Google Earth to BSB / KAP

[teneicm]

Hi Paul-

Was able successfully create one chart from the openCPN screen. Now all I get is the following message:

Error: Unable to add overlay file:
C:\DUMMY\OPENCPN_DMY.BMP

Error: Unable to find OpenCPN window!
Start OpenCPN and try again

Any ideas? Win7 (64bit), OpenCPN 3.0.2, GE2KAP 9.5.5

Thanks- Matt

[phiggins]

teneicm,

email me the GE2KAP.log, its in the same directory as GE2KAP.rex and may look like a text file if you do not display file extensions.

[phiggins]

C2GPXKML


I have made some modifications to my C2GPXKML program so that it now supports creating a KML or GPX file that combines OpenCPN track(s) and the konni logbook(s). An example of the output is in the attachments.


Before this change you had to use the SeaClear tracks and logbook. Now you can use the OpenCPN tracks and konni logbooks.


If anyone would like to test it, email and I'll send you a copy.


phiggins()gmn-usa.com (change the () to you know what)

[phiggins]

yachtvalhall,

Looked over your document and was impressed by the amount of detail, very good.

But there is one thing I would like to discuss. In your example when you get to where you adjust the image on GE, you adjust the slider so you can see both the Chart features and also the GE features. You do this so you can see features that show up on GE but not the chart. The only problem is the chart colors get washed out.

There is another way this can be done to preserve the chart colors and also get the GE features with GE2KAP. That way is to add land colors in the areas of the chart that have important GE features. You do this by invoking the Image editor for the "Overlay Before GE Adjustments" and selecting an area then filling it in with the land color.

For example in the attachments, the first image Paso_El_Siju_not_edited is the resulting chart without editing and the GE slider all the way to the right.

The next image Paso_El_Siju_Land_added is where I invoked the editor and added land over the passage.

The final image Paso_El_Siju_edited is what the resulting chart would look like. Now you can clearly see the channel and still have good chart colors.

You might want to add this to your document.

[phiggins]

BTW: You may be wondering how I set the land color for the fill. Its easy with most image editors because they have a pick tool and you simply click on the image where there is land. But the View editor has no such tool.

To get the land color, first create a chart but don't do any edits. Then open the GE2KAP.log and do a find for "Criteria Met". You will find something like this:

06:31:53 DIAG AlphaSet Criteria MET idx=61 rgb(255,214,140)(16766604) count=71500

The rgb values are the land color. So when you edit the image, open the fill tool then click on Fill Color and fill in the RGB values at the right with the RGB colors from the log, then press OK.

Now you can just click on the image and it will fill in the land color.

If you only want to fill in within a selected area, select an area first with the selection tools then open the fill tool, set the Fill Color, check "select" on the fill tool and click in the selected area.

[boraxtr]

I tested, mspaint.exe is very easy tool to use. Land colour can be filled into the marked area.

[teneicm]

Nice tip Paul. That helps with controlling the final output. Is there any setting that controls the resolution and color bits in the outputted chart? With my current settings it seems the GE image loses some of its overall quality...

[phiggins]

Yes I know but the problem is:

First each of the images has to reduced to less than 64 colors. No problem for the chart image because it only has a few colors but the GE image could have 1000's of colors so some are lost.

Then I have to combine the two images and the resulting image has to be less than 128 colors because of a restriction on the maximum number of colors for a kap chart. Therefore, some loss of color will happen especially on the GE image.

You may want to try to enhance the output by editing the "Google Earth" image and doing things to the colors. The View editor does have a lot of neat tools to affect the color.

[phiggins]

I was talking to Whitey about this problem where the GE image seems a little washed out. Suddenly I could see a light bulb go off over his head and quickly he started paging through the GE2KAPFuncs dll code, he does all the C++ coding. After a few pages he stopped and barked at the screen. Sure enough he had put in a statement to lightened the image. So he took it out and with the new dll it does seem to improve the image as you can see in the attachments.

The first one, Paso_Dos_Hermanos_V9.5.5 is a chart created with the current code V9.5.5 with the lighten function . The second, Paso_Dos_Hermanos_V9.5.9, is with the lighten function removed. And finally, Paso_Dos_Hermanos_V9.5.9_GE_Image_Edit, I used the image Edit of the Google Earth Image and pressed the Darken button twice which really seems to help.

I will be the new version 9.5.9 that doesn't lighten the output soon.

[teneicm]

That does help the colors! Not to seem ungrateful, but feed Whitey a biscuit and see if he can search the code for any place where the GE image resolution gets downgraded as well.....


(or is that resolution setting another limitation of the KAP charts?)

[teneicm]

Also, not sure how others are using Paul's nifty piece of software, but I primarily use it to follow a .KMZ file defined area and capture areas of coastline straight from GE without overlaying it onto a chart. This way I get the full aerial photo from GE and can see all of the detail on both the land and the water. I run these GE KAP charts alongside the nautical charts in OpenCPN and can switch back and forth depending on whether I want the chart or aerial view.

To that end, I have created KMZ files that define the coastline of most of eastern North America and the Caribbean islands. The KMZ files are either paths or polygons that follow the coastline and you can change the properties to determine the "altitude" of the view to create as detailed or broad a set of charts as you desire. I'd be happy to share these with the GE2KAP community- but would really like it if others would pick up some of the work and start defining KMZ files for other parts of the world. The content of the KMZ files is user created, so there is no problem with copyright issues like there might be if actual GE images were shared.

Any thoughts on this?

[phiggins]

teneicm,

OK email me some screen shots to work on, one of the original GE and the other after hitting the View button. Make sure I can see the lat/lon so I can reproduce it and try to improve.

[teneicm]

Originally Posted by phiggins

teneicm,

OK email me some screen shots to work on, one of the original GE and the other after hitting the View button. Make sure I can see the lat/lon so I can reproduce it and try to improve.

You know what? Whitey had it right all along. I started pulling together screen shots for you and then blew up the images quite a bit a started comparing pixel to pixel... and found they were all there. I think the 'lightening' issue that you already noted also plays tricks with perception of resolution as well.

[phiggins]

teneicm,

Yeah he's pretty smart, have to go walk him now...

Send me an email so I can send the new version that should fixe the GE image problem to test. And if anyone else would like to test also, send me an email.

[phiggins]

GE2KAP.V9.6.0

Just uploaded a new version of GE2KAP that fixes some problems:
- GE image colors faded.
- Unable to find OpenCPN window.
- If Konni Active logbook installed and minimized it showed instead of the chart.
- Some systems unable to do WMI instructions causing syntax error on startup.

This version also make the ge2kap plugin mandatory if you want to create charts from opencpn. The old OCR method is removed. If you already had GE2KAP.V9.5.5 or higher installed you don't need to replace the plugin.

You can get the new version at www.gdayii.ca Downloads...GE2KAP