OpenCPN

[bdbcat]

Scotte...

On second thought, maybe you mean that wheel zoom happens at the cursor position always, and never uses the screen center?

This seems like it may be a slick idea. I'll try it out.....

Dave

[sinbad7]

Dave..

Far too many YELLOW Query boxes without ship names and other info.
What is the reason? Using WebVTSLite and the same feed,ALL the ship names etc.
are available. What are the criteria for a box going from yellow to green?

Just visited the Thames river using cm93, following the river cruises up river and alongside a pier... Spent 20 years there and all summer holidays sailing down the Thames and out in he North Sea. Good memories..

[jimbo3123]

I've been running OpenCPN on my laptop, along with a handheld GPS for a little while now.

I really wanted something more sturdy than a laptop though. I started searching for touchscreens to use with a laptop, but I think I came up with something even better.

There is a guy on ebay selling used, mobile PC setups from police cars. If you search ebay for "MOBILE VU L3 LITTON IN CAR POLICE COMPUTER SYSTEMS", you should be able to find it.

The setup includes a daylight readable 12" 12VDC touchscreen, and a small computer box that is also configured to run on a vehicle's 12VDC supply.

It did take some work to get it all configured and installed on my boat, but I'm happy with the results. I have to say, the touchscreen is really nice.

The computer came with a GPS unit, but no antenna. I may try to get it working at some point, but my handheld GPS works fine for the time being.

I attached a couple of pictures. Let me know what you guys think.

[scotte]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

On second thought, maybe you mean that wheel zoom happens at the cursor position always, and never uses the screen center?

This seems like it may be a slick idea. I'll try it out.....

Hi Dave, I was thinking of it more like a setup/config option - so that it always works either one way or the other. I'll be interested to hear if testing makes it a worthwhile featuer!

Thanks!!

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by jimbo3123

I've been running OpenCPN on my laptop, along with a handheld GPS for a little while now. [...] I attached a couple of pictures. Let me know what you guys think.

Looks nice.. although you should be running this on linux really..

Originally Posted by scotte

Hi Dave, I was thinking of it more like a setup/config option - so that it always works either one way or the other. I'll be interested to hear if testing makes it a worthwhile featuer!

+1 for zoom at cursor - that's the technique in 'slick' applications such as google earth. far more intuitive!

Has anyone else tried sounds?

[cagney]

Has anyone else tried sounds?

I tried phiggins AIS-simulator with 1.3.2 deb package on Kubuntu 9.04. To avoid any conflicts, I switched of all sounds in the simulator. Everything worked very well, including the sound. When you see a screen similar to the screen-shot below, the warning sound comes on.
The Ais-interface seems to contain the right amount of information for practical watch-keeping.

For Dave:
The "Help" document is obviously a html file.Internal links within the document works well, but if you follow an external link there is no way to get back to the "Help" document, short of closing the pop-up window. To enable the normal right-click- back, would fix this.
The link to the "Gnu License" in the Help document causes the program to hang. The link is trying to open a new window, witch isn't possible. To fix this delete ' target="_blank" ' in the html code for the Help file. I find a lot of these target="_blank" - things, sprinkled in the code, some link works others don't.

Thomas

[idpnd]

cagney: I meant the new openCPN alarm feature. Have you tested audio playback? I get a weird hissing noise.

Just ran into this on the Navmonpc forum, maybe its of interest to the developer(s):

"First is the work being done by Kurt Schwehr and being documented at
Kurt's Weblog Recently Kurt has been doing work with AIS Area Notice Messages and has released an open source implimentation available at http://vislab-ccom.unh.edu/~schwehr/software/ais-areanotice-py/"

[cagney]

cagney: I meant the new openCPN alarm feature. Have you tested audio playback? I get a weird hissing noise.

