OpenCPN Beta Version 3.3.1731 Released

[bdbcat]

Ahoy, OpenCPN'ers...

OpenCPN Version 3.3 Beta Build 1731 will soon be available for download from opencpn.org.

Monitor the opencpn.org Downloads page to find and download the latest Beta version binaries.....

Source is available now on github at:
https://github.com/OpenCPN/OpenCPN
Branch: master

Changelog:

243. Purge and fully reload charts on OpenGL state change. Corrects occasional cm93 grey screen.
244. Correct chart outline colour to GREEN for all vector charts except cm93
245. Set Options->Connection->NMEA Input form correctly to Serial or Network
246. Add "(UTC)" marker to AIS target dialog ETA field.
247. Correct Info.plist CFBundleIdentifier string to "org.opencpn"
248. Decouple touch screen and responsive graphics interfaces.
249. Improve rolling navobj backup strategy to preserve unchanged files.
250. Correct magnetic variation correction logic for $xxAPB output sentence.
251. Improve StackUp/Down (F7/F8) chart selection logic. (FS#1374)
252. Correct fault drawing chart information objects (FS#1380)
253. Implement texture-based OpenGL text rendering. Sean
254. Enable font selection entry "Dialog" for international language.
255. Implement Size-Responsive Track Properties Dialog.
256. Correct default dialog font size to 10 pt.
257. Correct Route Properties dialog cancel/close behaviour (FS#1262)
258. Fix WPT properties dialog shrinking after adding a hyperlink (FS #1381)
259. Fix Route properties dialog values reset while deleting a route point (FS #1382)
260. Correct Routepoint Properties layout on Windows (FS#1385)
261. Correct TCP data connections logic to allow messages without checksum, Pavel
262. Fix waypoint properties propagation into route properties dialog (FS#1386)
263. Correct GRIB colored overlays display in OpenGL mode. Ptizef
264. Correct S57 Extended light sector draw logic.
265. Correct Waypoint property dialog editing for overlayed hyperlinks (FS#1385 continued)
266. Correct toolbar orientation toggle issue with journeyman styles. Thanks ChuckSK
267. Correct to allow current arrow (value) font selection.
268. Correct for Skewed Transverse Mercator Raster charts (FS#1391)
269. Correct AIS Target Query dialog "Create Waypoint" button behaviour (FS#1378)
270. Accommodate non-UT8 encodings of ENC supplementary TXT files (FS#1405)
271. Fully merge OpenGL Optimum code. Thanks Sean
272. Update connections TCP/UDP implementation to allow bidirectional TCP data streams. Thanks Muttnik

Notes:

A lot of stuff here.
The main topic is, of course, the merge of Sean's Optimum OpenGL code branch into the mainline. Most of the changes are in the nature of "plumbing", and users should see nothing different except a marked improvement in performance for machines capable of high speed OpenGL graphics.

There are some new options settings to consider. In "options->OpenGL", you may make some elections:
a. Accelerated panning: Enabled if your graphics card supports Frame Buffer Objects.
b. Texture compression: If enabled and selected, greatly improves the speed of raster chart display. It works by treating raster charts as compressed textures instead of bitmaps, and these textures are loaded and displayed much more efficiently by the graphics hardware. They also consume much less GPU memory space, typically showing 6:1 memory compression ratios.
c. Texture compression caching: A further improvement to raster chart display loading and panning. This option uses the system hard drive to store precalculated raster chart compressed images in a way that is optimized for direct loading into the graphics card. Precalculating of the images happens automatically when you visit options->charts, and either add a new directory, or force a database scan or rebuild. Please note that a full rebuild of the texture cache for a large set of raster (.KAP) charts may take many hours of processing time, depending upon the speed of your computer. Fortunately, we have two things to help us here. First, the charts are processed, compressed, and cached in order based upon the distance from the chart center to the current ownship GPS position. A progress dialog shows the state of the compression operation, and the distance from your ownship position to the center of the chart being processed. Second, the user may "skip" the caching process at any time. This will be helpful if you just want to make a few compressed cache texture images near your location right now, and defer the balance of texture processing until you have the time and power to leave the computer running undisturbed for some time.

