Google Earth Plugin

[nohal]

Terry...
Have a look at "Location of Important Files. Log and config files." in Installing OpenCPN | Official OpenCPN Homepage
I will release 0.6 with a couple of changes in the startup sequence later today, so you may wait for it before sending the log.

Pavel

[nohal]

Originally Posted by Gilletarom

Hello Pavel,

Truly plug-in GE works fine BUT!

On my boat, at sea, I will never have access to GE because I will not have internet access. And then, the plug-in is useless!

Gilletarom...
Not entirely true Read the notes that accompany all the releases I publish... GE can display stuff it cached even offline.
By the way Phiggins also made another tool - GERoute, which lets you populate the GE cache for later offline use. You can find it on his website.

Pavel

[CarCode]

Originally Posted by Gilletarom

Hello Pavel,
Truly plug-in GE works fine BUT!
On my boat, at sea, I will never have access to GE because I will not have internet access. And then, the plug-in is useless!
Is it possible to replace the Internet access through the use of such chart ".kap" like we can make with the software GE2KAP of Phiggins?

Gillatrom,

correct, but do know that there exists since long times a possibility to link to a mark or waypoint external files such as pictures or pdf files? Please see:
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post650580

I was not aware of that and it was not documented anywhere. This feature is in my opinion better than anything else. It lacks only for a good GPX editor to be used by the average user. An enhencement of the Route Manager might do that.

This way you are able to make your pictures and documents in the harbour and use them while sailing.

Gerhard

[sailias]

If anyone has access to Garmin's MapSource software the WP editor is very clean and does exactly what you are asking for. Perhaps its a model, perhaps not. Im sure there are others, but thats the only one I have.

/ch

[sinbad7]

Pavel.

Would it be possible to switch on/off the GRID function in the GE window?
This would be very useful to check the accuracy of unreliable charts etc.

Tore

[CarCode]

sailias,

I don't know the Garmin tools but I am sure you understand what I mean. Developers might be get angry about my suggestions but there are better and easier ways for needed enhancements. Another example is the latest update of the Dashboard which gives now several Dashboards to minimize the chart screen only. Why not make a lines color and lines thickness editor for the Dashboard instead?

Gerhard

[nohal]

Tore,
not using the API and I still resist even trying to simulate any user keystrokes to GE - To do it, you have to run GE, and in View menu check the Grid option.
The setting is then persistent for the plugin...

Pavel

[nohal]

Originally Posted by CarCode

Why not make a lines color and lines thickness editor for the Dashboard instead?

Gerhard,
did anybody tell you that you can't do it? Where? I would say your patch will be gladly and promptly accepted to the codebase as it always was with the stuff that makes sense.
In case you are not a programmer, the same applies to the documentation - I still don't see your extension of the manual covering the GPX link stuff in the wiki. Or is it already there?
Be so kind and try to accept the fact, that the people investing their own time for free into programing and documenting OpenCPN have the right to do stuff they choose to do when they choose to do it.

Peace

Pavel

[Gilletarom]

Hello,

Originally Posted by CarCode

Gillatrom,

correct, but do know that there exists since long times a possibility to link to a mark or waypoint external files such as pictures or pdf files? Please see:
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post650580

Gerhard

Thank you, CapCod, for this reminder of possibility. I did not know this method.

I just did a quick test. Apparently, the card type. "kap" manufactured GE2KAP and is georeferenced correctly displayed in the window of the plug-in GE.
I am not able to do a test with the GPS to see if everything works. in particular the monitoring of the boat.

That said, it's a bit complicated to implement, especially because we have cobbled together a gpx file.

It would have to be integrated in one way or another in the plug-in.

Join : 3 files :

A jpg of the result
A .doc with .zip. In the .zip, there is the .kap that I use (These .kap is more than 400Ko)
A .doc with the .gpx that I use.

Best regards

Gilletarom

[Gilletarom]

Originally Posted by Gilletarom

Hello,

A jpg of the result

Image of the result : the benchmark in GE and WP in OpenCPN are not, apparently, at the same place.
This is because the cell of the CM93 is poorly georeferenced. (See this thread about the version of OpenCPN 240-324).

[CarCode]

Originally Posted by nohal

Gerhard,
did anybody tell you that you can't do it? Where? I would say your patch will be gladly and promptly accepted to the codebase as it always was with the stuff that makes sense.
In case you are not a programmer, the same applies to the documentation - I still don't see your extension of the manual covering the GPX link stuff in the wiki. Or is it already there?
Be so kind and try to accept the fact, that the people investing their own time for free into programing and documenting OpenCPN have the right to do stuff they choose to do when they choose to do it.