Just ran into this on the Navmonpc forum, maybe its of interest to the developer(s):

"First is the work being done by Kurt Schwehr and being documented at
Kurt's Weblog Recently Kurt has been doing work with AIS Area Notice Messages and has released an open source implimentation available at http://vislab-ccom.unh.edu/~schwehr/software/ais-areanotice-py/"

If you look at the screen dump in my last post, you see the new collision alert window. Or, are you referring to some other feature that I have missed?
At the time of the screen dump OpenCPN:s audio alarm had just started. I only used AISsim to feed OpenCPN with GPS and AIS data.
Maybe you are referring to the alarm test-button in the AIS tab?
No problem there either, the audio playback works for me.

I hope that a rewrite of NavMonPc as a cross platform application get started. A lot of features, that would otherwise bloat OpenCPN , fits beautifully there.

Thomas

[idpnd]

Thanks for the clarification, I'm not sure how to investigate this problem; I think I'm on an ubuntu with the early-generation pulseaudio as well..

[sinbad7]

Experimenting with the Dutch S57 charts and have 'unpacked' lots of the canal stretches,especially near the sea. A curious thing is that the ship targets are ALL in yellow,meaning BASIC info only and no ship names. No matter how long I wait they do not change and ship names are NEVER available.

I took two screen shots of the English channel,one with OpenCPN,the other with Shipplotter. Only Shipplotter is showing ALL ships names. I wonder if perhaps OpenCPN stops listening after it receives the first basic AIS transmission? I receive green targets in Scandinavia from a different data source but blank Query boxes. Mysterious.

Another problem with OpenCPN is that it displays a multitude of false targets if you zoom out on a world-wide basis. I had around 30 ships together entering the Gulf of Aden. Thought at first it was a convoy but it was all random echos from ships in the channel near Copenhagen. The Query box contents needs some urgent attention. Hope they correct all in the next version.

[bdbcat]

All...

Ok, I'm back in the saddle for 1.3.4....

Query: We have received several requests for Named Route Storage/Loading.
I personally do not use this feature, but I'm learning that many others do.
So, how should it work?

Here is a proposal:
1. Saving Routes: Right click on a route brings up file save dialog. Save as any name you want. Saves as a GPX file.

1a. Delete the route if you don't want the clutter.....

2. Loading Routes: Use the GPX-IN toolbar. Select the named route file from the dialog, and load it.

For those interested, would this work as desired?

Any other ideas for Show/Hide of routes that would not require another fiddly pull-down menu?


Other proposals entertained. Now is the time to get your ideas in......

Thanks
Dave

[phiggins]

Dave,

I tried my AIS Simulator on V 1.3.2 and I don't get any AIS alerts or see any AIS targets. This is on Vista. I had the AIS COM port set the same as the NMEA and I set the CPA 1NM and TCPA to 30 min. It works fine on SeaClear.

Just realized I get a message saying it could not open the AIS port. But it did open the NMEA one, which is the same one.

Also, regarding the routes would be nice to load and save . KML format as well as GPX.

Paul

[BrianB]

Dave,

I just tried to download the latest OpenCPM and it only downloads a few kb instead of the 16mb listed. I also called a friend who tried with the same results. this is what I'm trying to download:

OpenCPN_132_Setup

Thanks,
Brian B.

[cagney]

Originally Posted by BrianB

Dave,

I just tried to download the latest OpenCPM and it only downloads a few kb instead of the 16mb listed. I also called a friend who tried with the same results. this is what I'm trying to download:

OpenCPN_132_Setup

Thanks,
Brian B.

I'm not Dave, but I will give it a try anyway.

I just downloaded and installed the Windows Setup file, without a problem.
My guess is that you were unlucky with the mirror you downloaded from. When you click the download button you are first directed to a Sourceforge page where you are told to wait a bit until the download starts. You are also given the option of a direct link or alternatively you can pick a different mirror to download from.
Try one of these options if the download still doesn't work.

Thomas

[bdbcat]

phiggins....

To share the AIS and GPS data port, select

AIS Port (Shared)

in ToolBox ->NMEA Data Source.

Set the AIS port to the desired shared port.

No, this is not very intuitive. On the list for fix in 1.3.4

Thanks
Dave