Bahamas / Caribbean Charts Compatible with OpenCPN

[EpicAdventure]

First off, hats off to the OpenCPN developers. It is quite impressive. I the latest source version up and running on Ubuntu and had great fun using it on the Great Lakes last weekend.

I appologize if the question has already been asked/answered. I've tried searching and can't come to a clear understanding of the answer.

What charts of the Bahamas/Caribbean are compatible with OpenCPN? I'm fairly convinved from my searching that there are no free options. There are a few commercial digital versions of charts that I have come across such as C-Maps and Navionics.

If I go out and buy these, which should I purchase (if any) to be compatible with OpenCPN?

[nohal]

Have you looked at the manual?
Chart Formats | Official OpenCPN Homepage
Chart sources | Official OpenCPN Homepage
Installing Charts | Official OpenCPN Homepage

Pavel

[hanschristian38]

for free charts, try to find "CM93 ed2v6June2002:" charts - Search on this forum and you may get some suggestions on where to find them.

The coverage for the Bahamas is good. Other parts of the world - excellant.

[Netsurfer]

Originally Posted by hanschristian38

for free charts, try to find "CM93 ed2v6June2002:"

I heard about "cm93 May 2009" and "CM93 Jan 2010" ...

Gunther

[EpicAdventure]

Originally Posted by nohal

Have you looked at the manual?
Chart Formats | Official OpenCPN Homepage
Chart sources | Official OpenCPN Homepage
Installing Charts | Official OpenCPN Homepage

Pavel

I don't see anything referencing the Bahamas or Caribbean here. Am I missing something?

[cagney]

No unfortunately not!

There are no freely available charts for the Bahamas.
If you are lucky and can get hold of them, both CM93_ver2 and some old DMA BSB2 charts cover the area, and can be used by OpenCPN.
Many believe that the Explorer Charts are the best charts for the Bahamas. If you want these, you either have to use one of the commercial vendors you mentioned earlier, these charts cannot be used with OpenCPN however, or buy the paper charts.

Thomas

[bdbcat]

EpicAdventure....

IMHO, the best charts for the Bahamas are the Explorer charts. They work fine in OpenCPN. I use them exclusively every winter as we cruise the Bahamas extensively.

FWIW, I often encounter my friends Sarah and Monty Lewis, the cartographers/publishers of Explorer charts, in the Bahamas as they make update surveys for new editions. Nice folks....

Dave

[EpicAdventure]

Thanks for the help.

I'm trying the CM93 charts, although I'm gathering that's not exactly on the up and up...

I've heard the Explorer charts recommended several times, so maybe I'll go ahead and purchase those. I was just curious if they would work with OpenCPN.

[EpicAdventure]

I downloaded CM93 January 2010.rar from a torent. unrar'ed it. There were a BUNCH of files in there.

I now point OpenCPN to it, but not much interesting happens. OpenCPN apparently sees something. If i zoom out, it now acts like it has another chart (down at the bottom there is an additional yellow block.) But when I click on it or zoom in, I don't see any chart.....

Hmmm.... don't know if the problem is OpenCPN or the charts I downloaded... no error messages or anything. Kind of tough to debug.

[idpnd]

Try pointing ocpn to the top level folder of the cm93 package, and activate force full database rebuild.. should work

[EpicAdventure]

Whatever I downloaded all showed up in one directory. I have it pointed towards that directory.

Edit: problem was the way I "unrar'ed" it. Had to unrar with option to put into directory struecture. Now it works! Cool!

[brisen]

Could you please show me the exact unrar function you used?

-Thanks

[prroots]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

EpicAdventure....

IMHO, the best charts for the Bahamas are the Explorer charts. They work fine in OpenCPN. I use them exclusively every winter as we cruise the Bahamas extensively.

FWIW, I often encounter my friends Sarah and Monty Lewis, the cartographers/publishers of Explorer charts, in the Bahamas as they make update surveys for new editions. Nice folks....

Dave

Could you provide a link to where you can purchase Explorer charts that are compatible with OpenCPN? Thanks
Pete

[sailias]

That would be a very helpful source of information.

Many thanks

/ch