Tactics Plugin

[JBericson28]

Thank you all for your help.

Thomas was correct I had mistakenly installed an older version. I am now running version 1. It looks great! I can't wait to be back in the water testing out with my instrumentation.

Has anyone tried this out with a touch screen yet? I just ordered one happy to provide feedback on interface if needed.

Regards,

Jesse

[hasse_A]

Originally Posted by tom_BigSpeedy

Hans,
you don't have a VDR file where I can reproduce this, do you ?
Thomas

Sorry, no I don't. If I see it again I will record.
/Hans

[Canne]

Thanks for the excellent plug-in which I just discovered. Keep up the good work!

On O 4.6.1 w/ v1.0.3, I have got quite stable operation but restarting the application fails and crashes often on my W10 if Tactics is enabled. Disabling it in the ini-file allows restarting of O and Tactics can be enabled again. Maybe I have too many dashboard windows, albeit only one is displayed? See attached ini-file.

Another question, only slightly off-topic, is related to my NKE TL25 display: do you happen to know can it even display

Opt. VMG angle and performance up and downwind
$PNKEP,03,x.x,x.x,x.x*hh<CR><LF>

I can see it arriving regularly to my Miniplex 2Wi over TCP from O/Tactics - I forward all PNKEP sentences to NMEA-out from which TL25 gets all its information anyway. But nothing even close to optimal VMG angle appears on display channel selection menus.

Petri

[tom_BigSpeedy]

Petri,

I merged your pull request with the "NAN-value" bugfix and uploaded a new rev 1.0005 to Rick's file thingie
https://tgp-architects.com/files/index.php
rguser/rgpass

Installer is tactics_pi-1.0005-win32.exe


PS : good to hear, that sending the $PNKEP files to you NKE system is working now ( I'm using the Multigraphic instrument and it always worked, but I never tried on my TL25 )

BR,

Thomas

[Canne]

Thanks, Thomas,

Brilliant! Still on the boat, I was able to test the 1.0005 installer with my instruments. With or without being connected, i.e. getting NMEA from Miniplex TCP port, O starts now faultlessly every time, despite me being instrument freak having way too many open windows... Will test and report in navigation later but since I have already tested my own build in navigation it looks robust.

Yes, I confirm that my NKE TL25 is now recognizing $PNKEP sentences sent out by the plugin, but only once I reduced drastically the number of other NMEA sentences sent to the TL25 during its init NMEA learning phase which lasts about 20 seconds only.

Best regards,

Petri

[rgleason]

Thomas, thanks for the update to 1.0005. It compiles well and I hope to use it in a race July 8. Like the updates to the PDF instructions. Particularly Section 3.5 explanation about CMG or VMG 2WP! (as opposed to VMG 2WIND)

The length on the purple bearing line to the WP from distance from the center or "0" to where the tangent line (for the lower polar lobe) meets perpendicular to the bearing line represents the CMG. (to waypoint)

And the distance from the polar center "0" along the purple to the second tangent off the upper polar lobe is the VMG (to wind)

Visually we should now know how different that is from VMG (to wind).

When do you think this can become a regular plugin that can be downloaded from the Sailing section here? https://opencpn.org/OpenCPN/info/downloadplugins.html

[rgleason]

Axtually I think I have this wrong. It is simply the CMG on each tack for the bearing

[Alekoy]

OpenCPN often crashes during startup with this plugin enabled for me.
OpenCPN 4.6.1, the 1.0005 plugin from the link you provided.
I am running this on a 64bit laptop, I suspect this might be part of the problem.

If I try to restart OpenCPN right after it closes due to the crash, it will crash again 10 of 10 times.
If I wait about a minute, it will start without crashing again almost every time..

any tips?

[Canne]

Hi Alekoy,
What OS, Windows? Is there NMEA data coming in to OpenCPN when you launch it? If yes, can you try with NMEA data source detached or disabled. If OpenCPN and the plugin now launches every time without a crash you are in the same situation I was a few months ago (see above and https://github.com/tom-r/tactics_pi/pull/13): probably I have not been able to catch all operations where a NaN (not a number) is used. This follows because not all NMEA data is available at the same time when the application is launched. That's my guess for the reason of your troubles.
Best regards,
Petri

[Alekoy]

Ah!

Windows 10, 64 bit.
I get most data to OpenCPN from a Actisense NGW-1, and AIS via ethernet from a raspberry pi running OpenPlotter.

I will try to disable all the nmea-inputs and try some more.

If it is running fine and I stop OpenCPN and restart it right away it will crash.

Is there any way to force OpenCPN to start with the tactics plugin disabled, I have no problem going in to the menu and enable it every time i restart OpenCPN

[Canne]

Nice to hear there is a Linux in the loop (Rasberry Pi), albeit I am using a Windows 10 Pro v1703 64-bit on a 64-bit i7 CPU for navigation as well. On my Ubuntu Linux 16.04 I had similar crashes on startup but more often (it is slow, Atom CPU).

To validate the idea of you having a similar type of problem, you can first try to start OpenCPN w/o any NMEA data coming in. Plugin should be able to survive that, for me that worked with the earlier version already.

Next, you can disable the plugin, stop OpenCPN, activate the NMEA and launch OpenCPN with plugin disabled. It may be a good idea that you check the NMEA traffic at this stage Options->Connections->check Show NMEA Debug, and verify that all sentences of your NMEA2000 (?) are indeed converted as you expect and that there is no conflicts or duplicate sources (red lines). Check with built-in instruments that they are happy and then enable the Tactics plugin again. If it does not crash now, we have a good indicator what might be wrong.

In C:\ProgramData\opencpnyou have file opencpn.ini which you can edit, search for

[PlugIns/tactics_pi.dll]
bEnabled=1

change it to "0" before launching OpenCPN. Unfortunately this is not a permanent fix: Next time you enable the plugin in OpenCPN the value gets back to "1" and you need to edit it again. In Linux, command line can be used to automate the above edit before launching OpenCPN, maybe somebody knows how to do it in Windows?

[Alekoy]

Thanks, I will go onboard and test this now

[Canne]

To reply my own question above I wrote a windows script which allows to launch OpenCPN with tactics_pi.dll always disabled (temporary solution, of course). It modifies the bEnable flag in C:\ProgramData\opencpn\opencpn.ini and makes a unique backup file every time before launching OpenCPN (you may want to clean those time to time). If the process is already running the script gives a warning and does not modify anything. The file is attached as .txt file, rename it with .bat extension and launch it from a command line to get some interesting messages. One can make a shortcut to it on desktop while waiting more permanent solution to the launching problems. Note, once I enable the tactics plugin now on OpenCPN, the instrument positions are all piled up and need to be moved around. Hope this helps.

[Alekoy]

Unplugging the USB-serial converter during startup of OpenCPN works every time.
Thanks!

It is also so easy to unplug it that I think it is a better solution than the script for now.

Now the boat is ready for the Shetland Race next week

[Canne]

Great! That is interesting information. Good luck to the race!
Petri