Plugin: DashBoard

[fgd3]

Originally Posted by Littlechay

But what is wrong with the status bar, it has all of that info and more, uses very little screen real estate and is always available, provided you have it turned on in settings?

The small font and the low-contrast black-on-grey color make it really hard to read.

Fabbian

[Littlechay]

My personal preference would be for the status bar background to be lighter too.

There is also the 'Measure' tool which gives a nice distance and bearing display. Just click on your ownship icon and then you have bearing and distance at the cursor. It's very nice.

That is what you need for pilotage. If you need the actual position then there is already a dashboard for that.

In my opinion it is easier to use the measure tool as your eye is following the cursor and you have a constant readout at the position of the cursor.

It would be nice to have an option to snap the measure tool's origin to the ownship position.

[cblake]

Thanks for the tip on the measure tool. I hadn't discovered it yet. Can the font size be increased?

Having a cursor position instrument that also showed range and bearing to the cursor would be useful since the font can be customized.

I agree with Fabbian that the low contrast and small size of the data in the status bar make it hard to read.

Thanks,

Coleman

[djgrant]

Originally Posted by Littlechay

There is a position dashboard already.

But what is wrong with the status bar, it has all of that info and more, uses very little screen real estate and is always available, provided you have it turned on in settings?

The position module for the dashboard shows the vessel's position, not the position of the cursor.

I would like to see a module for the dashboard that shows all the information on the cursor from the status line at the botton - Position, Bearing, Range.

The status line also shows position, SOG, COG, so under the logic above, there is no requirement for those dashboard modules either.

The status line works, but I personally would like to see a dashboard module for cursor position, range & bearing. It is definitely not a show stopper, by any means, but would be nice to have.

Dave

[cagney]

Originally Posted by djgrant

The position module for the dashboard shows the vessel's position, not the position of the cursor.

.........

Dave

This is not correct, if we are talking about he latest beta. Such a module does indeed exist.


Thomas

[Littlechay]

Originally Posted by djgrant

The position module for the dashboard shows the vessel's position, not the position of the cursor.

It's there in the latest version

Originally Posted by djgrant

status line also shows position, SOG, COG, so under the logic above, there is no requirement for those dashboard modules either.

Careful; you're making some pretty wild assumption about my logic!

Position, SOG and COG are useful in the dash because they can be read from a distance. However when you are reading distance and bearing, to the cursor, you are in pilotage or planning mode and in front of the screen.

If you want to read distance and bearing to a point (at a distance from the screen e.g. while looking for a turning mark) then it should be set as a waypoint you then have the information in large digits. It is not safe to leave the cursor on a point to watch distance and bearing change because as the boat moves about something can (and will) cause the cursor to move. If you are watching from a distance you might not notice that the cursor has moved! Bang!

I agree that it is nice to have the options, but in my original post I was simply pointing out that the information and functionality was already available using existing tools. At least one OP had not discovered the idea of using the measure tool in this fashion and I hope that others found the info useful.

The screen in my nav. station is not huge ( a 10" touch screen ) and if I am sitting in front of the computer doing some planning, looking at GRIB files or whatever then turning the dash off gives me a lot more visible area of chart, then the status bar is very useful. If I want to see data from the other side of the saloon then I enable the dash. I really have two operating modes I guess, sitting in front of the screen or not.

[burgoynebc]

I have been trying to find applicable open sourse software to do some of the things you are talking about on this thread. I have found some progs that deal with wind but little to interface with NEMA code for the non-programer. My main thrust is to integrate analogue type gauges for diesel engine temperatures, pressures, rpm, wind as a second and third window on my cockpit laptop chartplotter, as well as yielding left-right output signals to my autopilot from a wind direction sensor. For under $40 I have 13 temp sensors that give a serial input to the laptop. This currently displays only a command module text list of the sensor name and sensor temp in deg F.
While there are such vitual gauges being sold on the net they all are priced out of my reach.
Has anyone else been working in this area????

