Feature Requests

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by captpat

I'd like to be able to build some AP-centric dashboards downstream that start like the attached...

Are the UNITS for Water Temp unspecified? or is it assumed C? I am configured to report F, but not sure if the virtual instrument knows or cares. Similarly Timezone could be obtained and displayed instead of LCL from the system clock... perhaps portability makes that impractical tho?

Best, CaptPat

You might want to play with it as is for a while. Dashboard has lots of clocks in pretty much all flavors. Getting TZ automatically out on the ocean is non-trivial.

Look at the dashboard code for how units of measure work. It is a sensible approach.

[captpat]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

What is the use of a windrose on a digital chart?

Thank you,
b.

I don't have wind instruments at all... I am only looking for the GPS Compass to be displayed as a Compass Rose. I do have multiple heading sensors, but generally steer the boat in open waters simply by mimizing XTE to a desired active route, and then taking computed COG (which generally matches GPS interpolated compass heading) as the "boat heading" - for a power boat the magnetic compass and/or fluxgate compass tend to have alignment issues (engine/metals interference) that make them "approximate" - even if newly calibrated, the fluxgate tends to need to be re-spun when heading in the opposite direction - particularly for mostly south/north voyage/return routes...

Best, CaptPat

[transmitterdan]

If you feed GPS data to OpenCPN the dashboard will display a nice compass. You can even adjust the ballistics so it acts like a real damped compass. Not only that but your ship icon can display both course and heading rays showing on the chart where you will be in xx minutes at present course and speed. The xx is user settable. It doesn't get much simpler.

I suspect if you use the program in anger a little more you will find why so many people like it. Is it perfect? No, but it's pretty dang good considering what you paid for it.

[transmitterdan]

Attached is a screen shot when O is running from a VDR file.

[verkerkbr]

I just read that GPS reception on the Black Sea was not available for some time. The risk of no GPS reception because of jamming or political reasons (North Korea) is increasing. Loran-C as a fall back navigation system is no longer available.


Ship had to set the Ecdis plotter to the DR setting.


How about OpenCPN ? Is it possible implementing a switch to revert to
DR navigation using the chart plotter charts on the screen when GPS or other sat systems are not available ?


Bram

[rgleason]

Black Sea... no gps. I believe that's Russia mucking Putin aggression. I too wish our King loran still worked...not enough voices or funds. There are several DR plugins DR_pi and Ocpn_Draw has DR functions. There is also a good thread about DR which I'll try to find.
It is possible we'll need better DR.

[rgleason]

Bram What are the DR features in ECDIS, specifically if you can?

[rgleason]

Have you tried WatchDog? Will not do all you ask, but it has depth alarm and boundaries

[rgleason]

I believe Sean has made a plugin that does much of this. He was considering making a "Head Right" orientation for radar use to utilize the landscape format of many screens. I've forgotten the name, but I believe it is listed in the manual.

[rgleason]

https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...z:rotationctrl

RotationCtrl. Check it out.

[rgleason]

I don't have wind instruments at all... I am only looking for the GPS Compass to be displayed as a Compass Rose.

You could try Tactics I believe it will overlay a polar file at the boat, not sure if you have the option to overlay the compass, but I think it does. Search tactics_pi in the wiki.

[verkerkbr]

Originally Posted by rgleason

Bram What are the DR features in ECDIS, specifically if you can?

Rick,

I only read an article about a ship on the Black Sea who had to switch the ECDIS system to DR because of the missing GPS reception. There have trials before with switching off the GPS reception for a short time. It is not really switching off, but jamming the weak GPS signal in a certain area for military puposes..

I just scrapped my reliable dual chain Loran-C JRC receiver. But there is a good case about reactivation the Loran chains in the form of eLoran because it can act as a backup system and is more accurate than Loran-C.

I think it is a good addon the ability to switch to DR using the log and direction info, so that the chart plotter charts can still be used.

Regards,

Bram

[rgleason]

https://opencpn.org/flyspray/index.p...desc&pagenum=3

There are tracker items "AIS ! description" and one is a Summary. I'd like to suggest that the AIS feature requests below be added as a comment or new task to tracker. Thanks.

[rgleason]

Bram wrote:

"I think it is a good addon the ability to switch to DR using the log and direction info, so that the chart plotter charts can still be used."

Got it now, I think. The "Active Route" would have to change to a different DR mode which utilizes shipboard instrumentation other than gps, such as boat speed and heading, "relative to water" There would be no gps "relative to earth" so we would need some way of entering our estimate of current and direction, or take it from tide and time info.

[rgleason]

Then the ship DR location would be shown based on that, and the ship would change color to a DR color.