Feature Requests

[CBorchardt]

I made a modification to te current OpenCPN, and now it is able to display a Lat/Lon grid in the chart window.
The grid display can be switched on/off in the setup and the spacing between the grid is automatic.
I made this modification, because a friend makes printouts of the charts for navigation withouit a running computer and he liked it that way. I include a picture of how my modification looks like. If, for any reason anyone else is interested in this modification, i could upload the changed source.

I attached a sample picturte

Have fun

Carsten

[bvimatelot]

Love it, Carsten!! well done....now - how do I get it? Tony

[Rik-lu]

Originally Posted by bvimatelot

Love it, Carsten!! well done....now - how do I get it? Tony

Me too !

[CBorchardt]

Hi,
to be honest I do not really know how you get it.

- Best way would be to merge the code with the main development code if this modification is of general interest. But I can not do that.

- I could send you or other interested peaple a patch by email - but you have to compile the thing yourself than.

- I can send you the binary i created, but this is for Win32 only

Lets wait if more people are interested and - if so - the feature could get part of the main opencpn version.

Carsten

[idpnd]

Hello Carsten,

well done! This is in fact one of the more popular feature requests.

You could perhaps attach it to the feature request or email it to dave direct - email address is in opencpn "about" tab.

Best wishes,

Phil

[Extemporaneous]

Originally Posted by CBorchardt

I made a modification to te current OpenCPN, and now it is able to display a Lat/Lon grid in the chart window.
The grid display can be switched on/off in the setup and the spacing between the grid is automatic.
I made this modification, because a friend makes printouts of the charts for navigation withouit a running computer and he liked it that way. I include a picture of how my modification looks like. If, for any reason anyone else is interested in this modification, i could upload the changed source.

I attached a sample picturte

Have fun

Carsten

Welcome to the Board by the way.
Very nice entrance!!

Best Regards,
Extemp.

[svjohngalt]

I would like to see the option of recording depth with the ships track. This way, I could email my track to a friend and he would know exactly what depths I experienced and he will know what to expect.

Likewise, a site could be developed specifically for the sharing of the tracks. This would be a great planning tool. I am planning a trip through Florida Bay, my boat draws 5'8" and it would be valuable if I could download tracks from other boats that included their depths.

An enterprising individual could also cross the depth readings with times and correct for tides. This could be invaluable for updating charts. Many charts haven't had an updated survey in decades. This would allow OpenCPN to become a source of unofficial information for people to share.

The depth recording would need to know the keel offset and what units the depth is recorded in.

Thanks

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by svjohngalt

I would like to see the option of recording depth with the ships track. This way, I could email my track to a friend and he would know exactly what depths I experienced and he will know what to expect.

I agree! I use this feature a lot when looking at MaxSea tracks from friends.

Originally Posted by svjohngalt

Likewise, a site could be developed specifically for the sharing of the tracks. This would be a great planning tool. I am planning a trip through Florida Bay, my boat draws 5'8" and it would be valuable if I could download tracks from other boats that included their depths...

This would also be very useful. We already publish MaxSea tracks (see our Cruiser Info page) & we can see folks downloading them often. Now that we're using OCPN we'll be publishing our GPX tracks. Since we're a cat, folks think we sneak through shallows so adding depth would be very useful.

Two problems with publishing GPX files:
1) They're HUGE. In 1 year our Malaysian Track file is 13MB! How do we post that for downloading? Even zipped it's bigger than most web downloads.
2) Unlike MaxSea Layer (.ptf) files, GPX files can be easily modified. They're just text files. A maliciously evil person could publish track files that could do significant damage to other boats.

So I have another request: Giving OCPN the ability to both read & write a compressed & proprietary file format would help both of the above.

[nohal]

Originally Posted by Jon Hacking

1) They're HUGE. In 1 year our Malaysian Track file is 13MB! How do we post that for downloading? Even zipped it's bigger than most web downloads.

It is a lot of info, even in binary format it would be "big". GPX is very well compressible - to save more, use some better compression method, like 7-Zip and divide your tracks so that the potential users can pick the parts they need, if it matters.

2) Unlike MaxSea Layer (.ptf) files, GPX files can be easily modified. They're just text files. A maliciously evil person could publish track files that could do significant damage to other boats.

So I have another request: Giving OCPN the ability to both read & write a compressed & proprietary file format would help both of the above.

