Hi,
this is off topic, apologies for intrusion, but I stumbled on
opencpn and it seemed like the people around it might provide me with pointers.
I'm a veteran programmer (both open and close source) and a budding pleasure boater (Chris Craft Riviera -52).
I've got
GPS with Sonar and while
learning to navigate it hit me that the
depth charts, especially in lakes here in
Finland leave a lot to be desired.
This makes sense as there is no
commercial interest in mapping those, especially on smaller lakes, and with thousands of lakes and islands, it is a big job. As a beginner with the urge to explore those lakes and islands this makes me a bit nervy when I go to the scantily charted
parts of the map.
And yet I see a lot of people cruising around with their boats and GPSes.
So it hit me: we should have some sort of open database into which GPS/sonar data could be uploaded every time you get back from a day's outing.
Overtime this would provide a community charted
depth map.
Even without a sonar the information would be useful as one could see the beaten track and thus be relatively confident that it is ok to navigate there. With enough participants errors would/could average out. And the system could show the 'beaten track' as confidence map so that the user could judge how reliable the information is.
Ok, so I hope you get the picture.
Now, my question is, is there such software/service already?
Most 'brilliant' ideas I've got have upon investigation turned out to be old ideas that have already been implemented ... only this one I've not been able to
google up.
If a system like that does not exist, what would be good place to discuss such an idea?
All thoughts and comments appreciated.
br Kusti