Ocpn-Draw and Boundary

[jongough]

Rick,
There appears to be a difference in the way that opengl works under linux and windows. Under linux it all seems good, BUT under windows you cannot use glPolygonStipple to give a shaded effect, it just blanks out the area. Under linux you can use a 'transparent' pen (zero width line) to stop drawing the polygon outline (i.e. the boundary outline) when filling it. Under windows, for you, this seems to blank out the line which has been drawn around the shape. . In my win 8.1 environment the first boundary is fine, the second boundary seems to get a wider boarder, if I set it to 1 pixel wide the first is OK, the second is 2 pixels, yet the code is saying it is only 1 (put some debugging code in to see it). Really don't know what is going on. I may just leave it alone for the moment, not good, but at least it is working!

Jon

Originally Posted by rgleason

I found your struggle with the texture fill under opengl to be successful, but the boundary outline did not show up until I forced a change in pixel width. It is some little redraw sequencing problem I think because the boundary line is there and flashes off when the fill is written.

[jongough]

Rick,
1. & 2. are currently working. I am not really sure what benefit 3. would have. You can already create a two point boundary and just click on the boat location to set it. If your REALLY want to get picky you could then go into the properties and modify the lat/lon. 4. is just a two point boundary.

I am not sure I want to make it any more complicated than it is without being sure that it really is of benefit to the users. I think the documentation (what, where, who wrote it. Oh that's right not done yet, any volunteers?) will be the complicated bit, i.e. trying to explain how it can be used in plain language so as not to confuse the user. I have read the bit in the new manual about 'moving to next waypoint' and what arrival actually means and the setting that is there for those sailing. It is really straight forward, to me at least, but the documentation is complex as if you don't get what it is doing intuitively it is quite difficult to explain.

I will think about the suggestions for adding more information displayed on the screen, but am a bit worried about clutter. The Text Point text is an example where scaling, position, visibility, colours, etc. all start to make the process complex.

Jon

Originally Posted by rgleason

Electronic Bearing Lines EBL
----------------------------------
1. Boat & Fixed Position EBL
Point A - Fixed to Boat moves relative to the boat.
Point B (free) - Selected and is a Fixed Lat Long with bearing changing as boat moves.

2. Boat & Fixed Angle EBL
Point A - Fixed to Boat, moves relative to boat.
Point B (free) - Selected and is a Fixed Angle from Heading(?) with the Lat Long changing as the boat moves.

3. Boat Fixed Position & Fixed Position EBL
This is a hybrid, Point A is fixed to the boat at the time of entry, used lat long so after that is just fixed and the boat goes on... A more elaborate version of #4. Maybe there are various choices selectable by right click?
- "Center on moving boat"
- "Center on boat lat long"
- "Pick a center point"

4. Two Point Independent Floating EBL Point A (free) - Selected and is a Fixed Lat Long
Point B (free) - Selected and is a Fixed Lat Long

For all of the above EBL:
- Change/Modify any "free" Point by selection (yellow) & then move it.
- Option to have range/bearing (re-positional) appear alongside the vector.
- Option to adjust the height & font of the range/bearing text.
- Option for end point roll over yellow box showing lat long position.
- Option for vector line roll over yellow box showing range & bearing.
- Maybe join the two above.

[jongough]

Rick,
Boundary Points as individual items is really the same as individual waypoints in mainline OCPN. However, you can fill the range rings so you can make it look like a circular boundary. These boundary points are used in boundaries and can be removed, but not added. You can add new points to a boundary but you cannot add existing points to a boundary.

If I am not careful I am going to end up with spaghetti coding trying to cover all the options. To my mind it is just as easy to create a new boundary point on an existing boundary as it would be to add an existing point to the boundary.

The reason for the filled boundary points is that last year there was a 3nm exclusion zone around a particular island we sailed past. Having a boundary centred on the lat/lon we were given with the 3nm exclusion zone showing would have been very useful. Although it is not done yet, having a filled boundary point return the same as a boundary to a JSON message would mean that the watchdog could warn of potential issues well before they happened. This would be very useful when sailing and having to tack!

Jon

Originally Posted by rgleason

There are several icons in the toolbox one is a 45 degree square which is for Boundary Points. These points can be created in the drawing and they have no boundary and not fill. I am wondering what they are for.

Can the be added to an existing boundary?
Can a new boundary with fill and boundary lines be created using them?
I am just trying to learn and figure out how these would be useful.

[jongough]

Hi,
Latest patch, 0480, allows User Icons to be used. It is the same as for OCPN, just create a 'UserIcons' directory in the ocpn_draw_pi directory alongside the data directory that holds the ODnavobj.xml and ODnavobj.xml.changes files. You can use all the same icons that OCPN can. The ones I have been using for testing are here:
REVELATIONS Wiets & Sue cruising the world

When you select a boundary in the path manager or show its properties it now flashes again. I had stopped this behaviour whilst trying to get boundaries to fill in windows.

EBL persistence now works, so you can have them persistent, only persistent over a crash or never persistent.

Jon

[bcn]

Jon,

getting better and better - really great.
Will test this weekend.

Another question:
what would it take to process an object-to-be-drawn that enters as an JSON?
Let's say a marker with its position, icon and name?
Or a track?
You have already tested JSON exchanged by plug-ins. And if it comes from outside via Ethernet? It's SignalK I'm talking about.

Hubert

[jongough]

Hubert,
Now that the JSON stuff is in place it is just a matter of deciding what message and content to send, this could then trigger the building of paths, laying of points etc. I am not sure about passing icons through the message, I think it is supposed to be text only (could convert an icon to text and back), it is really more a case of the size of the message to contain the icon and the frequency of them.

The core JSON processing in OCPN would/should be updated to allow directed/targeted messages. At the moment all messages are 'broadcast' so that each plugin that asks for messages gets all messages and filters out what it does wants. This is fine for some things, but with the message I have for finding if a lat/lon is in a boundary it would make more sense to send the message to only the OD plugin and for the OD plugin to send the response only back to the originator. This would require a bit more intelligence in the OCPN message hub. It would not be difficult and seeing as thoughts are now going on about using JSON messages to pass information between multiple instances of OCPN running at different locations it may well happen.

[boat_alexandra]

Jon,

glPolygonStipple is deprecated and doesn't work on opengles. You should use a texture instead.

[bcn]

Jon,

can you perhaps create the win installer for the latest version?
To go ahead with testing..


Thanks

Hubert

[jongough]

Hubert,
I was fixing opengl to remove a deprecated function that stopped this plugin working under iOS. There is now a new release version available, 0483, on the git page.

Jon

[bcn]

Originally Posted by jongough

Hubert,
I was fixing opengl to remove a deprecated function that stopped this plugin working under iOS. There is now a new release version available, 0483, on the git page.

Jon

You meant OS-X or did I miss something?

[jongough]

Not really sure, but it was opengles that was the issue, and it is for embedded systems (i.e. smartphones and tablets). So, perhaps the issue was with Android, not sure, as I don't have those platforms for testing. I was just going on what was reported a couple of messages ago.

[bcn]

Jon,

.483 installed.
+ EBL working as expected, OpenGL does fill boundary areas, user defined icons do appear
- no more texts showing up for Text Points

Hubert

[bcn]

re.. text points:

creating a new additonal text point now everything does work.
Perhaps I should erase the complete ODnavobj.xml to get a clean workbench without possible incompatilities from former versions....

[bcn]

one more example:

[bcn]

adding items: