Thanks for your replies... I am continuing to learn about routing with the weather routing plugin. Now that I have a valid polar, I have been making progress.
One new thing I discovered today was the comment in the Grib Files section of the OpenCPN website about combining GRIB files (wind and current) in OpenCPN 4.2+ VERY COOL!! I don't need to try to concatenate two GRIB files. This from the help file:
Quote:
Load two Grib Files Concurrently: Combine Saildocs wind + Current file
(Note: Only applies to OpenCPN v4.2.x and forward)
Using Windows, Click on the 'Open a File' to browse grib file. Highlight two grib files (Ctrl and pick the two files with a mouse left click.) The pick Open and the two grib files will be opened. Both grib files will be used by Weather_routing.
First, let me re-iterate my setup... Windows 10 Home with OpenCPN 4.4.0 and the weather routing plugin 10.1.0 as downloaded as an exe from the OpenCPN plugins page a few days ago. I don't have the capability to build from source, so if there are updates and bug fixes we don't have in the posted version... how do we get it??
I will post again what my system looks like when a routing has completed. I have no isochrones visible... is that some option somewhere?
Second, as the routing runs, arrows grow across my screen, in addition to the arrows already visible from the GRIB files. See the detailed "arrows" picture attached.
- The light green arrows are the wind from the GRIB
- The long black arrows are the current from the GRIB
- The long brown arrows come from the weather routing
- The short black arrows come from the weather routing
I first thought that they were maybe Climatology arrows, but they don't either look like or match in speed and direction the climatology data.
So, that's a question, maybe a bug report?
Now for a feature request or two:
1. I would love to have the resulting route with routepoints set up with the following data:
Where "HXXX" represents the hour in the routing, and is visible.
I would also like to be able view this info in table form, like the old Maxsea routing details (be nice to have a few other columns as well like AWS and AWA). (if you need an example of this, I can provide...)
I find that "validating" a routing from the plugin by looking over the result is very difficult with what the version of the plugin that I am using is putting out... No indication whatsoever on the routepoints what the data represents, or even what time periods they represent.
That funny graph (the Plot) might tell me, but it's an unfamiliar format, and as someone else has reported, the numbers showing on some of the scales are crazy. My wind direction scale is from 7717.9 to 6700.3! Can you explain how to interpret that as a wind direction?
A little more on the Plot issue, that I noticed after I posted the last.
As I change the drop down arrows on the plot screen the scales change. If I have COG, Wind Direction, and AWA selected, the two wind values have crazy scales. But if I change the bottom dropdown from AWA to Wind Velocity, both wind scales look reasonable (Ie, the Wind Direction, which I haven't touched, now has a scale on it from 120 to -130, which I assume are relative wind directions.
Attached are two screen shots, one with good values and one with bad values for wind direction. The only thing I did was change the AWA drop-down.
First, when the routing says "complete", I look at my chart/screen and see no route there at all (just the extra arrows I talked about 2 posts back).
Nothing like a route shows up on my screen until I click the "export" button next to the "compute" button on the Weather Routing Configuration screen. Is this the way it is supposed to work?
Then what shows up looks like a route with waypoints (you can see an example on the screen shot 2 posts back). But if you right-click on the route, and select Properties, there is a route there, but it is empty...no list of waypoints. It is named "Weather Route", and it has an average speed and a total direction, but nothing else. (see screenshot). This happens no matter where on the route I right-click. And NO "Weather Route" shows up in the route list in Route and Mark Manager.
Individual waypoints are visible along the route but not named (on the screen), and have no properties except the name Weather Route Waypoint and the lat/long. (see screenshot). These also don't show up in the Route and Mark Manager Waypoint list.
However, if I poke around in the Route and Mark Manager, I notice a TRACK file named Weather Route. AHA! (Feature Request: It would be helpful to include the date/time the route was generated in the name).
I also previously noticed that if I shut down OpenCPN and re-start, the route and the waypoints completely disappear (as if they were in a temporary layer, but they didn't show up in the Layers tab either), and only the TRACK is left, which DOES have the date and time for each trackpoint, but no other information.
Is there a reason you don't just create a route with routepoints vs an empty route, empty waypoints, and a track?
Another weather routing program I am playing with does, and it's very effective for sharing the routing information (I am emailing it to my friend who is enroute in mid-Pacific), and for easily checking the result of the routing (ie, are my polars believable, is it picking up the current data correctly, why is it tacking THERE, etc). Attached a sample of that gpx file as a txt.
Soggy Paws there are some good ideas here. Do you know that you can make a route.
I think it would be worthwhile to make a Tracker feature request for weather_routing_pi when you get a little more familiar with the plugin, but it would help to write up what you are thinking about, more completely. Do you have any screenshots or examples?
I will post again what my system looks like when a routing has completed. I have no isochrones visible... is that some option somewhere?
I think that you may have a setting issue. I tried reproducing what you report and found the via the View -> Settings menu window (from the title bar of the Weather Routing plugin's window. See the screenshot attached. Perhaps you have isocrhrones set to 0 or perhaps to strange colour.
I don't know. I thought I downloaded the high res version and the background chart is fairly detailed but the weather routing seems to route around large tri-angles only.
Ok. I had a low res version installed so I've installed the hi res gshhs. Routing now avoids the coast.
If I set the routing time step size greater than about 12 hours I get a routing fail "Polar fail".
I always seem to get an incorrect wind direction in the plot. I see similar oddities in the plot when I change the selection in the drop downs but in general the numbers are not valid wind angles, speeds etc..
Thanks for your replies... I am continuing to learn about routing with the weather routing plugin. Now that I have a valid polar, I have been making progress.
One new thing I discovered today was the comment in the Grib Files section of the OpenCPN website about combining GRIB files (wind and current) in OpenCPN 4.2+ VERY COOL!! I don't need to try to concatenate two GRIB files. This from the help file:
Ah yes, I forgot about that, I was using cat since more than 1 year ago.
Quote:
First, let me re-iterate my setup... Windows 10 Home with OpenCPN 4.4.0 and the weather routing plugin 10.1.0 as downloaded as an exe from the OpenCPN plugins page a few days ago. I don't have the capability to build from source, so if there are updates and bug fixes we don't have in the posted version... how do we get it??
It's up to you if you want to take the time to learn to build from source or not. Often rick posts binaries between betas, but currently there isn't any newer version than the one you are using anyway. I will not provide binaries.
Quote:
I will post again what my system looks like when a routing has completed. I have no isochrones visible... is that some option somewhere?
Most likely in the View->Settings, one of the values is set to zero. Although this is an intended feature it may be confusing and so suggestions appreciated.
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Second, as the routing runs, arrows grow across my screen, in addition to the arrows already visible from the GRIB files. See the detailed "arrows" picture attached.
There are wind and current arrows for weather routing. These can also be toggled, but basically, all of the arrows from grib are for a single specific time.
The arrows for weather routing are for whatever time that the boat will be at that particular location.
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Now for a feature request or two:
1. I would love to have the resulting route with routepoints set up with the following data:
Where "HXXX" represents the hour in the routing, and is visible.
I would also like to be able view this info in table form, like the old Maxsea routing details (be nice to have a few other columns as well like AWS and AWA). (if you need an example of this, I can provide...)
Is this description needed for each route point? Maybe the relevant data can be added to the generated route?
Quote:
I find that "validating" a routing from the plugin by looking over the result is very difficult with what the version of the plugin that I am using is putting out... No indication whatsoever on the routepoints what the data represents, or even what time periods they represent.
In View->Cursor Position, should give you additional info as you move your mouse over a computed map.
Quote:
That funny graph (the Plot) might tell me, but it's an unfamiliar format, and as someone else has reported, the numbers showing on some of the scales are crazy. My wind direction scale is from 7717.9 to 6700.3! Can you explain how to interpret that as a wind direction?
Some things are broken in the plot especially when using values with very different ranges.... the plot isn't the highest priority but could be handled in a completely better way using an advanced plotting library or something.[/QUOTE]
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Originally Posted by Littlechay
Ok. I had a low res version installed so I've installed the hi res gshhs. Routing now avoids the coast.
I must implement support to detect and warn low resolution gshhs.
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If I set the routing time step size greater than about 12 hours I get a routing fail "Polar fail".
Is the route very short compared to 12 hours or heavily constricted by land?
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I always seem to get an incorrect wind direction in the plot. I see similar oddities in the plot when I change the selection in the drop downs but in general the numbers are not valid wind angles, speeds etc..
I think the plot is rather buggy :-/
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoggyPaws
And a little more on the route that is created...
First, when the routing says "complete", I look at my chart/screen and see no route there at all (just the extra arrows I talked about 2 posts back).
Again, try the settings.
Quote:
Nothing like a route shows up on my screen until I click the "export" button next to the "compute" button on the Weather Routing Configuration screen. Is this the way it is supposed to work?
Then what shows up looks like a route with waypoints (you can see an example on the screen shot 2 posts back). But if you right-click on the route, and select Properties, there is a route there, but it is empty...no list of waypoints. It is named "Weather Route", and it has an average speed and a total direction, but nothing else. (see screenshot). This happens no matter where on the route I right-click. And NO "Weather Route" shows up in the route list in Route and Mark Manager.
Individual waypoints are visible along the route but not named (on the screen), and have no properties except the name Weather Route Waypoint and the lat/long. (see screenshot). These also don't show up in the Route and Mark Manager Waypoint list.
However, if I poke around in the Route and Mark Manager, I notice a TRACK file named Weather Route. AHA! (Feature Request: It would be helpful to include the date/time the route was generated in the name).