[nohal]

burgoynebc...
There are analog gauges for wind angles and strength in the Dashboard plugin. What exactly do you want to be sent to the autopilot?
For the rest of your problem more info is needed. Is the engine sensor's output NMEA? Is it coming on the same COM port as other NMEA sentences or on another port? The temperature sensors are sending out NMEA stream or do you just have to query them and get some info? What does this info look like? Is it somehow documented? If not you can of course call the command line utility on the background and parse the info it gives you. Some programming will be involved, well, you want to have software doing something
All you want looks doable with little to some effort, you just have to be more specific about what it is.
Sorry, for bringing more questions than answers

Pavel

[burgoynebc]

I am using an arduino microcontroller ($25) as interface I/O as it has USB connection. To it I have 12 Dallas 18B20 1-wire temperature sensors to surface mount onto my diesel and hydraulic system. These sensors are available at $1 each and are about 1/2 the size of a small transistor. They put out temp in deg F and deg C to any accuracy you need. The arduino serial monitor software shows a list of the 12 identified sensors and their readings. An alarm fuction is available for any of the sensors. The serial monitor can be brought up on the laptop on a separate window on XP. Text is OK but a bar graph or virtual analogue guage would give a quicker visual check on everything instead of having to read lines of text.
Later I want to add a wind sensor using an old mouse to input into the arduino. The mouse would sense the wind angle diference from setpoint and the arduino needs to output a simple on/off signal to either right or left to increment my 1950's vintage mechanical compass autopilot. I am using this unit because I hate the new electronic units (completely unreliable). Mine is solid bronze heavy built and totally repairable at sea. Next will be 2 tachometers (old mouse parts) to read eng speed and shaft speed so I can see what the slippage through the hydraulic drive system is. This should help in reducing my fuel consumption by knowing the best RPM for efficiency.
A NEMA signal is available as output from Seaclear chartplotter and ? OpenCPN? This could also be tied into to system to input the offtrack NEMA code. This is far more complicated however as I would have to parse the signal, write software to do the math, so as to put out a simple on/of left/right signal to the autopilot.
This system would cost thousands to buy but I am hoping to get it done for about $100. Sounds mickey mouse but each portion of the project has been already been done by others and can be found on the arduino website. The impass right now is simply the graphic display of the data.
Any insight would be appreciated.

[SethDart]

You could create a plugin to read from the arduino input and inject it in emulated NMEA into OpenCPN. Then this can be used by any part of OpenCPN, including plugins like the dashboard.

This should be quite easy ; check the VDR plugin for sample of injecting NMEA into OpenCPN. Then you only need to get the input from the arduino (serial input?) and translate it into some NMEA sentence. I don't know if such sentences already exists ; if not, you could create some that could then be caught by the dashboard plugin for example.

[burgoynebc]

Great input. Thanks. I will have a look at the plugin for a longterm approach. In the meantime I'm looking at using and adapting a matplotlib/python bar graph to display the 12 temperature readings for this season. This is a scientific prog that is open source and well docummented.
I'll pass on a learning curve for anyone trying out new software/hardware for navigation:
Once you think all is working OK, take the PC for a drive in your car for several trips and days. It is amazing how fast the bugs attack, particularly as the car stops frequently and thus the PC goes into standby/sleep/ or other power down mode. After setting up a replacement slate PC for my cockpit display I loaded on MS streets and trips and headed out for a holiday. So many bugs originating from MS XP sloppy programing occurred that the unit proved totally unreliable for navigation purposes. It has taken many fixes to get the reliability needed. Any one of the bugs would potentially cause a crisis if it had occurred on board during a heavy fog condition. These bugs would take literally weeks before they cropped up on a boat that runs typically longer/continuously.

[boraxtr]

Turkish translation of dashboard plugin attached

[bdbcat]

boraxtr....

We need the .po file, not the .mo file.

Thanks
Dave

[boraxtr]

Here it is. Sorry for the mistake.

[capt_wang]

Does Dashboard support read heading from AIVDO message（AIS)?