Plugin: DashBoard

[Fintry]

Dashboard questions:
1) Which NMEA 183 sentence is required for the Barometer? My OpenCPN v4.2 is receiving MDA, (data shows in fields 1 and 3 in the OpenCPN NMEA Debug Window) but Barometric Pressure dashboard shows "---" and the dial shows "930"?

2) Am I correct that time is available only as UTC, even if ZDA is received? (That's not a request to add local time, just making sure I'm not missing something -- time is easily enough seen elsewhere.)

3) What sentence(s) is/are required for the Heel and Pitch displays? I have a Maretron SSC200, which puts out a proprietary sentence. I can generate whatever is required, so again, this is not a request for an addition, just a request for information -- I need to know what to generate.

Thanks,

[tom_BigSpeedy]

Originally Posted by Fintry

Dashboard questions:
1) Which NMEA 183 sentence is required for the Barometer? My OpenCPN v4.2 is receiving MDA, (data shows in fields 1 and 3 in the OpenCPN NMEA Debug Window) but Barometric Pressure dashboard shows "---" and the dial shows "930"?
3) What sentence(s) is/are required for the Heel and Pitch displays? I have a Maretron SSC200, which puts out a proprietary sentence. I can generate whatever is required, so again, this is not a request for an addition, just a request for information -- I need to know what to generate.

Thanks,

Jim,
1) it should accept MDA or XDR
like
$IIXDR,P,1.02481,B,Barometer*0D
or
$IIMDA,,,1.02481,B,C,,C,,,,C,,T,,M,,N,,M*0D

2) I can't answer this

3) XDR, in one line separate records will probably do as well,
e.g.
$IIXDR,A,-0.3,D,PTCH,A,-3.1,D,ROLL*5D

Thomas

[Fintry]

Thanks for the quick reply -- the question now is, I have MDA and am not getting a barometer reading. A typical line in the NMEA Debug Window is:

09:25:03 (Serial:COM8) $IIMDA,30,I,1.02,B,11.2,C,,C,,,,C,,T,,M,,N,,M*18<0 x0D><0x0A>

Air temperature -- also in the MDA sentence -- is also not displayed. Everything else coming through that port -- the only port that is open -- is displaying correctly.

The checksum shown (18) is correct for the sentence above, but I unchecked "Control Checksum" anyway in the setup box.

?

[skipperearly]

I used Dashboard 1.2 and defined in "preferences" different instrument arrangements.

It would be desirable to select the dashboard by name e.g by ri-click on icon with pulldown of defined dashboard-arrangement names or in the header of the open dashboard to switch to another one.
I hope I explained somehow what I mean - basically I do not like to get back to ...plugin...scroll down to dashboard....select preferences .... set default. There must be a simpler way to switch dashboards.

Any another note on usability: would like a ri-click on any settings and switch to full screen mode and on ri-click again back to defined frame.

[rgleason]

Skippperearly wrote:

It would be desirable to select the dashboard by name e.g by ri-click on icon with pulldown of defined dashboard-arrangement names or in the header of the open dashboard to switch to another one.

You do know that it is not necessary to go to Options > Plugins > Dashboard and select Preferences?

From the Toolbar > Dashboard Icon then Right Click on the Dashboard menu and select Preferences. Simple as that.

Don't get your other point at all.

[Fintry]

Originally Posted by tom_BigSpeedy

Jim,
1) it should accept MDA or XDR
like
$IIXDR,P,1.02481,B,Barometer*0D
or
$IIMDA,,,1.02481,B,C,,C,,,,C,,T,,M,,N,,M*0D

2) I can't answer this

3) XDR, in one line separate records will probably do as well,
e.g.
$IIXDR,A,-0.3,D,PTCH,A,-3.1,D,ROLL*5D

Thomas

Good news and bad news.
3) I got pitch and roll working by creating an $IIXDR sentence. I note that it displays as "Nose up". Planes have "Noses", boats have "Bows", but I'm happy to see it however it displays.

But, I can't get barometer or air temperature working. I generated a sentence of the form shown above:
$IIXDR,P,1.02481,B,Barometer*0D -- no luck.

