System for the visualization of the movements of marine vessels by television display

A system for display of television images of a set of objects, viewed at oblique angle, at true relative positions, in accordance with a plan view, comprising:

• locating means including a set of baseline transceivers disposed at stationary sites and further transceivers disposed on said objects for providing plan position coordinates of each of said objects, said baseline transceivers sending ranging signals to and receiving ranging signals from said further transceivers, wherein time delays appearing in the propagation of the ranging signals introduce ranging data, said locating means including computer means for triangulation with ranging signals transmitted between the baseline transceivers and respective ones of said objects for obtaining the position coordinates of said objects;
• camera means disposed at various sites for viewing the sides of said objects and for providing television-type images of said objects;
• screen means coupled to said locating means for presenting an array of data points corresponding to respective ones of said objects, each of said data points being located at positions corresponding to the plan position coordinates of said objects;
• and
• mixer means coupled to said camera means and to said screen means for selectively combining portions of said television-type images with said array of data points, thereby to enable display of a composite presentation of images of said objects located in accordance with their true relative positions.