Feature Requests

[sinbad7]

Dave..

I have made an apprporiate posint in the 3.1.802 thread explaining.

Tore

[Capt Jan]

Thank you for making a wonderful product that is in most ways superior to commercial products. I was able to test it extensively a week ago and I noticed a major bug in GPS tracking and a minor bug too.

Whenever the Minutes would be below 10 (e.g. 9.99 or lower) no matter if it is latitude or longitude reading the program would put me in the wrong area of the globe. If latitude met this criteria I would be in South America (Colombia), if longitude met this criteria I would be in Europe, and if both were met, then I would be in NW Africa.

The trip I made was from Norfolk, VA to New York, NY and never left this area of the globe during the transit.

I examined the NMEA stream and when in these areas it was shortened by one digit. Therefore, the GPS parsing routine needs to be rewritten to accommodate for this, or at least another error trap be written into it.

I have several screen captures while this was occurring.

Another GPS error is the Course over ground was off by 50%, While doing 44 degrees, it indicated 22 degrees, and while doing 30 degrees it indicated 15 degrees. From what I remember this only occurred moving in the NE quadrant for direction.

I am also using my Android tablet as a GPS source, it will transmit the position to the Windows 7 notebook via Bluetooth on COM8: with the android program "ShareGPS" (OpenCPN doesn't see this port) and is redirected using the Franson GPSgate to COM2: which OpenCPN does see.

Feature Requests / Bug Fixes:
1. Rewrite GPS parsing to properly recognize cooridinate
2. Fix GPS COG
3. Allow for manual configuration of GPS to see more than the com ports that it thinks is active.

Please send a private message if you want the screen shots (they are in a Word Document).

A seperate request is that I really would like to see a port to Android Tablet as my Transformer Prime has 16 hours of battery life, and built-in GPS, accelerated graphics and enough storage to handle all US charts (both raster and electronic), this would eliminate to take my notebook along with me, and stick with a more durable and robust tablet.

Thanks for your time and attention to these issues.

As this is my first posting, I didn't see a bug report area, so I figured this was the next best thing, please move to an appropriate area if I posted this in the wrong area.

Best Regards,
Captain Jan

[sinbad7]

Ho Captain Jan..

Good News!! If you install a FREE app called PocketCloud,you can access ALL the programs you have installed on your laptop/PC from your smartphone,also OpenCPN.
I presume that you have a wi-fi network available. This will also work even without access to the internet. If you are happy with the basic FREE version,you can also upgrade to the Pro version for a small fee.

Capt. Tore

[bdbcat]

CaptJan...

I would like to know more about the GPS parsing error.
What version of OpenCPN are you using?
Do you have any logs, streams, or screen captures that you could post?

Thanks
Dave

[Jef & Marin, Netherlands]

I have just installed Kannad Safelink R10's in our life vests. when I tested them I found the green test icon on OpenCPN's screen. Great!
Then I read on the OpenCPN user manual that there is one single visual/sound alert box for both danger of collision and SART alert.

Would it be possible to have separate settings, so that I can activate and select alarms for AIS SART and collisions separately?

If I fall overboard and activate my SART, and my partner is asleep, I'd want the alert to be so loud (by connecting the PC to our audio system) that it wakes up my partner. But I don't want her to wake up all the time just because some nearby fishing vessel changes course chasing a shoal.

[cagney]

Originally Posted by Jef & Marin, Netherlands

I have just installed Kannad Safelink R10's in our life vests. when I tested them I found the green test icon on OpenCPN's screen. Great!
Then I read on the OpenCPN user manual that there is one single visual/sound alert box for both danger of collision and SART alert.

Would it be possible to have separate settings, so that I can activate and select alarms for AIS SART and collisions separately?

If I fall overboard and activate my SART, and my partner is asleep, I'd want the alert to be so loud (by connecting the PC to our audio system) that it wakes up my partner. But I don't want her to wake up all the time just because some nearby fishing vessel changes course chasing a shoal.

It's nice with a confirmation that the SART feature works in real life!
+1 for separate alarm sounds!
There is already a feature request for this in the tracker!
OpenCPN::Tracker All Projects: Tasklist

Thomas

[Capt Jan]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

CaptJan...

I would like to know more about the GPS parsing error.
What version of OpenCPN are you using?
Do you have any logs, streams, or screen captures that you could post?

Thanks
Dave

Send me a PM with an e-mail address and I will send you a word doc with screen captures including NMEA stream.

[wimvdh]

Is it possible to extend the AIS target list with a for Destination?

[captain38]

Hello Dave,

We are just ending a summer of cruising in SE Alaska, using OpenCPN 3.0.2 as our chart plotter. WHAT A GREAT PROGRAM! It served us very well, and we appreciate it.

We use OpenCPN on a small 7'' screen ASUS netbook, running all programs and accessories on thumb drives, and running XP, sp3, and using the Prolific model BU-353 USB GPS. One of the problems we had rather often, was that OpenCpn would suddenly lose the GPS, i.e. would not be able to find the Comm Port. I should say, at this point that we also had a full sized laptop aboard running Win7 Home, and could run the program with it, and that computer experienced the same ''dropping'' of the GPS. At times, using either computer, we could not get the GPS back on line by restarting the program or the computer. The program simply didn't see any Comm Ports, and we could not force it.