I also previously noticed that if I shut down OpenCPN and re-start, the route and the waypoints completely disappear (as if they were in a temporary layer, but they didn't show up in the Layers tab either), and only the TRACK is left, which DOES have the date and time for each trackpoint, but no other information.
Is there a reason you don't just create a route with routepoints vs an empty route, empty waypoints, and a track?
I think it should as you say create a route with routepoints. I think this is very broken, and I haven't messed with export much since a lot of changes
in opencpn related to routes and tracks have been implemented.
Quote:
Another weather routing program I am playing with does, and it's very effective for sharing the routing information (I am emailing it to my friend who is enroute in mid-Pacific), and for easily checking the result of the routing (ie, are my polars believable, is it picking up the current data correctly, why is it tacking THERE, etc). Attached a sample of that gpx file as a txt.
Thanks. Sorry so many questions!
Sherry
What is this other weather routing program? Do you get similar routes?
What about the 0 column? How do we fix it? It's not really allowed to edit the polar files, so maybe I make it automatically create the column of zeros?
If I set the routing time step size greater than about 12 hours I get a routing fail "Polar fail".
Is the route very short compared to 12 hours or heavily constricted by land?
Fairly constricted, but the route is about 3 days long. One of these parameters could be causing the fail but in this case "polar fail" is not an accurate error message.
I'm not sure but the density of iso crones suggests that the plugin is calculating in intervals much smaller than 12 hours due to the density of iso crones. If the route calculates it does so slowly and with many iso crones.
Weather Routing Files and setup that should work.
------------------------------
These files can be found at
OpenCPN Beta File Thingie rguser rgpass
in the folder "Wx-Routing" look for "WxRoute-CapeMay.zip"
Code:
GRIB FILE: C:\Data-Dart\Grib\GFS20160927-CapeMay-NYC.grb Put in your grib directory and point Grib_pi to it.
BOAT FILE: C:\ProgramData\opencpn\plugins\weather_routing\Nell.XML
POLAR FILE: C:\ProgramData\opencpn\plugins\weather_routing\data\polars\60ft_multi_3.pol
WxRoutingConfig FILE: C:\ProgramData\opencpn\plugins\weather_routing\WeatherRoutingConfiguration.xml
Quote:
1. Unpack and place the files in the correct directories for your OS.
2. Open the Grib_pi plugin and load GFS20160927-CapeMay-NYC.grb
3. Make sure the grib is set on the earliest date & time.
4. Pick the Cape May to New York Routing (highlight it).
5. Pick from the menu "Configuration > Edit"
6. Edit menu should show Start: Cape May and End: NYC
5. Set the partially shown path "C:\ProgramData\opencpn\plugins\weather_routin g\" under "Boat" using "..." to "Nell.XML"
6. Click on "Grib Time" and make sure it shows 9/27/2016 Hour 15.00 Time Step should be 30 minutes.
7. Check the Options: Check Detect Land & Currents and check Data Source Grib.
8. Under "Boat > Edit" NOTE: The file & path at the top as "C:\ProgramData\opencpn\plugins\weather_routing\Ne ll.XML"
9. The polar files being used are stored in this file as XML data.
9. Under "Filename" (or Polar File) select "60ft_multi_3.pol" and then hit "Polar" TAB to check the polar.
10. If there are no boat polars under "Filename" "Add" "60ft_multi_3.pol" using the correct path to polars for your OS.
11. Hit "Save Boat".
12. Close the open "WeatherRouting Configuration" menu.
13. Then under the remaining open menu for WeatherRouting, hit "Compute" it should make isochrones and show the route.
14. Change the Time step to be 1 hour and run it. Then change it to 24 hours and it will fail.
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Pick from the first WeatherRoutingConfiguration.xml menu
View > Settings - To see and control display & data settings.
View > Report - To see Route Report (Averages, No tackes, etc.)
View > Statistics - To see Route statistics about the calculations.
View > Cursor Position -Then move the cursor along the route to see topical data. (Sean this might be a good place to put wind data etc.)
After running a weather routing, cursor on the chart screen, right click and pick "WeatherTable" to see conditions at various times.
What about the 0 column? How do we fix it? It's not really allowed to edit the polar files, so maybe I make it automatically create the column of zeros?
If I understand correctly, I believe what was being meant is that if a polar file does not contain a 0 knot column, then the weather routing plugin should assume it's there and it's set to 0 at all wind angles. This would be foolproof. As I understand it, today, if that column does not exist (say for example it starts at 5 knots), then you are unable to route with winds below 5 knots. With such a fictive column, which would not be added to the polar file so as not to modify it, but instead simply loaded into memory when parsing the polar file, the plugin would be able to provide a routing in light winds.
I think it's ok for lower speed but not for higher speeds.
It raises the question of how the user can set a minimum speed below which navigation is impossible. You can still define a column of zero for that non-zero windspeed and it should work.
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