I also saw an old post on the subject that said that the plugin accepts only MDA. I note that the old post called for $IIMDA. The Airmar weather instrument puts out "WIMDA" (for Weather Instrument, I think), so I generated "IIMDA" (with the correct checksum for the different letter). The Actisense NMEA Reader confirms and reads my sentences as valid, but OpenCPN does not. They show up in the OpenCPN NMEA Debug Window exactly as sent, but won't display, either Barometer or Air Temperature. This is at the same time that Pitch and Roll are displaying perfectly from the same data source.

Example:
$IIMDA,29.7308,I,1.0068,B,7.8,C,,,,,,,,,,,,,,*19
I also tried
$IIMDA,29.7308,I,1.00680,B,7.8,C,,,,,,,,,,,,,*05
I even tried sending exactly the sentence shown above:
$IIMDA,,,1.02481,B,C,,C,,,,C,,T,,M,,N,,M*0D
without success.
Suggestions anyone?

[tom_BigSpeedy]

Jim,

the "nose" is my 2m bowsprit

You said you're creating the sentences. Are you programming them in C/C++ ?
I did an Arduino barograph project over winer (also creating the NMEA output sentences for O) and was able to read them in O ...

Does that code snippet from my Arduino project help ?
It's more or less straight forward C code ...
Input : sentence = 0 --> XDR, sentence = 1 --> MDA
Output : the NMEA sentence.
Pressure comes in as global variables in "pressure + pressureDiff"
Well, no floating point calculation in Arduino, so integer conversion of the pressure values ...
/************************************************** ***************************
Method to create current pressure as an NMEA0183 XDR or MDA message
like
$IIXDR,P,1.02481,B,Barometer*0D
or
$IIMDA,,,1.02481,B,C,,C,,,,C,,T,,M,,N,,M*0D
Global variable to hold the NMEA record:
char nmeastr[32] = "";
************************************************** ****************************/
void createNMEA(uint16_t sentence, char *nmeastr)
{
char intStr[8], decStr[6];

if (sentence == 0)
strcpy(nmeastr, "$IIXDR,P,");
else
strcpy(nmeastr, "$IIMDA,,,");
int32_t bar = (pressure + pressureDiff) / (int32_t)100000;
int32_t dec = (pressure + pressureDiff) - (int32_t)bar * 100000;
ltoa(dec, decStr, 10);
while (strlen(decStr) < 5){
for (int i = 5; i > 0; i--){
decStr[i] = decStr[i - 1];
}
decStr[0] = '0';
}
decStr[5] = '\0';

strcat(nmeastr, ltoa(bar, intStr, 10));
strcat(nmeastr, ".");
strcat(nmeastr, decStr);
strcat(nmeastr, ",B,");
if (sentence == 0)
strcat(nmeastr, "Barometer*");
else
strcat(nmeastr, ",C,,C,,,,C,,T,,M,,N,,M*");

//Calculate checksum w/o $ and *
uint8_t checksum = 0;
for (int i = 1; i<(int)strlen(nmeastr)-1; i++)
{
checksum ^= nmeastr[i];
}
strcat(nmeastr, strupr(itoa(checksum, intStr, 16)));
strcat(nmeastr, "\r\n");
//Serial.println(nmeastr);
}
--------------------------------------

Otherwise : can you create a VDR file with NMEA data (install the VDR pugin and record some data with it ) ?

Thomas

[rgleason]

Fintry, Nmeaconverter by Dirk may also help.
NMEA Converter | Official OpenCPN Homepage

It does not appear in the plugins, but the repository is here
https://github.com/RooieDirk/NmeaConverter_pi

If you use windows you can get an installer here
https://tgp-architects.com/files/index.php rguser rgpass
Under 4.2.0 PI Win directory

[Fintry]

Originally Posted by rgleason

Fintry, Nmeaconverter by Dirk may also help.
NMEA Converter | Official OpenCPN Homepage

It does not appear in the plugins, but the repository is here
https://github.com/RooieDirk/NmeaConverter_pi

If you use windows you can get an installer here
https://tgp-architects.com/files/index.php rguser rgpass
Under 4.2.0 PI Win directory

Perfect -- exactly what I need for now. I got air temperature running almost instantly and barometer history also working.

I also now see a note above that the Barometer dial and data box are not working - yet - in v4.2, so that answers my questions above.

Thanks to all....

[skipperearly]

Originally Posted by rgleason

Skippperearly wrote:
You do know that it is not necessary to go to Options > Plugins > Dashboard and select Preferences?

From the Toolbar > Dashboard Icon then Right Click on the Dashboard menu and select Preferences. Simple as that.

