OpenCPN

[sinbad7]

GDD.
I had cm93 -2003 on my laptop and cm93-2006 on my desktop.
I have now changed to the 2006 version on both but I can still only access
the very Northern part of the Straight of Georgia down to Savary Island.
Desolation Sound is ok on level E and F. Fraser River is also ok on level F.

Does Canada have access to FREE BSB charts similar to the NOAA in the US?
If so,do you know where I can download them?

[johnson_steve]

Hi, I'm new here; first of all thank you dave for your hard work and for making opencpn Linux compatable. It works great for me with the NOAA Enc charts on xubuntu 9.04. this is and will continue to be the only navigation system installed on my spirit23 cruising lake Michigan. I have no experience with other chart plotters so I don't have anything to compare it to, but it is more then enough for me. I figure since everyone else is requesting features I might as well toss my hat into the ring:

The biggest thing I miss (and I see others have requested this too) are tracks. if we could record tracks as we sail and then maybe if they worked just like the routes do that would be great.

The next one I'm probably alone on as I notice this is how it is on paper charts too: why do darker colors represent more shallow water? this seems counter intuitive to me as actual water gets darker as it gets deeper. If we could maybe select what colors to use for the shallow, safety and deep depths maybe right next to where you can set the values for these in the toolbox that would be nice. If you don't get to this it's fine I'm sure this sounds stupid to those with more experience reading charts.

I've used linux as my only OS for 7 years. If you need any help testing/compiling or writing documentation let me know. Have you inquired about having this package included in a repository? you allready have a .deb but if you could install/update with synaptic it would be idiot proof.

[GDD]

Regarding Cm93 charts:

Dave, thanks for those pictures.

The apparent difference in the density of depth contours is interesting. I am quite sure that the area has not been re-surveyed. And of course you can confirm what other have been saying, these CM93 'updates' are suspicious and unreliable. Maybe they aren't updates at all but a platform for delivering viruses. But who knows. I have never downloaded a virus in any of them, and the set I use has no errors around where I usually sail. Maybe the other sets will work better in different areas. I think its safe to stay i'm stuck with what I got, and what I got is plenty good enough.

Still, i believe I found some sort of error in how OPenCpn is displaying the CM93. See the attached shots. Both use the 2006 cm9 edition that seems to be error-free for my area. OPenCpn is not displaying the E level charts at this location but Cmapecs is.

Where can I get the viewer program? I might help me sort this out.

As for Sinbad's question about Cdn BSB charts for free download, I'm afraid the answer to that is no. Electronic charts here have been ridiculously over priced here for years. Read about it at Panbo: The Marine Electronics Weblog: NDI, bye bye?

and

Panbo: The Marine Electronics Weblog: NDI, chart pirates?



Off sailing for the weekend now...

[sinbad7]

GDD..
Having re-checked all the aforesaid missing chart levels with OpenCPN using cm93-2006 version and the same with MaxSea,there are no missing areas or levels. The problem, as you say, must be with the way OpenCPN reads or interprets the map files.

Well,Rome wasn't built in one day,nor is OpenCPN,which, when perfected will be the greatest nav prog around. Thanks Dave for all your efforts.

[sinbad7]

GDD
Seems there got to be many areas around the world which OpenCPN does not display down to a sufficient level. Here is another example from Bekkjavik, South of Bergen,Norway. MaxSea is shown in 1:10.000 but can zoom further down to 1:1.000 The OpenCPN map is in max zoom.

http://yachtmarine.com/httpdocs/Bekkjavik-open.jpg

http://yachtmarine.com/httpdocs/Bekkjavik-maxsea.jpg

[sinbad7]

GDD
Sorry, here are the missing maps:

http://yachtmarine.com/httpdocs/Bekkjavik-open.jpg

http://yachtmarine.com/httpdocs/Bekkjavik-maxsea.jpg

Both taken from the same cm93-2006 map files

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by johnson_steve

The biggest thing I miss (and I see others have requested this too) are tracks. if we could record tracks as we sail and then maybe if they worked just like the routes do that would be great.

This is on the feature requests at sourceforge.

I've used linux as my only OS for 7 years. If you need any help testing/compiling or writing documentation let me know. Have you inquired about having this package included in a repository? you allready have a .deb but if you could install/update with synaptic it would be idiot proof.

I have added an ubuntu packaging request. I will probably attempt the packaging procedure myself once I have more time.

[sinbad7]

In an attempt to solve the mystery of missing chart levels with OpenCPN when accessing cm93-2006 chart files,could it be that the large number of files are read too quickly or there is an error in the algorithm selecting the appropriate chart/levels?

That,and the missing type 5 AIS messages are the major problems still to be resolved as far as I am concerned.

[Rhoel_Asia]

This may or may not be the right thread to request this but does anyone have a recommendation for chart making software. I have aerial images with trig point data/GPS location data. I am looking at a way to overlay local pilotage such as a marina approach, on a large ships chart. I am thinking of the kind of data you find in Imray's Greek Island Pilot, but vectored data.

I have ArcGIS but its a sledgehammer to use - and its used as a abse for ENC (but the ENC output drivers are not available). MapMaker Pro/Gratis can vector the layers but the program is not designed for charting and seems to employ meters not WGS84 co-ordinates (though the projection is supported|.

I know ENC looks like a closed government/institutional format, but maybe there are programs available which can generate cm93 or similar. Maybe future OpenCNP versions will support KML/KMZ which is more widely supported as an output format.

If anyone has found something useful, I'd love to hear about it.

