Feature Requests

[jpiebrig]

Cagney,

Even with a gps and a chart-plotter on board, I would still keep my eyes firmly on the water.

Yes I agree with what you say, maybe I did not well make me understood, sorry my English is far from being perfect ! But also maybe you did not indeed read what I wrote :

and now, if I take all the necessary precautions, slow speed, a good watch, etc.,

and when you say :

There are circumstances where technical gadgets can't replace eyeball navigation.

Gps and electronic navigation are good help, and they shouls stay that, but in some circumstances, dark night, very cloudy sky when I don't see anything under the water and I am obliged to move, my eyes are poor help and I am glad to have a GPS and a very good track function and at this time, they are not gadgets for me.

Jean-Pierre

[bdbcat]

All....

Regarding the yellow line: Please re-read post 109, this thread.
Clearly the user group does not like or appreciate the intent of this highlite line. OK.

Frankly, explaining again and again the real navigational risks of extreme overzoom is becoming tiresome. Anybody else want this ball? I retire gracefully.....

jpiebrig....

Thanks for the screen shots. I get it.
Seems like what we need is a "Plotting Sheet", as TheCapn calls it.
This is a simple white sheet, possibly with lat/lon grid, that is activated when extreme overzoom is selected.

Or, we can simply allow unlimited overzoom on any chart, and you take your chances when near charted features.....

Comments?
Dave

[dacust]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

All....

Regarding the yellow line: Please re-read post 109, this thread.
Clearly the user group does not like or appreciate the intent of this highlite line. OK.

Frankly, explaining again and again the real navigational risks of extreme overzoom is becoming tiresome. Anybody else want this ball? I retire gracefully.....

jpiebrig....

Thanks for the screen shots. I get it.
Seems like what we need is a "Plotting Sheet", as TheCapn calls it.
This is a simple white sheet, possibly with lat/lon grid, that is activated when extreme overzoom is selected.

Or, we can simply allow unlimited overzoom on any chart, and you take your chances when near charted features.....

Comments?
Dave

I think unlimited zooming is needed.

BUT, and this is a big BUT: The concerns you have are shared by me, and the yellow line showing the probable error width is very nice.

I'd say add a light gray diagonal cross hatch to the entire screen on over-zoom.

For the yellow, maybe an option to turn it off, or an option to select to turn it off at a particular zoom level?

I have only arm-chair used this program, so sorry for my ignorance, but is the yellow transparent? If not, it should be. Then it could stay there all the time. You zoom in far enough and the whole screen might be yellow. That would let you know you have not only out zoomed the accuracy of the chart, but out zoomed the accuracy of the GPS as well.

Does the width of the yellow line vary with the reported accuracy from the GPS?

For the cross-hatch, you probably want that diagonal to the chart's North up, in preparation for adding a feature for altering the orientation of the charts.

Myself, I would use the overzoom, but I think I would leave a transparent yellow line always on. But options are good.

-dan

[GPS-Marco]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

All....

Regarding the yellow line: Please re-read post 109, this thread.
Clearly the user group does not like or appreciate the intent of this highlite line. OK.

Frankly, explaining again and again the real navigational risks of extreme overzoom is becoming tiresome. Anybody else want this ball? I retire gracefully.....

jpiebrig....

Thanks for the screen shots. I get it.
Seems like what we need is a "Plotting Sheet", as TheCapn calls it.
This is a simple white sheet, possibly with lat/lon grid, that is activated when extreme overzoom is selected.

Or, we can simply allow unlimited overzoom on any chart, and you take your chances when near charted features.....

Comments?
Dave

I do stay with Dave. Overzooming maps (expecially vector maps) is useless and really dangerous. Maybe if you want to overzoom the GPS tracks, the map should disappear and be substituted by a lat/long grid only.

GPS precision should be indicated in some way both around the boat and on the recorded tracks.

Ciao, Marco.

[dacust]

I'm guessing that the people that suggest that the map disappear are the people that don't use that technique. You still need the map to keep your orientation.

Maybe instead of calling it the "Expert" mode, you could call it the "Foolhardy" mode to convey the sentiment that it is dangerous.

-dan

[dacust]

OK, this is going to get some responses of "HOLY COW!", but when I plan a route on inland waters, I plan it so if I am running in the dark, I have points at every slight turn. This means, for instance, in Nobeltec, my route from Charleston to Chattanooga had over 2000 waypoints. (!?!!)

OpenCPN writes waypoint changes to the ini file, and it seems to re-write the file every time. The larger the ini file gets, the slower the performance. I am up to 500 waypoints and it is really really slow. (OK, so I'm on an old 2.4ghz P4)

So, a change to this process would be appreciated.

-dan

[dacust]

3 posts in a row, but they are different subjects...

In this thread they are wanting a device to survey an anchorage.

It may have been suggested before, but, if along with the KML support, we could be able to add our own depths directly from a depthfinder, that would be cool.

-dan

[ColdFusion]

Originally Posted by dacust

Maybe instead of calling it the "Expert" mode, you could call it the "Foolhardy" mode to convey the sentiment that it is dangerous.

I accept that overzooming a chart may increase the level of inaccuracy. However, if it was so "foolhardy" and "dangerous" then somehow I don't think CMAP ECS or Maxsea would allow it. But they both do. I think it is neither "expert" nor, in certain circumstances, "foolhardy". I think this (new) function should simply be called "overzoom" and when viewing overzoomed charts the text, "CAUTION! OVERZOOM" should be added at the top of the screen after the chart scale.

[edit] The only thing that would be foolhardy is for someone to rely entirely on an electronic chart, whether overzoomed or not.

[Viking Sailor]

Dave,

Instead of a yellow overlay on the track line, a yellow circle around the own ship symbol could indicate position uncertainty. This indicator could include chart and GPS uncertainties, and would be useful while underway and at anchor. When used with an anchor alarm, these uncertainties should be included in the alarm calculations.

Thank you,

Paul

[cagney]

Originally Posted by dacust

3 posts in a row, but they are different subjects...

In this thread they are wanting a device to survey an anchorage.

It may have been suggested before, but, if along with the KML support, we could be able to add our own depths directly from a depthfinder, that would be cool.

-dan

I saw that thread to. Interesting if this could be implemented in OCPN. I like the idea of getting soundings from a dinghy, automatically into the on-board charting program. To take it one step further, consider the ideas raised in this OCPN thread

Thomas

[Dusan]

Hello bbcat,

I wonder if it is posible to port the opencpn to Tom Tom. Tom Tom uses linux and it will be great when arriving to marina, take the tom-tom from the windshield mount, insert it into a mount on the boat, start the opencpn and sail away.
See the open tom comunity here: Main Page - OpenTom

Dusan

[bdbcat]

Dusan....

Don't see why opencpn could not be ported to TomTom. I guess one would want a unit with hard drive for meaningful chart storage. I'll look into this a little more.

Maybe this is our opensource chartplotter hardware platform/architecture that we have been looking for?

Dave

[bdbcat]

All....

Coding on GRIB stuff now. Good progress so far.

A request: I need more samples of GRIB files for testing. Of course, I have downloaded a bunch from zyGrib, NOAA, and others. I'd like to get as many divergent samples as possible.

If so inclined, please send your favorite GRIB files direct to my email as attachments. email address in opencpn Toolbox->Help->Authors.

Comments appreciated.
Dave

[bdardy]

Hi
Any internalisation in todo list ?

bernard

[idpnd]

Bernard, you probably mean internationalisation I started a German translation, are you volunteering for French? The problem is that the code requires i18n hooks (to position the translated strings/words on an automatic basis) and the developer who started this over at sourceforge magically evaporated..