Don't get your other point at all.

@rgleason: thanks for pointing this out - tried the Dashboard icon first- no joy, right clicking just opens options to select which toolbar icons will be shown; - but once a dashboard frame is visible then right clicking on it provides the desired option. Thanks again.

ref my other point: maybe you know iRegatta, there I find it very useful to click on any value (e.g SOG or AWA etc) and then this vaue is shown larger than the other values. Basically you can configure a "dashboard" frame to show 4 different values and by clicking on one of them this one gets larger and the other smaller. I found this feature very nice.
Hope I could explain better what I mean. see attached screenshot for illustration.

I understand now that I could prepare e.g. one dashboard view with SOG with customised large letters and another AWA and so on and switch between them with right click, select etc. but a simple left click on any value and open/close a "magnify frame" would be very cool.

Let me know what you think.

cheers

[skipperearly]

Originally Posted by skipperearly

@rgleason: thanks for pointing this out - tried the Dashboard icon first- no joy, right clicking just opens options to select which toolbar icons will be shown; - but once a dashboard frame is visible then right clicking on it provides the desired option. Thanks again.

ref my other point: maybe you know iRegatta, there I find it very useful to click on any value (e.g SOG or AWA etc) and then this vaue is shown larger than the other values. Basically you can configure a "dashboard" frame to show 4 different values and by clicking on one of them this one gets larger and the other smaller. I found this feature very nice.
Hope I could explain better what I mean. see attached screenshot for illustration.

I understand now that I could prepare e.g. one dashboard view with SOG with customised large letters and another AWA and so on and switch between them with right click, select etc. but a simple left click on any value and open/close a "magnify frame" would be very cool.

Let me know what you think.

cheers

cant attach screenshot file - sorry - get only option to add videos

[skipperearly]

Would it be possible in the AWA-AWS and the TWA-TWS dial to have the outer figures
in the appearance-small style (like it is now) BUT the central speed in appearnace-label style? That way the speed could be set larger for better reading.

Thanks for attention

[bcn]

Originally Posted by skipperearly

cant attach screenshot file - sorry - get only option to add videos

You can attach any file and not just videos - size depends on file type.
A .png or .jpg does work well.

The "paper clip" at the toolbar of the reply window opens a second window for uploads.
Sometimes it gets hidden and don't forget to close it afterwards after uploading.

You might need to adjust the window size to see the upload button.

Use "preview" to fine tune your response

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Rick..
The VMG instrument is there but is not fed with data, except SOG.
There's a VMG to next WP in a route calculated and used for the "Navigate to here" function. That value could be used but in that case the WP-name may need to be added to the VMG instrument. That's because the VMG seems to be calculated for next active WP if that's shown in the Leg/Route dialog box but for the whole route if that's shown. Could be a perplexity.

Transmitterdan may have the knowledge to sort this out???

Håkan

I have been traveling a bit lately and not able to spend a lot of time looking into all of this. What I have learned is as follows:

1) The Dashboard plugin uses data that comes from the NMEA input stream. It doesn't do much computation with the data other than convert units.

2) The XTE, VMG, etc. data displayed by the route manager is not based on any NMEA messages. Rather these are calculated internally by the route system. The calculated values needed by the autopilot are sent OUT via the NMEA multiplexer. But these messages never get routed to Dashboard because it only sees NMEA INPUT messages.

3) To expose the route data (e.g. VMG, TTG, etc.) to the Dashboard plugin one could send the data via NMEA messages through the INPUT multiplexer. But what could happen is that if we use the multiplexer to route the data there might be some circular conditions. That's because I think it is possible for a user to ask for NMEA data coming into the multiplexer to be repeated on the outgoing mutiplex. That could make for some interesting infinite loops I think (sort of like pointing a video camera at its own monitor screen).

So if we want to expose route data to the Dashboard plugin we probably need to communicate via the plugin API which is how NMEA input stream data reaches the Dashboard. I am looking into this but if anyone has suggestions I am all ears. I haven't messed with the plugin API before.

[Hakan]

dan...
Without deep knowledge but what about a JSON message like how Jon used in OcpnDraw, OD, and Watchdog, WD?
OD and WD exchange messages as well as WD receives AIS messages from OCPN.

But of course no JSON messages are yet prepared in OCPN for the result of the VMG calculation.

Håkan