Beta Test / Technical

[jimbo3123]

I am having some trouble with the new version showing one particular chart.
It's NOAA chart US5MI22M. The chart is for parts of the Detroit River.
That ENC chart is comprised of two separate sections (which is likely the source of the problem).
Neither of the sections show at all in quilting mode. They show up when quilting is turned off, but it is kind of buggy (they appear and disappear sporadicly as you zoom/pan)

[philocat]

[QUOTE=otya;428357]Why not try puppylinux as I have suggested in the portable opencpn thread?

Follow up for those that might be interested.

Although puppy linux has promise I have now reverted back to ubuntu 9.10. It is not as quick but nevertheless fast enough for my purposes. I thus avoided the pain in learning how to install custom applications which had dependencies. Perhaps in the future....

[chris blair]

Dave,

Glad to see you got some good time off and we probably crossed paths somewhere in the Bahamas. We're back on the boat and will be here in Abaco a couple of months before back to the US for storm season then down to the Virgin islands and lots of time to test 2.0 beta's on our 12v home built Atom based XP machine and our Mac laptops if there's anything you want us to do there. We're using a digitized set of Explorer charts we bought second hand 7 or 8 years ago at a flea market.

We loved 1.3.2 and 1.3.6 but 2.0 is a huge improvement! Especially the chart outlines and improved graphics. One thing I noticed is there's a tide station at Green Turtle Cay that seems to be missing.

I have no programming skills to help with but will continue testing and will help with documentation if needed and may even try to learn some of the simpler programming if I can be of help. Also I can help with 12v Atom, power supply, sunlight visible learning's on a different thread if needed.

Thanks to all for this superb effort.

Regards,
Chris
SV Toucan Dream

[bdbcat]

Chris....

Glad to have you back online, too. Sorry we missed you down south.

I'd love to see a new thread started discussing low-power hardware, and the issues involved in using opencpn on open cockpit sailboats especially.

As you know, I cruise in a pilothouse trawler. Nice and warm and dry for my computers. Infinite electrical juice. I forget the good old days of sailing outside in a cold wet cockpit...

Still have a dream of coming up with water-resistant sunlight viewable cockpit-capable hardware platform for opencpn.

Ideas?
Dave

[chris blair]

Dave,

We have just that with the 12v Atom 330 wall mounted, inside an interior locker, wireless keyboard/mouse, Argonaut sunlight visible, completely waterproof screen (only 1 amp, 12v!) mounted with ball mount from the hard top. Total power is about 10-20 watts most of the time. Could be even less with some of he new processors. There used to be a 12v computer thread but I can't find it. May set one up so I don't get a lot of hardware stuff cluttering up the important stuff you do on this thread.

Regards,
Chris

[idpnd]

Since the thread has been thoroughly hijacked already, I've got a 12v atom 230 (slower than chris's) with a solid state drive that doesnt really use any electricity at all. I have it with a pc monitor at the nav station currently. The only bit lacking is a waterproof monitor, still researching, argonaut sounds good.

Best regards

Edit: Pricing is a bit cheeky, there must be more affordable options. Perhaps a small usb powered monitor without touchscreen as secondary display in cockpit?

[jonasaberg]

Originally Posted by idpnd

Perhaps a small usb powered monitor without touchscreen as secondary display in cockpit?

Which one did you have in mind?

I think this is a very interesting subject, which brand of atom boards did you and Chris get?
I am after a board with heaps of native com ports to be able to:
-Connect to built in navsystem onboard.´
-Connect to Navtex antenna.
-Possibly run a separate weather routing program. (Which I would eventually like to have inside OpenCPN)

My experience is that the USB-RS232 converters are a poor solution using XP and I know; Linux has its virtues but I am stuck with XP if I want to communicate with my built in Nexus instrumentation system.

/Jonas

[chris blair]

Folks,

So we can allow the development team to focus this thread on software development I've started a new thread called 12v computers in the OpenCPN folder. May I suggest we move this topic to that thread?

Chis

[sredna]

Hi folks,
First sorry for having been away for such long time! I am still very interrested in ppenCPN, and still wants to contribute. To that side, I am very happy to see my work included in the new beta, thank you for that!

I hope I can be allowed to keep working on that and maybe more.

I really like the track browsing feature, but the icon used for those trackpoints is a bit intrusive if you have a track with many close points, see the enclosed screenshot. I suggest that a very small icon is used - a dot maybe, contrasting the color of the track line?

Another issue with track display is that it would be nice if there was an arrow here and there indicating the direction. Maybe every 10th point of so? Marble shows an arrow for each 5 point, which is nice but probably a bit close.

The track dialog is a big bit, could it be an idea to make it tabbed, displaying the points list in a separate tab? That would make it easier to place it so it does not cover the track too much.

In the track point data, it would be nice to include the speed, that would be very valid for me!

What do you think?

[yotmojo]

Hi Guys

A rank newbie to this subject and probably not in the correct area but here goes

I have just installed openCPN beta for a friend using Vista SP2 and charts are already installed - CM93. The system gets up and running OK and charts display but the depth data and contours are missing. Can you advise please?

Ian

[idpnd]

Hello Ian,

try fiddling with the vector chart display settings in the menu. Otherwise your CM93 set may be buggy.

[cagney]

Originally Posted by yotmojo

Hi Guys

A rank newbie to this subject and probably not in the correct area but here goes

I have just installed openCPN beta for a friend using Vista SP2 and charts are already installed - CM93. The system gets up and running OK and charts display but the depth data and contours are missing. Can you advise please?

Ian

Try this: ToolBox(wrench icon) -> Vector Carts -> Display Category = Mariners standard and tick the box " ShowSoundings". As idpnd said, there is a lot here in this tab to test, for example the depth settings, rules how the contours comes up.
For more info, don't miss opencpn.org.

Thomas

[yotmojo]

Hi idpnd

Doh!!! What an idiot I am. thanks for the heads up - works perfectly now. Difficult to see beyond my nose at time.

Thank you for a very prompt heads up.

Great Program!!!


Ian

[yotmojo]

Originally Posted by cagney

Try this: ToolBox(wrench icon) -> Vector Carts -> Display Category = Mariners standard and tick the box " ShowSoundings". As idpnd said, there is a lot here in this tab to test, for example the depth settings, rules how the contours comes up.
For more info, don't miss opencpn.org.

Thomas

Hi Thomas

Thanks for your assistance on this one. All systems are now up and running - I guess that I got to the computer-brain meltdown state of fatigue and could not think clearly.
Thanks once again

Ian

[Rik-lu]

I didn't read all of the 36 pages, so maybe I just repeat something.....

I would prefer to have a real alarm with beebeebeeb and blinkblinkblink when gps-position is lost during navigation. Just ----- at sog and cog is not really noticiable.

In a situation like this one ......




in fog between rocks I would like to notice immediately when the gps has lost position.

.........thanks for all the work already done !!!