OpenCPN Version 1.3.5 Beta Technical

[Blongsea]

Ho ho ho, I'm so happy-happy... first I managed to find a second hand Panasonic toughbook with inbuilt (YES!) GPS and I have now installed the latest version on OpenCPN. This ver 1.36 is considerably better then any other version, and they were pretty darn good too. The newly added GPS window is good and of course another great improvement. The latest CMAP is available on www.piratebay.org so my safety at sea has never been better.
What about my prevuius suggestions? First, most computer-screens looks increasingly like LETTERBOXES so a good new programming-deed would be to move all buttons and info-boxes etc. from the narrow top/bottom to the more generous side-area. How about that for and improvement???
Second, I love to see a compass-rose dial that can move NORTH of the map all around 360 degrees. Then you could manually shift the map around the boat/yacht/vessel so it is roughly showing course heading-up! A quick reset button back to MAP-NORTH would be nice as well. Personally I don't like the nervous shaky behavior of some automatic heading-up software and would much prefer a steady manual heading-up dial that can be adjusted as needed as you go. How about that for a new feature in OpenCPN???

[Blongsea]

Regarding LETTERBOX SCREENS:

Just have a look at posting NO: 502 and you will see what I'm talking about.

I wrote in post NO 526 - What about my prevuius suggestions? First, most computer-screens looks increasingly like LETTERBOXES so a good new programming-deed would be to move all buttons and info-boxes etc. from the narrow top/bottom to the more generous side-area. How about that for and improvement???

Yes, move it all to one side. In a free program called SEACLEAR you can move the command and info foxes from the left or right side. good if you have a tablet like Fujitzu with some extra fixed tablet buttons on the left side. Then all can be but together...

[Blongsea]

THIS I MY POST NUMBER 272.

Open CPN wish-list I use OpenCPN (c) 2000-2009 The OpenCPN Authors Version 1.3.4 and I am very happy and extremely impressed with this software. I can't thank the people behind this enough. Can I contribute in any way?

My suggestions are many never the less because I suppose even in the perfect world many things can be done differently and maybe better.

1) One suggestion I have is that since computer-screens get w-i-d-e-r and wider it seems a waste in a graphic mapping software to put info and "buttons" etc. at the TOP and thus making the all-important mapping area even more "letter-box" unnecessarily. My wish is that all non-mapping stuff is on the right (or left) side of the screen and can be moved left/right very easily.

2) another suggestion regarding a map course up orientation. I have used this option with other software and it is very good at times. But it has drawbacks like causing the map to wiggle back and forth nervously. My wish is for a "compass rose" that can be turned around (much like in Google earth) and thus allowing for a fixed manual "course up" without the wiggly action of a locked course up function in other software.

3) It is very hard to read and absorb the AIS information that seems to come and go quite hap hazardly. I wish it was possible to page through all captured AIS information collected since start up. That would be fantastic.

4) Is there any way of creating and maintaining a track library?

Cheers and many thanks from Blongsea

[siff]

Dear Jean Pascal,

It seems that there are two different type of lines : one which shows the limit of rocky patches (which is rendered by opencpn) and the other which shows the limit between two types of ground. And the second one is not rendered by opencpn. Unfortunately the conceptors of CM93 changed there mind about the meaning of what is on the paper charts in the new versions of cm93.

This leads us too to the problem of color palettes which apeared elsewhere in the tread http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post381816.

This one is not a bug, but i think that the needs of commercial shipping is somewhat different of what we use. you will never see the Queen Mary in the greenish area of the charts ... And the chartmakers slowly put only information relevant for bigger and faster ships. All the details are fading away to help them manage critical situations.

As bdcat said :

The S52 PLIB is a standardized, extensible format, well documented and understood by ECDIS developers worldwide. As I have said often before, the colors selected by IMO/IHO are not arbitrary. They are intended by design to communicate critical graphical information unambiguously under conditions of high stress and/or restricted visibility. Almost all of the PLIB performance is standardized, so that the deck officers on a Capemax tanker will be quickly at home on a Carnival cruise ship bridge.

[Totobeloeil]

Originally Posted by siff

It seems that there are two different type of lines : one which shows the limit of rocky patches (which is rendered by opencpn) and the other which shows the limit between two types of ground. And the second one is not rendered by opencpn. Unfortunately the conceptors of CM93 changed there mind about the meaning of what is on the paper charts in the new versions of cm93.

Yes, we all undertand this now.

[Totobeloeil]

I tried to compare what happens with old CM93 charts and new ones regarding the missing "delimitation lines" we are looking for.

When looking to the results for two test-cells, it appears clearly that one CM93 feature has been replaced by several others : much less $LINES-features in new version than into the old one (-1900).
It seems that the imprecise $LINES-feature (cartographic line) is abandoned by cartographers when information or time becomes available to requalify it into a more precise one.

For the test cells, there are much more SBDARE-features (seabed area) into new CM93 charts than into the old ones (+1700).

S52 documentation lets me think it could be interesting to go further.
But it will not be now unless somebody has got more time ...

Jean-Pascal

P.S. : test cells were :

03901020/G/04161070.G and 03901020/G/04161070.G

Here is an opencpn.ini file for positioning.

[Totobeloeil]

I would like to change or set some colors for seabed-area features (SBDARE).
Does somebody know how to do this ? Is it inside S52RAZDS.RLE or into the programs ?

