nView Introduces Virtual Bridge

nView Corporation introduced the Virtual Bridge, providing a panoramic view of the ship's integrated monitoring systems on multiple side-by-side displays. The Virtual Bridge is now offered by nView as an optional capability with SiMON, the Ships Information Monitoring system. The Virtual Bridge is comprised of up to four large flat-panel LCD displays, mounted end-to-end, running from one central computer. It creates the appearance of having one very wide display, capable of providing information from all the ship's critical operating systems simultaneously. The user can easily drag and drop operating information, such as the radar display, electronic charting and SiMON from one screen to the next in any direction with simple point and click functions. The information on the displays can be dynamically reconfigured as the captain chooses, using a single computer keyboard and mouse.

"The concept is to provide a continuous virtual screen that is the width of all the displays side-by-side," said Mike Blake, vice president for product development at nView. SiMON is an integrated system designed to monitor any system, subsystem or sensors on the vessel. It collects real-time data from any number of analog or digital sources, and formats the data for display on the ship's computers. It offers instant access to performance information for any monitored system at the click of a mouse. The Ethernet-based system can support multiple computers and displays throughout the vessel, as well as wireless connections to a laptop or portable computer terminal.