Rhoel

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by Rhoel_Asia

I know ENC looks like a closed government/institutional format, but maybe there are programs available which can generate cm93 or similar. Maybe future OpenCNP versions will support KML/KMZ which is more widely supported as an output format.

If anyone has found something useful, I'd love to hear about it.

In the case of raster charts, seaclear provides a guide for calibrating scanned paper charts for use in the programme: http://www.sping.com/seaclear/chart-making.zip. There is also a free software library for converting images to BSB files and vice-versa (I could not get this to work, however) libbsb - Read, Write and Convert BSB charts.

Regarding vector charts, it ought to be feasibe to produce nautical charts from vector source; do note, however, that the data items such as buoys etc would have to be added manually I guess. Most people will want government produced data for safety reasons.

The S-57 standard as implemented in openCPN for reading the US NOAA vector charts is an IHO standard and should as such be open to the public. I have however not been able to find a programme that generates it.

Regarding KML/KMZ <-> GPX (I assume youre talking about waypoints/routes), there is a fair amount of conversion software out there: http://tuxmobil.org/linux_gps_naviga...ons.html#ToC46

[bdbcat]

For GDD and others...

At 49 30 N and 124 14 W, I agree that version 1.3.3 misses some charts at C-scale and better. This version of CM93 evidently uses "sub-scale" charts with a different naming convention in order to keep file sizes reasonable.

Have a look in the folder cm93/03900660/C

There are files like A4140696.C, etc. The A,B,C file name prefix is indicating a chart section, at the indicated scale. Usually, we don't see the A,B,C prefix.

First time I've seen them, and opencpn had no idea what to do with them........

I imagine the same thing will be true at many other places on the globe, as discovered by Sinbad7, et al.

Anyway, fix is straightforward, and will be present in the next Beta release, which I anticipate as about 1 week from today.

Thanks again for your focus here. This really helps wring out the bugs in a hurry.

Dave

[Rhoel_Asia]

Originally Posted by idpnd

Regarding vector charts, it ought to be feasibe to produce nautical charts from vector source - Most people will want government produced data for safety reasons.

I can understand the safety issue worries: But there are still a heap of pilotage books outlining isolated anchorages around the world which are trusted. I see no problem in having the same information in vectored form. They are an aid but no replacement for good seamanship, depth gauges and a sharp lookout: They are a supplement not replacement for government issued charts.

It should be noted there are large parts of the work where no official small craft charts exist - as far as I can see, there is no ENC for the Mekong, Tonle sap and Tonle Bassac Rivers, the confluence of which are less than a mile from where I am.

Originally Posted by idpnd

Regarding KML/KMZ <-> GPX (I assume youre talking about waypoints/routes),

KML/Z supports polygons natively and I have output shapefiles from ArcGIS and checked them in Google Earth - lines up a treat. GPX is line only and used for route and tracks.

Originally Posted by idpnd

The S-57 standard ... I have however not been able to find a program that generates it.

That's what my search produced too, ziltch.

Thanks for the other links, I'll continue looking there.


Rhoel

[bdbcat]

Rhoel_Asia....

OK, I'd like to learn some more about KML/Z data formats.

Teach me....
Does it include native georeferencing? Or are these geometric shapefiles produced at some specified scale?
Does the format support things like line and point features, as well as area features? Does it allow attributes, like say Min/Max depth on hydro features, for instance? What other metadata is available?

If it can be coerced to produce at least some of the above, we may be able to add the support to opencpn relatively easily, as a sort of pseudo S-57 format.

Regarding S57 itself:
AFIK, there is no open source software for producing S-57 data.
However, It is an international IHO standard, and the printed docs are available online.

Google for IHO + S57

To get the full specs and sample code, you need to be an IHO member, which is big bucks. I am not a member. Members include entities like France, for instance.

Several companies, Caris in particular, make a good living providing the "gold standard" set of tools for S57 dataset production. Again, big bucks.

All that said, I think there is enough public domain documentation available for experienced programmers to produce minimally compliant S57 datasets from almost any georeferenced GIS data.


As I said, I'd like to become smarter about all this....

Comments?
Dave

[Rhoel_Asia]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

Rhoel_Asia....

OK, I'd like to learn some more about KML/Z data formats.

Teach me....
Does it include native georeferencing? Or are these geometric shapefiles produced at some specified scale?
Does the format support things like line and point features, as well as area features? Does it allow attributes, like say Min/Max depth on hydro features, for instance? What other metadata is available?

If it can be coerced to produce at least some of the above, we may be able to add the support to opencpn relatively easily, as a sort of pseudo S-57 format.

As I said, I'd like to become smarter about all this....

Comments?
Dave

This would be great approach. I am in a GIS meeting all afternoon but I'll turn to it this evening - I have a set of schema here somewhere and a server I can upload it to. I also have the World Base map now as both KML and KMZ (the z indicates the zipped data). I'll upload these to the server and post the links here - they import into Google Earth as a layer easy.

I also downloaded the CVS software over the weekend and will download the sourceforce material as the local bandwidth permits.

Rhoel
14:30 local

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by Rhoel_Asia

But there are still a heap of pilotage books outlining isolated anchorages around the world which are trusted. I see no problem in having the same information in vectored form. [...]
It should be noted there are large parts of the work where no official small craft charts exist - as far as I can see, there is no ENC for the Mekong, Tonle sap and Tonle Bassac Rivers, the confluence of which are less than a mile from where I am.

I feel that the former (from pilotage books) could be scanned and integrated as raster charts. Perhaps the latter, where nothing exists as of yet, could actually be produced from aerial photos or the world shoreline database (vector files). It's certainly good news having an actual GIS pro aboard