Peace

Pavel

I know programmers don't like any critics.
See my OpenCPN document part here:
OpenCPN Handbuch

Gerhard

[nohal]

Testers...

Version 0.6 beta of the GE plugin is available

Netbook users (generaly anybody with the screen resolution below 1024x768), please read carefuly the note after the list of changes and known problems.

Changes since the 0.5 beta:

• Fixed the crash on startup without GE installed
• Reimplemented the boat display in GE completely, now it looks and works almost the same as if you have GPS connected directly to GE - tested just with GE 6
• Fixed course-up screen rotation
• A much more defensive way of synchronizing the views is now used. It results in a much decreased resource consumption and increases the responsivness of the whole system, but sometimes it takes a bit of time before GE view catches up with the chart display just be patient and let me know if it's acceptable.
• Small experimantal changes were done to the GE startup process, let's see if it resolves the problems for people unable to use the older versions

Known problems in this version:

• GE sometimes starts to think, that the boat position info is not available, especially when a lot of other applications are used at the same time. Investigating on that. To reenable the tracking, go to the plugin settings, turn Show boat in GE and then go back and turn it on again.
• Toolbar icon state on enabling the plugin is wrong
• Plugin window size resets to default when it's reopened - I'm slowly but surely running out of places where I can try to force AuiManager not to resize the window to a size it chooses
• AUI code generally needs rework

IMPORTANT NOTE for netbook users (and generaly anybody with the screen resolution below 1024x768)
When you start Google Earth on a computer with the screen resolution lower than 1024x768 pixels, it displays a warning dialog on startup. This dialog prevents the plugin from acquiring the GE view, so you have to take the following steps:

• Start GE normally
• When the warning dialog appears, tick the checkbox on the bottom left saying, that you don't want to see the warning again
• Click on the OK button

After that you can start using the plugin.

Installation and usage instructions
It does NOT work with OpenCPN 2.3.1 as it relies on the API extensions introduced in version 2.4 and the boat display doesn't work with OpenCPN before 2.4.324

Before you use the plugin:

• Make sure you are using Microsoft Windows. Sorry, there is no chance to get this running on any normal operating system
• Download OpenCPN, version 2.4.324 beta or later from Download OpenCPN | Official OpenCPN Homepage and install it
• To make the view sizing work reasonably, run Google Earth and turn off the toolbar and the sidebar in the View menu or Ctrl + Alt + T and Ctrl + Alt + B respectively
• Download the attached file gecomapi_pi.doc, change the extension to .dll and place it into the plugin directory in your OpenCPN installation

Run OpenCPN, go to Toolbox and enable the GE plugin on the Plugins tab
The plugin icon appears in the toolbar

Important note for GE offline use
GE tries to connect to the internet on startup and if it's not available it waits for some time (about a minute on my machine), hoping the connection will come alive. There is nothing that could be done about it, so you have to be patient waiting for the plugin to start in this scenario. After another while, GE displays two dialogs telling you, that there's no internet connection and whether you want to troubleshoot the problem. Answering No to the question is the thing to do. Unfortunately while displaying these dialogs, GE "steals" the focus and mouse wheel events don't get to OpenCPN anymore. To reclaim the mouse for OpenCPN, resize the GE plugin view a little bit and you are set again. This is inconvenient, I know, but currently I can't find any other workaround.

Populating the GE cache for offline use
Google Earth is designed with a permanent highspeed connection to the internet in mind, but can be used offline if the necessary imagery data is available in the local cache on disk.
To make the data available locally, it's necessary to visit all the places we want to see before the computer is disconnected from the internet.
Fortunately we are not the only people facing this problem and several tools exist, helping to simplify this process. Probably the best for our use is GoogleEarth Voyager - read about it and find the download links at Google Earth Caching Programs III
GEV comes with a comprehensive documentation covering the whole problem - definitely worth reading to understand what's going on.
Phiggins wrote a tool called GERoute, which can populate the cache from a GPX route. You can get the tool from his website - don't forget to read the password to decompress the archive at the top of the page

Happy testing

Pavel

[Zoef]

No crashes on opening or closing. However, no GE zooming in when zooming in on map.
Went back to older plug-ins, there zooming in works.

[nohal]

No zooming in at all or no zooming in immediately after you zoomed in on the chart? GPS connected? Course up or north up? Plugin settings? Log?

Thanks for the additional info

Pavel

[Gilletarom]

Hello Pavel,

with 1024X600
With 0.6
GPS connected

The track is visible on GE window.

All is Ok.

Gilletarom.