Google Earth to BSB / KAP

[phiggins]

r.fairman,

Thanks for the info on the convert. I will try it. But I still support the waypoints being in a gpx file. Or a tXt or SRW or KML or G7T.

Also, I think I have broke the language problem. At least the new version works for me on English, Spanish and French. But to do it I had to make some changes to the DLL I use for sending keystrokes.

The new DLL is called windowsrexx.dll but there are two versions of it depending on which addressing mode your rexx interpreter is, 32 bit or 64 bit. In the new zip there are two versions of the dll:
windowrexx-32.dll and windowrexx-64.dll

Download the new GE2KAP_V2_BETA at www.gdayii.ca/Downloads

Uunzip to the directory where you have GE2KAP. The password is: phiggins

Then run the program called RenameDLL.rex and it will automatically create the dll for your addressing mode. Only need to do this once.

Then try the GE2KAP.V3.2.0 with the Google Earth set to whatever language and please give me feedback.

[r.fairman]

Dear Paul

Sorry Did not realise gpx was still supported . The latest version works well.

regards

Richard

[phiggins]

Thanks. Guess you have an English version.

Some others had trouble with the temporary names I generated. So there is a version V3.2.1 now that I hope someone using a non-English version will test and tell me if it works or not.

[phiggins]

This language thing, its enough to make a man drink.

Anyway, after getting GE2KAP to find all the windows without using their English names, I found that if I used a non-English keyboard, it screwed up.

The new version V3.2.3 seems to work for English Spanish and French.

Please give it try: GE2KAP_V2_BETA at www.gdayii.ca/Downloads

[sinbad7]

phiggins..

Language selection comes way down the line at least for me.. I think most users here are fairly fluent in English which is also the language mostly used in computer environments.

It is difficult enough to make all the pieces work together without this added problem.

Thanks for all the hard work on your holiday cruise.

Tore

[phiggins]

Yes but if it doesn't work for them they won't use it.

Had a bug that only showed up on slow machine. Now we are V3.2.4

[phiggins]

LAND TRANSPARANCY!

The new version V3.3.0 has land transparancy.
www.gdayii.ca/Downloads GE2KAP_V2_BETA


Just remember that after the image is loaded to leave the GE transparancy at full level.

Probably lots of problems but its a start.

Paul

[r.fairman]

Dear Paul

Latest version with transparency works well with CMap93 screengrabbed overlay.

Thanks

Richard

[phiggins]

Thanks Richard.

I have made a few chages:

1. There is a new field called Fuzz. What it does is: my program scans the histogram of the image to determine the land color. Once I find it, I invoke ImagemagicK convert to make that color transparent. The fuzz parameter says make any color within that percenatge also transparent. It was hard coded at 10% in V3.3.0 now you can change it.

2. I changed the algorithm that selects the land color to reject it if there is too much blue in it. This prevents selecting dark patches of water on Google earth as land.

3. Corrected not displaying the error message if you didn't input waypoints.

When I said set the GE transparency to its "full level" I meant slide it all the way to the right, ie: opaque. Then press OK

BTW it should make the land transparent on KAP overlays as well as images of ENC or CM93 charts.

So now there is V3.3.1

[r.fairman]

Latest version works well with cmap 93 and kap files after some playing with the fuzz values

You seem to be post processing the overlay image after it has been overlaid in GE with advice to keep GE transparency set to full opaque.. If you preprocess the image file to set the transparent color and then overlay in GE it would be possible to use the GE control to set the see though properties of the rest of the image. This allows some see though of the sea areas with depth readings overlaid. GE does has some depth info in sea areas displayed as shading for various depth which make the final display more realistic.

As an aside the holy grail as i can see it is to produce a kap chart from:

1. A his res GE image (as produced by Google Satellite Map Retriever) This was possible in your original version by creating a hi res jpg file then using your program with GE to geo reference it and then convert to kap.

2. Overlay the hi res GE image with a Cmap93 image or a kap chart with land transparant and the overall image set to a level of see through.

If one and two are possible then the final kap chart can be zoomed from about an altitude of about 3000m right down to about 300 m

The limitation with screen capturing GE is that limited zoom is only possible without losing visibility

And a final aside I do not know if you monitor the OpenCPN thread but i have just discovered that waypoint icons can be photos if they are in the .xpn format
I do not know if imagemagick supports this format. Open CPN will center a xpm image on a waypoint position. so this may be a way of importing GE images into Open CPN at the correct position.

once again thanks for your hard work

regards

richard

[cagney]

Originally Posted by r.fairman

Latest version works well with cmap 93 and kap files after some playing with the fuzz values
..........

And a final aside I do not know if you monitor the OpenCPN thread but i have just discovered that waypoint icons can be photos if they are in the .xpn format
I do not know if imagemagick supports this format. Open CPN will center a xpm image on a waypoint position. so this may be a way of importing GE images into Open CPN at the correct position.

once again thanks for your hard work

regards

richard

I can't comment on the ge2kap development directly, as I have not tested the later versions.
Regarding the xpm format, imagemagick has no problem at all with this. It works as any other picture. If you open a small xpm picture in a text editor, such as one of OpenCPNs mark pictures, an interesting an fairly easy to understand format will appear. A piece of C++ code that can easily be edited to change or create new(small) marks.
A big problem with xpm pictures in OpenCPN is that they don't scale, for the moment. So right now, it would not work that amazing to import a GE picture. I have a made feature request connected to the xpm pictures FS#352 : Scaling xpm pictures.

In the upcoming beta Dave will introduce a BSB4 plugin. This creates the the "infrastructure" to define our own chart format(s) or, I imagine, import more or less any chart format, as long as it is reasonably documented. So ... if the kap format is not exactly the right format for importing geo-referenced GE pictures, maybe it is time to think about what would be a good format.

Thomas

[sinbad7]

r.fairman

This is how is see the final development of a perfect merger of a larger than screen GE map overlaid with a CM93 map with 100% transparent land areas,converted to an outsize .kap map. Presently acheived using Google Maps for FSX, Google Satellite Map Retriver,and Chartconvert. Easy enough but would be great to have automated.

Tore

[r.fairman]

Dear Thomas

I support the scalable icon request. Also acn we have the ability to hide waypoints

Dear Paul

Sorry for the digressions

Here is a possible flow for GE to OpenCPN

1. In Open CPN place way point in centre of the required position for the GE image
2.Export as gpx
3 Open in to GE
4. In properties set Range to desired height to adjust the coverage of the image (the default range seems to be 1300m)
5.Create Kap and set save path for kap to existing OpenCPN chart folder
6.In OpenCPN select Toolbox/Chart/Tick force full database rebuild Click OK

The range should be user selectable There are very few hotkeys in OpenCPN so you will have to be creative. Doing 1 -6 manually takes about 2 minutes

I think there is a way of downloading images directly from the GE servers and Bing Servers without having to go via the Desktop Client I will investigate

regards

Richard

[sinbad7]

r.fairman

Tried your suggestion but unable to access the Properties section under Edit as it is always greyed out? So,unable to set the range to desired height.

Do you know if GE is able to save a zoomable map area greater than the screen?

Tore

[phiggins]

Thanks for the comments, will have to digest them all..in the meantine I have uploaded V3.3.2 which does:

1. Tweeked land transparancy algorithm so will work with some European colored charts.

2. Fix problem loading images east of longitude 0.

3. Added a Redo button that allows you to change the fuzz and image position without reloading it in GE.

4. Added support for skewed charts but the position is off so you will have to move it around. Thinking of solution to make position exact.

Give it a try please.