The Remote Sensing Division of the National Geodetic Survey plans and acquires aerial photography and compiles shoreline data, primarily for application to the nautical charts produced by NOAA's Office of Coast Survey. In recent years these data have been produced in digital form. Many of the older hardcopy shoreline manuscripts have also been converted to digital form, mostly by projects managed by the NOAA Coastal Services Center. These digital data sets are thought to have value beyond the application to nautical charts, especially for those users conducting GIS analysis and producing special purpose maps in the coastal zone.