Cruisers Forum
 


Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Rate Thread Display Modes
Old 20-01-2013, 00:15   #1
Moderator
 
Dockhead's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Denmark (Winter), Helsinki (Summer); Cruising the Baltic Sea this year!
Boat: Cutter-Rigged Moody 54
Posts: 33,764
Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

What cartography is available for European waters? I don't mind paying for it and indeed it's important to me that it be really up to date. I don't want Navionics because that's what I have on my regular plotters - want a different view. Any hints?
Dockhead is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 01:15   #2
Senior Cruiser
 
atoll's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: gettin naughty on the beach in cornwall
Boat: 63 custom alloy sloop,macwester26,prout snowgoose 37 elite catamaran!
Posts: 10,594
Images: 75
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

i used this recently,great for uk waters,it also may be what you are looking for your smart phone


UK / Irish waters JULY 2012 charts for SeaClear, 800 charts for £29.50 ??? : by Bryant [SeaClear FREE Windows navigation software] - VisitMyHarbour articles
atoll is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 01:16   #3
Registered User
 
AISEAG's Avatar

Join Date: May 2012
Location: Dahouet (Brittany)
Boat: BENETEAU
Posts: 491
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Hello,

Have a go on the OpenCPN user Guide, a page is reserved for this topic, you will find charts for ocean and for inland water.

Chart Sources | Official OpenCPN Homepage

Serge
AISEAG is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 01:19   #4
Registered User
 
sailorF54's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Perros-Guirec, France
Boat: Jeanneau Sunshine 36
Posts: 999
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dockhead View Post
What cartography is available for European waters? I don't mind paying for it and indeed it's important to me that it be really up to date. I don't want Navionics because that's what I have on my regular plotters - want a different view. Any hints?
To put it bluntly, there is no commercial offer that covers Europe, either raster or ENC, and none is forthcoming...
e.g. Complete up to date raster coverage for UK is available at a very decent price, patchy free up to date ENC for Netherlands, obsolete raster coverage for a few countries countries by NV-Verlag, but nothing decent for France, Spain (Atlantic or Med), Italy, Greece...
Opencpn is popular in Europe because of the 'availability' of the so-called CM93 world-wide vector charts, latest installement 2011...
sailorF54 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 01:51   #5
Moderator
 
Dockhead's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Denmark (Winter), Helsinki (Summer); Cruising the Baltic Sea this year!
Boat: Cutter-Rigged Moody 54
Posts: 33,764
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Hmm, Visit My Harbour don't recommend using their excellently priced charts with anything but Maptech software.
Dockhead is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 01:59   #6
Moderator
 
Dockhead's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Denmark (Winter), Helsinki (Summer); Cruising the Baltic Sea this year!
Boat: Cutter-Rigged Moody 54
Posts: 33,764
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Quote:
Originally Posted by sailorF54 View Post
To put it bluntly, there is no commercial offer that covers Europe, either raster or ENC, and none is forthcoming...
e.g. Complete up to date raster coverage for UK is available at a very decent price, patchy free up to date ENC for Netherlands, obsolete raster coverage for a few countries countries by NV-Verlag, but nothing decent for France, Spain (Atlantic or Med), Italy, Greece...
Opencpn is popular in Europe because of the 'availability' of the so-called CM93 world-wide vector charts, latest installement 2011...
So you can't use OpenCPN in Europe without using pirated charts?

That's a shame. There's no problem with cartography for INavX - all of Atlantic Europe, right up to date, for a very good price. Only it's Navioics. . . and plus I don't much like INavX. . .
Dockhead is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 02:17   #7
Registered User
 
AISEAG's Avatar

Join Date: May 2012
Location: Dahouet (Brittany)
Boat: BENETEAU
Posts: 491
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dockhead View Post
So you can't use OpenCPN in Europe without using pirated charts?

That's a shame. There's no problem with cartography for INavX - all of Atlantic Europe, right up to date, for a very good price. Only it's Navioics. . . and plus I don't much like INavX. . .

Dockhead,

This is not the truth, you can use OpenCpn with plenty of legal free charts and/or commercial (billable) charts.

Only CM93 charts are illegal, you can use OpenCpn without them (ou with them at your own risk).
AISEAG is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 02:29   #8
bcn
Registered User

Join Date: May 2011
Location: underway whenever possible
Boat: Rangeboat 39
Posts: 4,706
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Quote:
Originally Posted by sailorF54 View Post
obsolete raster coverage for a few countries countries by NV-Verlag, but nothing decent for France, Spain (Atlantic or Med), Italy, Greece...
Having a quick look at the site of NV-Verlag there are quite a lot of parts of Europe covered - 2013 edition they are stating.

So perhaps somebody using those at the different countries and regions might comment on the quality perceived.
bcn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 02:31   #9
Moderator
 
Dockhead's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Denmark (Winter), Helsinki (Summer); Cruising the Baltic Sea this year!
Boat: Cutter-Rigged Moody 54
Posts: 33,764
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Quote:
Originally Posted by AISEAG View Post
Dockhead,

This is not the truth, you can use OpenCpn with plenty of legal free charts and/or commercial (billable) charts.