Adding more obscurity will bring absolutely nothing but more problems. Of course even the.ptf file could be modified by a knowledgeable malicious person. If there would be such a guy wanting to invest his time to do that.
To ensure the integrity of your data, just publish the hash of your file and everybody can check it.
And that not even the structure of .ptf is known? It will take 10 minutes to write something producing an artificial nmea stream making maxsea think your boat is in the middle of Manhattan with 100 meters of water under the keel
It's not the format but the source of information that you have to trust...

Pavel

[Jon Hacking]

Pavel, you're right that someone could, if extremely motivated, produce an incorrect PTF file. But that's not likely to happen. Producing an incorrect GPX file is much easier.

You say there's a lot of info, but I think the amount of info in a GPX file is very similar to a PTF file. It's just that the PTF is binary while the GPX is text.

I would have no problem downloading a PTF file from a reasonably known source (like another cruiser's website). I'm a bit more hesitant with GPX files, just because they're SO much easier to modify.

Thanks for the link to 7-zip! (now, if SourceForge would just wake up & download the silly thing...)

[stevead]

Many of the newer VHF DSC transceivers output NMEA messages upon receipt of a DSC call (in particular position response and distress messages).

Also some vendors now support the NMEA 0183 DSC Transponder Initiate message (such as my newly purchased ICOM M504) and some vendors support the equivalent message types using NMEA 2000 (some Garmin models).

I think the DSC integration could be integrated as an extension to the AIS components, as conceptually one could log and plot a DSC position response or DSC Distress Message similarly to that of an AIS VDM message (textually in a ListBox and graphically plotted on the chart)

With a bigger picture in mind, conceivably one could argue for a newer AIS architecture, so that it is capable of logging, displaying list entries and creating chart overlays for any plotted targets such as AIS, DSC, Radar or any other technology yet to be invented.

The particular features I would like to see are:
1. Extend the AIS ListBox with DSC targets.

2. Add a context menu item to the AIS ListBox or Chart Mouse Rollover event to:
a) Indicate bearing & distance to the DSC target (especially to DSC Distress Messages so I can easily determine whether I can render assitance)
b) Initiate a VHF call to either a DSC or AIS target (Imagine an AIS target at risk of a collision with your vessel, you can more easily initiate a VHF DSC call to the other vessel via a mouse click rather than from the radio's controls)

3. Create an "address book" like function with vessel name's & MMSI numbers, or MMSI group numbers, so that one can initiate a DSC call from the "address book". Admittedly this can be programmed into the radio directly, however it's much easier to type stuff into a PC than through the radio's controls. (Perhaps it would be nice if the VHF vendors provided a mechanism to upload & download entries !)

[PjotrC]

Originally Posted by stevead

Many of the newer VHF DSC transceivers output NMEA messages upon receipt of a DSC call (in particular position response and distress messages).

Also some vendors now support the NMEA 0183 DSC Transponder Initiate message (such as my newly purchased ICOM M504) and some vendors support the equivalent message types using NMEA 2000 (some Garmin models).

As the first step, the handling (i.e. plotting on AIS screen and including in the target list) of DSC distress targets (which I consider the most useful) and DSC position polling has been done and posted as source patch to flyspray as feature request #331. No feedback so far...

Piotr

[cagney]

stevead

If you have access to dsc then maybe you can help Dave with some testing. Check ths post. http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post471158

Thomas

[claire]

As much as I have liked using Opencpn for ocean crossing and open water sailing, when it comes to coastal navigation, I often like to see other boat tracks when available and I have found Opencpn very deficient for track handling:

1. When I import a track of more than a few miles, opencpn immediately slows down to a crawl.
2. If I import a big track that slows me down, I have no way, in Opencpn, to cut out the parts that may not be needed immediately.
3. When I want to display more than one track, It gets immediately messy if I cannot assign them a different color.
4. The way opencpn cuts my own track into tens of different files and doesn't allow me to assemble these as a single file is extremely frustrating
5. In the track/route manager, I cannot select more than one item to delete or export at a time, unless I delete/export all: great waste of time.

Any plans to address any of these issues?

[nohal]

claire,
maybe you could consider adding some feature requests in OpenCPN::Tracker OpenCPN - Feature Requests: Tasklist so that your ideas don't get lost in the forum threads which grow a little bit over the length that one is able to follow.
I plan to revisit this code as part of other work I want to do in the near future, but as the primary goal is a bit different, I will certainly forget to do anything else...

Pavel