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Old 12-07-2017, 20:31   #1
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New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

Many of us have been sharing detailed GPX files with other OpenCPN users and have found the current list of Standard Waypoint Icons to be inadequate for many situations. For more information on the initial discussion see this post:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post2421993

Currently, if you want to use a custom Waypoint Icon, you need to setup the UserIcons directory in the appropriate folder and copy the icon to that folder. If you wish to share a GPX file with someone and a Waypoint uses that Icon, you must also send them the icon to install on their computer.

Rather than distributing our own Waypoint Icons to one another, Dave has graciously agreed to include an updated file of standard Icons in the next release of OpenCPN.

Weits from S/V Revelations has offered his expertise in Graphics Design to create the new Icons. Weits is the creator of the file of User Icons featured on the Icons download page for OpenCPN. The new standard Icons will include those already available from Weits, in addition to new ones.

Your participation and comments would be greatly appreciated! Hopefully, we can come up with a list that most of us agree with.

Specifically, we're looking for a few things.

1) Are the other Icons you would like to have added? If so, please include a sample or describe what you would like to see.

2) Are there some in the proposed file you think should be deleted?

3) S/V Revelations file had duplicates for some symbols, i.e. Different colors for a check mark. Are the multiple colors necessary?

4) In some instances I found multiple Icons for the same item and couldn't make a decision on which was best, i.e. powerlines, ice, groceries, etc. Should we have only one? Or should we include a limited variety?

5) Do you have a different Icon you feel should be used for any in file? If so, include a sample. Remember that an Icon that looks good at 512x512 pixels, may not look so good when reduced to 30x30.

6) Are S/V Revelations Icons too small or too large? I find many of the current standard icons to be too small and some of Weits seem too large. Hopefully we can find a size that satisfies most of us.

7) There has already been a discussion of making the Icons scalable like other features on a chart, but that will be left for another project.

8) If you can find a good Icon for Submerged Cable/Pipe, please upload a copy.

9) Do we want to maintain the existing Standard Icons and their associated names? I'm sure many are using those Icons and removing or renaming them would impact current users. I propose we name the new Icons to group them by Activities, Authorities, Hazards, Marks, etc. If we keep the current names of the standard icons, they will be mixed alphabetically with the new ones as they have no prefix to group them together.

10) Any other comments and suggestions!


To view or download S/V Revelations current list of Icons:
https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...s:user_icons&s
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Old 13-07-2017, 02:53   #2
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

I am almost done creating the graphics for all the icons. The new icons will include the;
  • new standard OpenCPN icons,
  • svRevelations collection,
  • icons as per reflectionsv37,
  • icons as requested by bcn,
  • icons required by Tery from Valhalla,
  • and more than 30 new additional icons.
Before I proceed creating the icons, we need to reach consensus on the icon size. Have a look at the image showing a sample of icons in various sizes. Then also download the attached RAR file and play around with the sample icons in OpenCPN. Once downloaded, remove the .doc extension at the end of the RAR file.

Post your icon size preference here - 70%, 80%, 90%, 100%, 110%, 120% or 130%.

.
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Old 13-07-2017, 03:05   #3
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

Quote:
Originally Posted by reflectionsv37 View Post

3) S/V Revelations file had duplicates for some symbols, i.e. Different colors for a check mark. Are the multiple colors necessary?
Yes, they are - for markers to distinguish different levels of attention.
I'm using different colors for boundary markers with the Draw plug-in frequently

Quote:
4) In some instances I found multiple Icons for the same item and couldn't make a decision on which was best, i.e. powerlines, ice, groceries, etc. Should we have only one? Or should we include a limited variety?
Here we will need a benigm dictator. Decide and live with it...
Quote:
5) Do you have a different Icon you feel should be used for any in file? If so, include a sample. Remember that an Icon that looks good at 512x512 pixels, may not look so good when reduced to 30x30.
That's why I recommend to go for an editor like Inkscape.
Design in vector format and export to the required pixel size.
Controlled quality as a result
Quote:
6) Are S/V Revelations Icons too small or too large? I find many of the current standard icons to be too small and some of Weits seem too large. Hopefully we can find a size that satisfies most of us.
That will not be possible, I fear.
Taking into account the combinations of screen resolutions and screen sizes from small, older laptops to 27" screens, tablets or phones with 4.3" or 5" screens with all kind of resolutions and the tendency to encrease the resolution one finds a
spread from 3 to 16 px/mm.
In other words the real size icon can vary in an order of >5 depending on the display.
If you then take into account to deal with users who need bigger icons due to vision constraints "one size fits all" will not work.
In OpenCPN core for drawing objects from vector charts screen resolution is taken into account. S-52 recommends a size of aprox. 12mm for objects.
This might be a bit too big for markers and user created information.
For our purpose we might try several sets of differently sized objects.

The icons from the existing and proposed sets are at 30px. This is for example very small for my laptop or for mobile devices like phones or tablets.

Sizes that might fit: 30 - 45 - 60 (and perhaps even 90) px

There are some examples in the zipped file attached (strip the .doc) shown here as a screen shot - please experiment and comment!

Click image for larger version

Name:	1-Leds_IconSets.png
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Quote:
7) There has already been a discussion of making the Icons scalable like other features on a chart, but that will be left for another project.
What might be possible is to work with different sized sets making these user selectables.
Quote:
9) Do we want to maintain the existing Standard Icons and their associated names? I'm sure many are using those Icons and removing or renaming them would impact current users. I propose we name the new Icons to group them by Activities, Authorities, Hazards, Marks, etc. If we keep the current names of the standard icons, they will be mixed alphabetically with the new ones as they have no prefix to group them together.
Grouping and ordering by a prefix looks like a good idea for me
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Old 13-07-2017, 03:55   #4
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

Wow!! You waste no time! I imagine you were making 20 icons for each one I made. I'll take a look at let you know what I think about size. Thanks for doing this!
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Old 13-07-2017, 06:29   #5
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

Quote:
Originally Posted by Revelations View Post
I am almost done creating the graphics for all the icons. The new icons will include the;
  • new standard OpenCPN icons,
  • svRevelations collection,
  • icons as per reflectionsv37,
  • icons as requested by bcn,
  • icons required by Tery from Valhalla,
  • and more than 30 new additional icons.
Before I proceed creating the icons, we need to reach consensus on the icon size. Have a look at the image showing a sample of icons in various sizes. Then also download the attached RAR file and play around with the sample icons in OpenCPN. Once downloaded, remove the .doc extension at the end of the RAR file.

Post your icon size preference here - 70%, 80%, 90%, 100%, 110%, 120% or 130%.

.
When working with graphics make sure to not include outdated iCCP sRGB profiles in the image files. Otherwise you will receive warnings in the OpenCPN log like: "warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile"

It is always better not to include any profile in the image because OpenCPN does not need this informations and you will get a smaller file size. If your graphic software cannot handle these supplementary informations (as seen in the examples of this RAR file here) strip these informations by using the convert command from the ImageMagick package:
"convert -strip picture-name new-picture-name"

Of course you can use also a better graphic software like Inkscape as Hubert proposed already to avoid such faults. Inkscape runs with any OS and even with macOS using XQuartz.

Gerhard
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Old 13-07-2017, 08:50   #6
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

Quote:
Originally Posted by bcn View Post
[...]
Taking into account the combinations of screen resolutions and screen sizes from small, older laptops to 27" screens, tablets or phones with 4.3" or 5" screens with all kind of resolutions and the tendency to encrease the resolution one finds a
spread from 3 to 16 px/mm.
In other words the real size icon can vary in an order of >5 depending on the display.
If you then take into account to deal with users who need bigger icons due to vision constraints "one size fits all" will not work.[...]
One way of dealing with that would be going native vector in OpenCPN for icon storage and scaling for detected user's display resolution (and user preferences).
Another would be to keep bitmap storage for icons almost as-is, but have multiple renderings, fit for different DPI ranges (akin to what Android apps do).
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Old 13-07-2017, 10:05   #7
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

Quote:
Originally Posted by mrm View Post
One way of dealing with that would be going native vector in OpenCPN for icon storage and scaling for detected user's display resolution (and user preferences).
Another would be to keep bitmap storage for icons almost as-is, but have multiple renderings, fit for different DPI ranges (akin to what Android apps do).
Sure, but not for 4.6.2 I would say.
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Old 13-07-2017, 20:25   #8
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

I'm using a 19" monitor at the nav station with 1280x1024 resolution. I prefer the sizes from 90%-110%. Any of those would be fine. In fact, any of the sizes would be acceptable. 70% seems too small and 130% too big. I did notice something unusual when I put the same icon, with all available sizes, on Opencpn . At 70%, the waypoint text is completely below the icon. As the size increases, the text moves up. At 130%, the text is completely over the icon. I did notice while looking at your original icons in the past, that there was white space at the bottom of the icons. I wondered why you did that? I suspect this is how you solve the problem with the text.

