Plugin: DashBoard

[tom_BigSpeedy]

I created a combined apparent-/true wind angle dial instrument requested in FS #1687, see attached picture :

Orange (standard) colour is apparent wind angle, blue is true wind angle. I included also data in the 4 corners :
top line shows app. wind angle + speed, indicated by A:XX° (A=apparent)
bottom line shows true wind angle + speed indicated by T: XX° (T=true)

Furthermore needles and data have the same colour.

Developed and tested under Win7, VC2013, but there's nothing specific (nothing else than the 2 existing dials for app / true wind angle), so I'm confident it's working right away ...

Thomas

PS : it has just been merged to master ...

[Hakan]

Thomas...
Very nice, I look forward to use it when implemented. Will save screen surface compared to today's two instruments.
Thanks/Håkan

[Hakan]

Thomas...again
It's already merged in Github. Works great!
Thanks/ Håkan

[rgleason]

Tom_Big Awesome inprovement. Thankyou

[Baikal]

Raised the issue on a wish

FS#1506 : Calculation of Trip and Sum Log by GPS data

[tom_BigSpeedy]

I fixed the unit problem in wind history, FS#1185;
Units were fixed strings, shown as Kts (knots); when switching the units to e.g. m/s, data values were correct, but units still showing "Kts".
This is dynamic now.

Thomas

[tom_BigSpeedy]

Not sure if that would be of interest for you guys as well ... ?

Having a sailing boat, the highway - and XTE display of the standard O routing module is not really useful for me, because you're ALWAYS way off the direct line of the route. So XTE is always way too high and the highway-display shows nothing useful (as I'm off the "road" ) ...
What I really need is a decent steering direction, i.e. "go left" or "go right".

I have a GPS in my cockpit, and generally I'm setting a waypoint on that GPS as a "target to go to".

This creates a RMB sentence in the NMEA stream.
I did (in my local O copy) an instrument now, reading this RMB sentence ...

The needle shows the course to steer towards the WP, in this case we should go a bit to the left (vertical upwards would be the perfect course).
I put the bearing in the top left corner, the WP name in the top right corner.
RMB can also supply VMG and Dist. to WP, this is not implemented yet, but shown in the bottom corners...

The compass rose is rotating with the needle ...


We could also do 2 needles, one for COG the other for compass heading ...

Anyone else working/sailing like that ?

Thomas

[CarCode]

Originally Posted by tom_BigSpeedy

Anyone else working/sailing like that ?

Not very useful. I prefer the XTE view.

Gerhard

[rgleason]

Gerhard may have his reasons... but Big_Tom I really like what you are doing, trying to present the data available in ways that are most useful. Because we sail, I've always been interested in the very nice data presentation that B&G has, first with Zeus Touch Sailsteer and Enhanced Navigation, then with Zeus2 with Sailsteer, Sailsteer overlay, laylines and race panel. Sailsteer

Also the Garmin GPSmap series has a whole new set of sailing features and this is the closest I could find that would describe those features Garmin Marine 2015 | Sailing

[Hakan]

Could me useful but the needle would be very turbulent in rough sea? Sailing wind vane and a rather long distance to the WP the three lines in OCPN are the best, The route, the line from boat to WP and the track. The latter is the one with best info; Was the last period at a decent average course or should I adjust the vane?
But for a racer your instrument would be handy, I suppose.
Håkan

[tom_BigSpeedy]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Could me useful but the needle would be very turbulent in rough sea? Håkan

No, the needle is dead-stable.
It shows the bearing to the waypoint. The further you're away, the less it changes ...
Of course it's affected by your COG, but even in rough sea, that doesn't change so much, that it would flip around all the time ...
The biggest advantage for me is :
You see in a very clear way, at one glimpse, how far you have to steer to either side to hit the WP. No way to see this with XTE and highway.

For me it's also useful in other terms ... e.g. when tacking upwind, I start thinking about another tack as soon as the needle goes more than 45° off course ...

I generally do a very simple (head) calculation, when I shall do the next tack to make it around the WP : True Wind Angle (on boat axis) * 2 = "minimum angle the the needle needs to point sideways" ...
This is far from perfect but better than nothing ...


And the VMG (Velocity made good) is very useful to see which tack is preferable towards the WP.

Thomas

[rgleason]

Do not know how this would be incorporated, but

Display Vectors at the boat:
- Vector using heading and speed through the water
- Vector using course and speed made good from gps.
- Resultant vector showing set and drift
(Traditionally the dr line was indicated by a single arrowhead, the cmg with a double, and set/drift with a triple.)

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1470892
FS#1328 : Dead Reconing for Opencpn -Cruiser's Thread

Other vectors to display at the boat:
-Vector Apparent wind speed and direction (averaged, selectable period)
-Vector True wind speed and direction (averaged, selectable period)

[tom_BigSpeedy]

Yes, maybe ...

But this is going into a slightly different direction now, towards "tactics" ...

What I'm really missing is some performance display, based on my polar,
either telling me a simple percentage value e.g. telling me that I'm currently doing 85% of the polar value at the TWA / boatspeed.
Or giving me the 100% target speed, or showing me graphically (windhistory) a line for 100% speed, compared to my current boat speed.
That would be supercool to check your sailtrim ...

Or tack and laylines (there is already work on that ).

All the bits and pieces are there, we have polars from weatherrouting (ploars should be aligned), there is the tack and layline plugin.

I'm not sure if that should be incorporated in dashboard (although it would use the same instrument style, I guess).
But already Wind history raised discussions that people didn't want to see it in dashboard
The problem is, that I don't have much time for programming.

Maybe I simply cannibalize a dashboard copy and add some fuctionality ...

Let's see, something for winter time ...

Thomas

[rgleason]

I also like those ideas and I think they're useful. Maybe they should be in a Sail Nav Tactics plugin.

[Baikal]

cool design instruments
dashboard can be done in this style? On the basis of drawn backgrounds.
https://www.seamantec.com/
https://youtu.be/RiTC_1xXKWo