THEREFORE, THIS REQUEST IS FOR A MANUAL METHOD OF LOOKING AT ALL COMM PORTS ON THE COMPUTER, RATHER THAN THE AUTOFIND METHOD CURRENTLY USED.

Another improvement in the program would be the addition of what I will call ''dynamic screen tips'' for the status bar windows at the bottom of the screen. The information displayed in those boxes (LAT/LON, ETC.) using a small screen is too small to be legible and can not be enlarged. When the mouse is passed over each box, a screen tip, magnified to legible scale, displaying the data in the box would render the status bar useful for small screens.

Thanks for undertaking this great project of improving OpenCPN.

Captain Howard

[sinbad7]

Captain Howard..

You can download a FREE and simple com port manager here:
Download STManager Free

You can also tick the 'Show GPS/NMEA data stream window' in the OpenCPN GPS window.

Tore

[George64]

Hi Developers!

Three requests regarding the nautical standards.
1. In the menu "Tools -> Vector charts -> Nautical Standards", could this list be sorted in alphabetical order?
2. There are items shown that are not part of the manual. Been looking on the internet for a description list of these items that I can add to the manual, however I did not find it.
3. A roll over on each item that explains an acronym.

If I can be of any help, please let me know.


George

[JesperWe]

Originally Posted by captain38

....One of the problems we had rather often, was that OpenCpn would suddenly lose the GPS,...

THEREFORE, THIS REQUEST IS FOR A MANUAL METHOD OF LOOKING AT ALL COMM PORTS ON THE COMPUTER, RATHER THAN THE AUTOFIND METHOD CURRENTLY USED.

Another improvement in the program would be the addition of what I will call ''dynamic screen tips'' for the status bar windows at the bottom of the screen. The information displayed in those boxes (LAT/LON, ETC.) using a small screen is too small to be legible and can not be enlarged. When the mouse is passed over each box, a screen tip, magnified to legible scale, displaying the data in the box would render the status bar useful for small screens.

All of this will be addressed in the next beta release. The COM port code is being redone to better handle USB devices with unstable connections, and the Status Bar at the bottom has been revised to allow much larger fonts to be used on small screens.

And BTW, if COM port discovery fails to find a port, you are free to type that port name in yourself in the menu.
/j

[JesperWe]

Originally Posted by George64

1. In the menu "Tools -> Vector charts -> Nautical Standards", could this list be sorted in alphabetical order?
2. There are items shown that are not part of the manual. Been looking on the internet for a description list of these items that I can add to the manual, however I did not find it.
3. A roll over on each item that explains an acronym.

Also being addressed in the next beta. The acronyms go away in favor of clear text descriptions, sorted alphabetically.

Sometimes, however, a chart will contain object classes that we do not know about. In this case three will still be acronyms and no explanation I am afraid.

[wimvdh]

In Europe almost all inland commercial vessels will be equipped by a dedicated mobile AIS station called 'Inland AIS'. At this moment about 80-90% of all vessels in this category are carrying Inland AIS. In some countries it is already mandatory to have on board.
As a matter of fact, Inland AIS it is a slightly modified Class A station with some extra facilities for inland shipping. An example is the 'blue sign', which is already facilitated by Open CPN with a special blue triangle on the displayed symbol.
To distinguish inland ships from others carrying Class A stations, Inland AIS is also transmitting some special designed ASM's (sometimes better known under the name Binary messages (message 6 and 8)). Because of the European approach, the ASM's are recognized by the DAC=200 (DAC is a sort of country code, part of the MMSI). A very important one is function number 10, transmitting extended ship static and voyage related information. It is an extension of AIS message 5 and should be transmitted as soon as possible after message 5. So, an inland ship can be recognized as soon as this message 8 with function identifier 10 and DAC 200 is received (after message 5).
My question now is how we can determine inland ships from maritime ships on our Open CPN screen. My suggestion is to give inland ships as soon as they are identified as such, a different color. We have already yellow for unidentified AIS targets, green for identified ships, etc. Any unused color is OK.
I am not a programmer but a specialist in AIS technology. If anybody can program this, I am open to give additional information. If needed I can supply the Inland AIS standard and other documentation to implement the proper display of inland targets on the screen.
I hope that the Open CPN community can support this and somebody can take this programming task.

[captain38]

Originally Posted by sinbad7

Captain Howard..

You can download a FREE and simple com port manager here:
Download STManager Free

You can also tick the 'Show GPS/NMEA data stream window' in the OpenCPN GPS window.

Tore

Thanks Tore for your reply I tried to download STmanager, but had to abort the download, as my virus software identified it as asware. It is unfortunate that one cannot download that software without additional unwanted programs such a 7zip and another called optimum download and something similar.

I have utilized the ''Show GPS/NMEA data stream'' window feature but it shows nothing when the comm port is unrecognized. A later post indicates that the comm port issue is being addressed in the next beta release.

BTW we have something in common. Our Holy Grail is all aluminum.

Good Sailing,

Captain Howard