The net effect of full OpenGL optimization on raster charts with compatible hardware is nothing short of amazing. I think you will like it, especially with lo-spec, lo-power systems.

Kudos to Sean.

Other stuff:

248. The touch screen UI and Responsive UI options are now separate.
Touch UI is self-explanatory. There are some subtle changes in the way some operations work, especially in Route and Waypoint creation/dragging. Users with modern touch tablets may experiment and discover. Feedback appreciated on this.
The Responsive UI option is intended for small (~8") tablets with high definition displays. What it does is adjust the various graphic elements such as menus, icons, etc. so that they meet the best-practice size standards for Win8/Android system displays. This makes them "big enough" to facilitate touching, dragging, etc with normal human fingers. You should not see much difference when selecting this option for normal desktop or laptop systems.

I expect a relatively large number of regression-type issues with this Beta, simply due to the large number of changes made to the core codebase. That's OK, because we get a greatly improved application at the end, and it will all be worth the trouble. So, please keep the faith as you test and find little grumpkins. We'll find and correct them all, with your help.

Finally, please check and clear your Flyspray tasks.

Happy testing
Dave

[nohal]

Hi all...
The packages in the beta PPA for various Ubuntu versions are currently building and will be available shortly.

Happy testing

Pavel

[cagney]

The Windows, Mac and Ubuntu 14.04 packages, are now available on Download OpenCPN | Official OpenCPN Homepage

/Thomas

[muttnik]

Little note on semantics of the bi-directional tcp tweak: I'll update the beta wiki in the next couple of days. In previous releases checking the "Output on this port" checkbox would make a UDP connection input and output (under the hood it created two separate sockets). It would make TCP connections output only and make the data connection implicitly a server (i.e. a dataconnection that other devices connect to rather than one that connects to another device).

From this beta, whether a TCP data connection is client or server is determined by the address the user enters. A blank address or 0.0.0.0 results in a server, anything else a client. You can't specify a particular interface to listen on, but then you couldn't before. Input, output or input/output is determined by the "Output on this port" and new "Receive Input on this Port" checkboxes. You have to check at least one of those. Avoid the temptation to make a client connection bi-directional if it only needs to output: The existing behaviour for input connections was that if no data was received for 5 seconds the connection would be dropped and a new one subsequently created. This is retained, so if you're not receiving input on a *client* connection (i.e. one where you're connecting to something else) your connection will keep dropping. Most people will have no need of output-only TCP client connections.

Those checkboxes also apply to UDP. This means that you can make a UDP server output only (by not checking the "receive" box), avoiding worries abut port prioritisation. The new checkbox is greyed out for other interface types (GPSD, SERIAL) whose semantics are unchanged.

Existing dataconnections should continue to work as before unless you change them

[seandepagnier]

The stopwatch changes to the wheel zooming are better for the wheel, but appear to have broken the + and - keys (at least in wx-3.0) as well as the + and - icons on the toolbar. I'm working on a fix (for this and also all problems with wx-3.0)

See pull request #129

[rgleason]

Is Sean's Optimized version still being worked on or should we be focused primarily on 3.3.1731? It appears from Sean's github that he is busy with updates for mingw, wxwidgets 3.0, etc so his optimized version is still being worked on, but with limited time available, should I just be using 3.3.1731 beta for testing because his changes seem to move into the beta pretty soon?

Sean, thanks for working on the zoom problem! I'm going to try 3.3.1731 and will report.

[rgleason]

I have been testing with Smooth Zoom and pan checked.
with Accelerated Graphics all checked, including texture cache.

Had been testing with smooth zoom checked, and accelerated graphic checked with none of the sub graphics checked. Zooming worked well on ENC, BSB, CM93 charts.
The normal + and - minus zoom controls did not work.

Then checked all the sub graphics including texture cache.
Zoomed into an ENC in Naragansett Bay, and got
Opencpn S57 SENC File Create C:/programdata/opencpn/SENC/US5RI23M...ingesting
and the progress bar stays blank and I get High CPU use notices and It never finishes. Going to have to End Program and sent a report.

Don't have time to do further testing this morning. Sorry.