Only CM93 charts are illegal, you can use OpenCpn without them (ou with them at your own risk).
OK, can you point me towards some sources?
Dockhead is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 02:35   #10
Registered User

Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Helsingborg
Boat: Dufour 35
Posts: 3,891
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dockhead View Post
Hmm, Visit My Harbour don't recommend using their excellently priced charts with anything but Maptech software.
The Visit My Harbour site has a page with some links to OpenCPN specific offerings see visitMyHarbour.com Articles.

As far as I know the Visit charts, recommended only for Maptech, does work with OpenCPN (bsb4 plugin). The quality is said to be superior using Maptech , but I could not see much of a difference on the few screen-shots that I have seen. "bdbcat" offered to help out and see what he could do, to fix possible display problems on OpenCPN, but was never given the opportunity to do so.
It would be really interesting with an independent report of the display quality on OpenCPN, for these charts.

The workaround for the Maptech "problem", from Visit My Harbour, was to introduce the ChartStick for OpenCPN and other plotters.

Thomas
cagney is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 02:47   #11
Moderator
 
Dockhead's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Denmark (Winter), Helsinki (Summer); Cruising the Baltic Sea this year!
Boat: Cutter-Rigged Moody 54
Posts: 33,764
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Visit My Harbour (a fabulous, free pilotage resource, by the way, which I've used for years) looks like a good solution for UK waters if there is a version which works on OpenCPN. Wide coverage and excellent price.

NV Verlag sell tiny little bits and pieces for 98 Euros a pop. No wide coverage areas. They are 10 years behind the times. Screw that.
Dockhead is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 03:56   #12
Registered User

Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Belgium
Boat: Trintella 1 & 28ft
Posts: 78
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dockhead View Post
OK, can you point me towards some sources?
torrent from piratebay
ccgarnaal is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 05:20   #13
Moderator
 
Dockhead's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Denmark (Winter), Helsinki (Summer); Cruising the Baltic Sea this year!
Boat: Cutter-Rigged Moody 54
Posts: 33,764
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ccgarnaal View Post
torrent from piratebay
Putting to one side the legal issue -- let's suppose for the sake of argument that I have nothing against using pirated charts.

I really would prefer -- even if this were not an issue -- to have freshly updated and supported charts.

I have INavX on my IPad, and I bought charts for the whole Western part of Europe including the Med to Marseilles, totally up to date, from Navionics, for I cant remember exactly but I think it was 80 euros or something. And for a whole year I could continuously update them.

That's real value. I would gladly pay those 80 euros (or whatever it is) to have charts which came from a known, reliable source, and which are fully updated, even if I had not ethical problem with using pirated charts (and maybe I don't; I'm not saying).

The problem is Navionics don't seem to make a product suitable for OpenCPN, and besides that, my new regular plotters use Navionics and I would prefer something different, to have a second opinion, as it were, about any given place. I wish I could buy CMap charts (Jeppessen), but they apparently also do not offer any suitable product
Dockhead is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 20-01-2013, 06:13   #14
Registered User
 
sailorF54's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Perros-Guirec, France
Boat: Jeanneau Sunshine 36
Posts: 999
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

Re PCs, apart from Maxsea, the SOB (aka SoBvMax) app from DigiBOAT Navigation Software does read CMap charts on CD or from (with a dedicated external reader) Cmap chips. Clunky interface, IMHO
The app is not expensive, but the charts are.

Pic

Jeppesen's own Plan2Nav is available on Android and I-thing tablets
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	Image005.jpg
Views:	702
Size:	262.9 KB
ID:	53184  
sailorF54 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 23-01-2013, 12:20   #15
oem
Registered User

Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Vejle, Denmark
Boat: Vindø 995 ds
Posts: 133
Re: Europe Cartography for Open CPN?

There is to the best of my knowledge no chart product covering Europe compatible with OpenCPN. Except CM93-2.

Garmin, Navionics and CMap charts cannot be read through OpenCPN.

NV Verlag might be useable through the plugin, but the charts are of very poor quality and not based on official sources. Delius Klasing offer raster charts based on official sources, but they are only compatible with their own chart plotter software.

It's possible to cover Europe through official S63-charts through Chartworld Infos - www.chartworld.de, but they cannot be read through Opencpn (PolarNavy is cheap and excellent) - the price for Europe complete would be astronomical.

OpenSeamap project is not at all suitable for navigation.

So it's really depressing.

The only hope is that tablets with Jeppesen's Plan2Nav (free) and also Navionics similar product for tablets/Ipads will make prices more reasonable. The danish hydrographics office recently announced that a future product through Seapilot | Stockholmradio will offer official S57 charts on Ipad.
oem is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
Europe

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Advertise Here


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 05:05.


Google+
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Social Knowledge Networks
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.

ShowCase vBulletin Plugins by Drive Thru Online, Inc.