Hubert, I also took a look at your icons. In particular the diesel fuel. This was one I thought seemed too large in Weits original file. The 30px version looks large, the 45 looks huge and when I zoom out on the chart, the 60 reminds me of the road maps that were given away by gas stations when I was a kid! Huge Shell signs all over the map that obscures the roads. I've never tried using OpenCPN on the phone, but I think I'll install it and see how it looks.

Thinking more about the existing standard waypoints, I wouldn't be bothered if the waypoint names were changed. At most I'd have to do some find/replace on some GPX files to use the new names. Not sure how others would feel about that and not sure how that would affect OpenCPN with the standard route marks etc. There are only 2 of the standard Icons that I regularly use. The anchorage mark which I set as my default. and the scuba dive flag. I would likely not notice if the others disappeared. I actually like both of those icons because they are relatively small, but show up easily on the chart.

Thanks again!
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Old 14-07-2017, 00:59   #9
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

Gene,

your display is on one extreme of pixel density (3-16) - the lower one:
5px/mm.

Click image for larger version

Name:	Captura de pantalla 2017-07-14 a las 9.51.40.png
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https://www.sven.de/dpi/

So a 30px set should work well for you.
Can you post a screen shot, comparing with a standard waypoint icon, perhaps?

Hubert
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Old 14-07-2017, 01:25   #10
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

Hubert,

Here is a screen pic with the various sizes of a couple of Weits icons, hurricane and cardinal mark and I also have your various sizes of the diesel fuel. Below them is the standard waypoint circle and the anchorage. When I was making up a few icons I found 28 to 32 was about right. Your diesel pump is 40px height so it looks bigger.

Gene
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Old 14-07-2017, 02:05   #11
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

I'm done with all the icon graphic work in Vector format. I redesigned all the standard OpenCPN icons and added a bunch of additional navigation icons - taking guidance from US Chart No. 1.

I've done a lot of work on the icons and currently have them in 7 different sizes - all still in vector format. The 100% size (see samples above) then seem to be the appropriate size.

I simplified many of the icons in my old collection with a consistent colour theme throughout. As requested by many people on my website (some are fishermen) and a couple others here by PM, I expanded a consistent colour theme throughout all the icons. I now need to export each icon to .png format - tedious and mind numbing work. I will start this work early next week sometime.

After this, the next step would be to look at a sensible naming regime. For this, I will prepare some sort of document and send it to reflectionsv37 who did a great job renaming the existing collection.

Are there any other icon/s you require?
.
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Old 14-07-2017, 02:23   #12
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

Quote:
Originally Posted by reflectionsv37 View Post
..... I did notice something unusual when I put the same icon, with all available sizes, on Opencpn . At 70%, the waypoint text is completely below the icon. As the size increases, the text moves up. At 130%, the text is completely over the icon. I did notice while looking at your original icons in the past, that there was white space at the bottom of the icons. I wondered why you did that? I suspect this is how you solve the problem with the text. .......
Yes, you are right. The only way to overcome the issue was to add blank space at the bottom of the icons. I did not bother to do so with the sample icons I posted above - but I will have do so once again with the new icons.
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Old 14-07-2017, 03:25   #13
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

Quote:
Are there any other icon/s you require?
There will be about 17 seconds after you say you're finished!

Is there a place we can see the new icons?
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Old 14-07-2017, 06:43   #14
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

Quote:
Originally Posted by reflectionsv37 View Post
There will be about 17 seconds after you say you're finished!

Is there a place we can see the new icons?
Yes, I will create a giant PDF file, paper size will probably be A1 or A0 size. I'm away until Sunday afternoon (SA time) - will post then.
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Old 14-07-2017, 11:32   #15
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Re: New Standard Waypoint Icons For OpenCPN - Input Requested

For me the new icons at 100% are perfect. Many of the current default icons are too small.

I'm not using a very high density system. The monitor at my nav station is a 14" 1024x768 VGA job.

Cheers
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