Free ENC Reader for NOAA Downloads ?

[austi012]

Hi,

I just found out that a lot of NOAA charts are free for downloading... except you need an ENC reader app for your machine.

I have a Mac at home. Any ENC readers out there?

Failing that, which is best for running on a PC?

many thanks

Thaddeus

[Maddog]

Check out this months Cruising World. They have a whole article on it.

[PapaCocha]

I believe the one with most functionality is Fugawi.

Fugawi

[austi012]

I went and got the Cruising World mag and checked out all the sites. As a Mac user, I'm hosed. Pity.

Of course, I use a PC at work and there's some nice color printers here....

[boredinthecity]

Question what do you want to do with the maps and are they vector or raster formats??

Web address that you could look at is

http://gislounge.com/ll/macintosh.shtml

it all Mac / is stuff you may be able to use the free ESRI viewer (explorer from memory) if they are vector format as cmaps are, you can open the shape and other files and save them in to excell and then import in to Arcinfo and intergrate with GPS imput (dont tell cmap) Some of the guys that lurk there are pretty smart for people who havent learnt to use a real computer.

As for NEMA out put from MAC dont know or have any idears

Paul

[Pblais]

The Fugawi reader is fine but the ENC Marine software they make really does a whole lot more. By next year the ENC charts (aka S-57) should be out for all US waters and all free and all updated as much as any other MOAA source. I have been using tem for the Chesapeake now for about 2 years since that area was pretty complete early in the development by NOAA.

The NOAA charts you download are the same data base as the dead tree NOAA "Charts on Demand". NOAA uses a CAD ssytem for chart maitenance and has for a long time. The new ENC format now allows for update downloads. This means after you download a chart, all you would do is download the updates. The ENC format stores the base map in a base file and the updates are released as smaller files that the format allows to be read in order and thus replace, add, or delete data from the earlier file. There is no other update capability in any other chart format except a brand new chart.

The Fugawi viewer is pretty reasonable but it won't do the one thing I like about the ENC charts. - make a seamless chart! It only loads one chart at a time. It also is just a view and while you can measure distance and bearing that is about all you can do other than view functions like pan, zoom and query. The viewer does however show you what ENC charts look like in full detail. Being raster charts they do display a bit slower than raster charts but unlike raster charts they don't turn to mud as you zoom in. The real product supports varios GPS read and write formats via serial port. It will output various signals too.

The ENC chart format (S-57) is the international vector chart standard and I think the Fugawi product has the best viewer. The charts look better than on other viewers I've tried. The navigation software stacks up well against the leading products at half the price plus the US charts are free. It also supports other popular raster formats as well as the ability to calibrate scanned paper maps yourself so it's not the only format it will display. The brand new version 4.0 added a streets overlay for ENC charts. It's handy when going ashore to know where the roads are. It even does a decent address location function. Installed in your laptop, a pprtable GPS would also give you an in vehicle nav system too. The product also includes support for Pocket PC and Plam PDA's for really portable displays so you can upload from a PC into a hand held device.

[ssullivan]

You're not hosed if you run virtual PC to run Fugawi. That's what I'm doing right now... well... except that my VPC drive image just crapped out on me in the middle of a 1300 NM cruise.

austi012 once whispered in the wind:
I went and got the Cruising World mag and checked out all the sites. As a Mac user, I'm hosed. Pity.

Of course, I use a PC at work and there's some nice color printers here....

[BobProbst]

The free ENC reader from Fugawi doesn't seem to install on Vista.

[Pblais]

The free ENC reader from Fugawi doesn't seem to install on Vista.

It's 5 years old if not older. They upded the marine full version a while back. Vista requires a new install program to install properly. The viewer is not that great.

[BobProbst]

I've been thinking about the Furuno MaxSea Navigator+ program, but it's far from free.

[forsailbyowner]

There is a guy in sarasota that wrote program that he sells on ebay. For around a hundred bucks you get a gps puck, all current enc charts and his program that virtually turns computer into navigation system. Shows your position on relevant charts and has all relevant functions of popular chartplotters. Limits on waypoints and charts are determined by storage capacity of computer heading to ebay now to grab link.

[forsailbyowner]

I'm on blackberry and haven't figured how to cut and paste yet. The ebay item number is.
190254048388
Says will work on any computer MAC?

[BobProbst]

Thanks again -- I'll take a look at it and see if it might work for me.

[speedoo]

Originally Posted by forsailbyowner

There is a guy in sarasota that wrote program that he sells on ebay. For around a hundred bucks you get a gps puck, all current enc charts and his program that virtually turns computer into navigation system. Shows your position on relevant charts and has all relevant functions of popular chartplotters. Limits on waypoints and charts are determined by storage capacity of computer heading to ebay now to grab link.

Actually, the package uses Seaclear, so I don't think he did any programming. I believe everything in that package except the GPS hockey puck can be downloaded from one site or another at no charge.

Still, for the price, you get everything you need and don't have to do any downloading, so for a many sailors it's very worthwhile. (of course this assumes you have a laptop that can be used)

[scotte]

It's a shame when you see people selling somebody else's work that you can get free to begin with...