Unlighted markers, such as daybeacons, unlit buoys and wrecks, are printed on the chart
- Lights of your own, such as your home or mooring, are made the same way
Cross-section of a ChartGlo frame, not to scale
04 · Sized for frames
Standard frames, honest advice.
Choose from fourteen standard sizes, from 8 × 10 to 24 × 36, square or panoramic, portrait or landscape. We compare your area with the detail NOAA has charted there, and only suggest sizes that will look right.
- 20 × 16Excellent fitCrisp coastline, readable markers
- 36 × 24Coastline may look coarseEnlarged beyond the charted detail
- 10 × 8Small markersA lot of chart in a small frame
- 12 × 36Not suggestedWould print blurry; hidden from the list
8 × 10
9 × 12
11 × 14
Small
12 × 16
16 × 20
Medium
18 × 24
20 × 30
24 × 30
24 × 36
Large
12 × 12
20 × 20
24 × 24
Square
12 × 24
12 × 36
Panoramic
05 · The print
Edge to edge, finished like a fine print.
Your designer prepares the finished chart, printed edge to edge. The chart fills the whole sheet; a refined title panel sits in the corner you choose, or is left off for a clean, uninterrupted chart.
- Title, position, scale and scale bar in the panel
- Latitude and longitude ticks around the edge
- Important detail kept clear of the frame’s lip
- NOAA data date on every print
San Carlos Bay
26°28.50′ N · 82°01.80′ W
1 : 29,500 · Nautical miles
NOAA data November 5, 2026
The title panel, as printed
06 · Marker list
Every marker, named and placed.
With your chart comes a list of every navigation aid in the frame: its name, type, light characteristic and position. It’s the key to your chart, and the plan for lighting it.
82°00.9′ W
81°59.3′ W
81°59.7′ W
81°57.9′ W
81°59.9′ W