Dead Reckoning Plugin for OCPN

[rgleason]

Robert, Just participate in the dialog and use the plugins to help, you won't need to program. Help guide the effort, making the tools easier to use, practical.

[rgleason]

Should there be a separation of work? i.e. OD does the drawing on the screen based on information that the Tactic_pi plugin can provide. Calculations and handling of NMEA messages would be in one place and not duplicated. OD EBL (or a class based on the EBL) could then be used as the basis for drawing the on-screen vectors.

Jon, Thomas just finished a big effort on Tactics_pi and is sailing. I don't even know if he is interested in cooperating in this, but we could ask. I think its a very good idea.. Why rebuild the wheel?
OD asks for vector information in a certain form:

-Vector Type
HDG/STW Heading & Speed thru the Water
CRS/STW Course &, Speed thru the Water(?) (Includes Leeway)
COG/SOG Course & Speed over Ground (GPS Instantaneous)
CMG/SMG Course & Speed made good (Historic track)
CTS/STG Course to Steer & Speed to go (offset CUR + LEE)
SET/DFT Set & Drift (direction of moving water, tide, ocean cur etc)
CUR Current Vector
LEE Leeway Vector
TW True Wind Vector
AW Apparent Wind Vector

-Vector Component Values
Direction
Speed

- Validity
True
False

We'll need to refine and come up with short identifiers for these vector requests and the Tactic_pi response.

Sources for Terminology
Terminology | Official OpenCPN Homepage
Also we need to unify and standardize the Tactics_pi terminology and the this terminology page. Tactics_pi user guide has excellent diagrams too.
Presently there is no User Document for Tactics_pi but Thomas does provide an excellent PDF (pdf is too big) It is on file thingie
OpenCPN Beta File Thingie rguser rgpass Under the 4.2.0 Win PI directory, I do not find it up on the OpenCPN downloads website yet.

How do we want to handle scale?
Should the vectors be to actual scale, or should they be a user defined multiplier, should they always be a certain 'pixel' size.

I think vectors should start at actual scale with a User defined multiplier.
There should also be "tick" mark distance along the Vector that scales with the User defined scale multiplier. The user enters real world distance and the distance of each "tick" along the vector shaft is scaled by the user's multipler.

Do we want a new OD Toolbar icon or do we want it just 'right click' on chart select-able?

Not sure about this, but EBL has it's own icon. I think this tool is at that level but you would know better.

[RobertLeask]

I like simplicity in all things nautical, when you've been on a long trip in challenging conditions the mind is not as sharp as when we're sitting well rested in front of a computer, and more prone to mistakes. Different colors for the three vectors would be good, as well as the one, two and three arrowhead notation. Simple on/off buttons for the HDG/STW and SET/DFT vectors would be good and I like the idea of a right click dropdown for those. The length of the HDG/STW and COG/SOG vectors would have to remain proportional with a single setting. Most of the time a simple one hour length would be fine, but should be adjustable for very large and very small scale charting. An information window with a digital display of SET/DFT would also be useful. Another important control would be the time interval. A short interval should work well in calm inland waters but a longer moving average would be needed for rougher ocean conditions, with a lot of yaw and speed variation.

[rgleason]

DR Route for ov50 Beta is working.


ov50 Beta Plugins


ov50 Beta



Dead Reconing Wiki