Some seabed-area features are considered as points.
I think these are well rendered (as some nature-of-surface attributes appear on screen).

Other seabed-area features are considered as areas.
Some attributes of these are rendered as they should (INFORM, for example) but the bounding lines do not appear.

It might be caused by settings of colors (no color set for bounding lines, for example).

Jean-Pascal

[idpnd]

Theres a howto on the opencpn.org website, annoyingly its down atm. There's also discussion on one of the threads on here, try the search

[Totobeloeil]

Well ... I was just making changes inside a wrong file ...

[Totobeloeil]

OK I got it :

There was no default color set inside S52RAZDS.RLE file for SBDARE object (around lines 1462 and 3247).

Searching for 'SBDAREA' will make you find the lines to be changed.

The attached file is working. I put these famous lines in magenta.
But perhaps it is not up-to-date (I don't know).

Jean-Pascal

[sailorF54]

Re magenta lines: Works fine, but then it turns on the sea bed labels (sand, mud ...) which clutter the display (I had them turned off). Is there a way to turn these lines on WITHOUT having these labels ?

[Totobeloeil]

Originally Posted by sailorF54

Re magenta lines: Works fine, but then it turns on the sea bed labels (sand, mud ...) which clutter the display (I had them turned off). Is there a way to turn these lines on WITHOUT having these labels ?

I'm not sure to undestand what you mean ... My explanation might be not clear or not appropriate.

The proposed correction is to change some lines inside S52RAZDS.RLE file.
(around line 1460) replace :

0001    500168
LUPT   40LU00168NILSBDAREA00000SPLAIN_BOUNDARIES
ATTC    1
INST    1
DISC    1
LUCM    1
****    0

by :

0001    500168
LUPT   40LU00168NILSBDAREA00000SPLAIN_BOUNDARIES
ATTC    1
INST    55LS(DASH,1,CHMGD)
DISC    9STANDARD
LUCM    634005
****    0

(around line 3240) replace :

0001    500423
LUPT   45LU00423NILSBDAREA00000SSYMBOLIZED_BOUNDARIES
ATTC    1
INST    1
DISC    1
LUCM    1
****    0

by :

0001    500423
LUPT   45LU00423NILSBDAREA00000SSYMBOLIZED_BOUNDARIES
ATTC    1
INST    55LS(DASH,1,CHMGD)
DISC    9STANDARD
LUCM    634005
****    0

You have to take care of special characters at the end of each line. The attached file was provided for help (to copy / paste or for understanding).

Is it the proposed correction that causes appearance of 'nature of surface' or is it something else (inside the file I provided or not) ?

You can turn 'nature of surface' display off by changing 'display category' to 'standard' into 'vector charts' tab

There is also a button 'show ENC text' to toggle all text on/off (but I assume you did know that already).

There are probably other solutions but I did not look up.

Jean-Pascal

[sailorF54]

Re Totobeloeil

Sorry I was a bit cryptic. I meant that in order to display those magenta lines, you have to turn on the SBDARE feature in the toolbox. I usually have this feature turned off, as I find the sea bed labels clutter the display. I was wondering if you could turn on the lines without having the seabed labels as well.Thanks for the code lines. I'll update my SHOM-like S52RAZ...

[Totobeloeil]

Originally Posted by sailorF54

in order to display those magenta lines, you have to turn on the SBDARE feature in the toolbox. I usually have this feature turned off, as I find the sea bed labels clutter the display. I was wondering if you could turn on the lines without having the seabed labels as well.

Maybe you don't need the lines if you don't display the associated text ;o).
So turning sbdare display on/off as you are could be the best solution.

Or it might be necessary to play with 'display category' (base / standard / other / mariner) : one category to display only the lines, another one to display both lines and text (perhaps having small characters for text).

I don't know much about S52RAZ contents and have no documentation about it.
If somebody has, please share it.

The attribute we are talking about is 'NATSUR'. I assume S52RAZ 'DISC' property is 'display category'.
I think 'display categories' are imbricated (but I don't know exactly how). It will make things a bit complicated.

That's all my knowledge about this for now ...

Jean-Pascal

[Blongsea]

Ver. 3.45 NO JOY! Sorry for just jumping in.. feels like interrupting a lively conversation I don't grasp in a train compartment like.- Rude,- inconsiderate. Well, sorry Sir, my pew is that when back onboard my yacht (after 1500km flight) I went about installing the latest version on a cradled Fujitsu Stylistic C-500 running windows 2000.Believe me touch-screen has come a long way. This is peck-peck-screen... Anyway, I need an older computer with serial for my AIS joint connection. (Any AIS receiver yet with USB?) The new 1.3,5 version run hunky doory on XP/Vista etc, BUT failed completely to even start-up (Crikey, a message complained about some missing dll ) on this compact tablet-kit. Luckily I kept the old installation program for version 1.3,4 only to find the GPS feeding via the AIS receiver no longer is providing its part for complete joy. AIS still plots OK on the Fujitsu and I can play with it by moving my boat (cypernetically) in front of approaching ships and watch disaster strike, ho ho ho. Live is interesting at the nav-station... Well, will this OpenCPN 1.3,4, be the last OpenCPN for a Fujitsu Stylistic LT C-500 (roar roar..)