[rgleason]

Just had to open up Opencpn again to see what happened.... The texture map must have written, because there Naragansett Bay was with depths etc at the scale I had zoomed into. There's some code hickup I think during injesting, but Ending the program and restarting, the injesting seems to have completed.

Panning and Zooming works now at that scale and below and above, also side to side and up and down.

Now I've moved to Boston area, and zoomed in with ENC charts and it seems to injest fine and display. Pan and Zoom work. In and out are a little sensitive, but I can deal with this, maybe some user adjustment?

I like the caching, it seems to work now.

I think the problem is when you first turn on the Texture cache. I'll bet that is when it chokes, the first time you zoom in. Perhaps someone else can verify this. I've got to go and get ready for the day. Will work on later.
Thanks for all the wonderful improvements! Pretty awesome program.

[rgleason]

Can't stay away. Rather than using my compiled release, I tried the binary download 3.3.1731 from cagney. With smooth zoom checked and Opengl checked with all sub checks including texture cache, it seems to work for CM93, ENC and BSB.

BSB seems very much smoother and faster.

Yes, as Sean notes, the + and - buttons are not working yet. Thanks again.

[bdbcat]

RGLeason...

The Sean Optimum code ( and thread ) is now all present in the 3.3.1731 Beta. All improvements going forward will be in this master codebase.

Dave

[Gilletarom]

hello Dave,

ASUS EeePC 1015 H, W 7, V 331731

1 After activation plugins dashboard and grib the dasboard display correctly .
But it took three times grib click that window opens. The first time it happened nothing. The second time , I saw a quick " flash " as if the window grib was opened and closed so quickly. Finally , the window is open in the third click.

2 I have implemented a parallel installation of 331731 V and I have not installed the S63 plugin, in this version.

Yet OpenCPN remembers the presence of S63 cards (test) and displays the edge of the red cards . The green bar appears in the bar charts but fortunately, the map is not displayed .
All this is normal?

3 I used the " Tides " button to view the diamonds tides. Then I right-clicked to display the tide chart (Jersey by example ) .

It is found that O does not go get the data in the 331731 folder. It will look for them in the previous parallel installation my PC ( ere 331606 )

Gilletarom

[Gilletarom]

Add :

Point 3 of my previous post is valid for the original data inserted in OpenCPN. But this defect does not exist for data that I added myself (French harmonic data file)

Gilletarom

[Gilletarom]

Hello dave,

There are three S57 SHOM charts we can see with O. The border around the charts is displayed in green. But the bug I mentioned in my first post, on S63, the border, the S63, is shown in red (even without installing the plugin S63).

[sailorF54]

- One crash report sent (while testing shortcuts, no clue why)
- System hangs sometimes (max proc usage), still investigating why
- my S63 charts display fine on 1731 (light sectors, seabed nature now OK)
- I can use the mouse wheel zoom without display runaway.
However, as I have mentioned in another thread
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1545263
my general setting is that one wheel tick translates into jumping a block of 4 lines (I find it convenient to read pdf...), so the zoom change is too large to be really useful
- zoom fine tuning with + / - is OK (+ (capital required on Azerty keyboad) can also be = (non cap)
ALT + / - behavior is similar to plain + / -
Cnrl +/- behavior is similar to plain + / -
Inoperative: F7 Larger Scale Chart (Scale In) or Ctrl + Left-Arrow
F8 Smaller Scale Chart (Scale Out) or Ctrl + Right-Arrow
- Cnrl + Mouse wheel: large jumps

- As mentioned by Gilletarom, on a parallel install, the tide data path is still the previous path

- Both French and English labels when selecting fonts (see pic). Only French labels are active with French locale.

- I suggest adding an 'Usersounds' folder (on a par with UserIcons and UserTcData) in W O ProgramData folder for storing personal sound files (I use a specific alarm for AIS)

- Accented letters problem still present with Droid Sans (see pic)


W7 with Azerty keyboard (without numeric pad), OpenGL, accelerated panning, texture compression and caching)

[hoolie]

Two crash reports sent. W7 64-bit Dell D630:

1 - trying to minimise OCPN when the compressed data cache was being updated

2 - hung overnight sometime when updating compressed data cache again. Not sure when, but O crashed as soon as I moved the cursor.