Beta Test / Technical

[sredna]

/me is glad that it works as expected!

[idpnd]

Thanks very much for your patient help Cagney.

For some reason I had the files in my opencpn root rather than the relevant subdirs.

It compiled beautifully without the workaround (I believe also your work?) and even produced a valid .deb file for a change.

The route manager is fantastic and just what was needed really, congratulations Anders. May I most humbly suggest:

-> "reverse route" - this is fantastic

-> zoom to route as double click default action - this would make for an intuitive, google earth style interface.

-> could the active route be highlighted in the list?

-> default name derived from file name - not my idea, +1

-> right now I only get two columns, although gtk(?) will open an arbitrary number if I increase size of the window. How would you feel about a "total distance" column?

-> routeman doesn't distinguish between tracks and routes whilst I think ocpn does i.e. reimported routes are blue, tracks are purple.
Perhaps routeman could exclude tracks somehow - or distinguish between the two as retracing a proven route may desirable e.g. for route sharing. When I activate a track (opencpn does not allow this via right click) it tries to do the whole BRG RNG etc for a "route" consisting of countless waypoints.

On a more general note, the track properties also do not seem to display any timestamps, this would be rather useful for ex-post analysis.. Instead, they turn out like routes (plan speed, projected time etc).

Thanks for your attention

[sredna]

Originally Posted by idpnd

- double click default action - zoom to route (which works fine on vector charts at this end), makes for an intuitive, GEarth style interface.

Good idea! I will add this, and move the zoomto button to the top of the row and make it the default button when the dialog is opened.

- routeman doesn't distinguish between tracks and routes whilst I think ocpn does i.e. reimported routes are blue, tracks are purple.
Perhaps routeman could exclude tracks somehow - or distinguish between the two as retracing a proven route may desirable e.g. for route sharing. When I activate a track (opencpn does not allow this via right click) it tries to do the whole BRG RNG etc for a "route" consisting of countless waypoints.

Good catch, I do not have a track in openCPN yet. I will see if I can just exclude tracks, they are not routes anyways.

- right now I only get two columns, although gtk(?) will open an arbitrary number if I increase size of the window. How would you feel about a "total distance" column?

What looks like columns is a drawing error I believe. I have three columns, the visibility icon, the route name and a constructed string "<from> - <dest>".

I plan to make a nice tooltip with extra information, including the total distance and number of legs. If I fail to do that, I will add columns instead.

Thanks for your attention

Thank you very much for constructive comments, that is very helpful! And thank you for the nice reception of the route manager in general!

Anders

[Tia Bu]

So many fora on OpenCPN now, not sure where to post this. Has anyone tried this: Cheapest AIS SYSTEM for Yachts It looks like a very economical and interesting way to get AIS info into the laptop direct from the VHF radio. Wondering if it works (or could easily be made to work) with OpenCPN.

[Netsurfer]

@Tia Bu
This has nothing to do with OCPN (directly). It deals about how you receive the AIS information and make them available for any suitable software (like OCPN).

And Yes! AIS is transmitted via VHF (Automatic Identification System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

There is e.g. a dutch site (in English) on the net where you can get the same information for free: Discriminator Output

Gunther

[Tia Bu]

Thanks, Netsurfer. My question really was whether that device/software combo would deliver an NMEA string that could be used by Open CPN. At least in the case of the software you pointed to, it seems the answer is yes. Cool. I'll give it a try.

It seems the "Cheapest AIS system for yachts" title isn't exactly right. The site you point to is FREE. :-) Amazing evolution in electronic navigation past few months.

[PjotrC]

I took a professional AIS simulator out for a test drive (free demo - 1 minute). I tested what I happen to have:

1. OpenCPN 1.3.6 as distributed...
2. ...and with my modifications,
3. NavMonPC
4. SeaClear II
5. Euronav SeaPro
6. Software On Board SOB vMAX

OpenCPN consistently kept showing only 5 of 10 ship targets included in the test stream, and only 1 of 2 Aid to Navigation targets (of course only in my modified version, they are not implemented in the base release).
All the other software did show all the targets (ships and other as well, to my surprise). While sailing last December I did not have the impression that I am missing anything in OCPN (real data feed from receiver via COM1).

I started digging and after turning off the NMEA checksum all the targets appeared correctly on the map.
Looking into the checksum function I believe that there may be a problem with the different understanding of line length between Windows filesystem and wxString. I do not know if this is a bug or not, but it makes life much harder, and the difference in behaviour between 1-2 and 3-6 is disturbing...

I have been using Euronav and SOB for the past couple of years, and I think OCPN has a nicer user interface, even with much less functionality, and has a potential for more. For example, none of the other programs did show any details on NavAids, nor do they use recommended icons, so I think it is well worth improving the AIS here.

Looking into the code i noticed also:

1. uninitialized IMO field in AIS_Target_Data (file ais.cpp)
2. Bitstring class not checking for data length (there is a private byte_length, set but not checked) (file ais.h).
Just for the record, this does not do immediate harm, (but a malformed NMEA can produce a crash...)

Cheers,

Piotr

I made/patched also a Toggle/Button to turn off all AIS targets display to reduce the clutter, while still looking out for CPA alerts. I hope these simple things will all be one day in OCPN, but I am too new to wx... :-(

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by PjotrC

OpenCPN consistently kept showing only 5 of 10 ship targets included in the test stream, and only 1 of 2 Aid to Navigation targets (of course only in my modified version, they are not implemented in the base release).

That is a very important observation.. I think Sindbad has been using opencpn as a shore station in Brazil, and he used to complain a lot about lack of targets etc, but I thought that was improved..

[Netsurfer]

Hi sredna!

Originally Posted by sredna

Building openCPN with the dialog

For windows users, you need to add routemanagerdialog.cpp to your building system (proj file?). Please let me know if I need to care for this.

The header file (routemanagerdialog.h) goes into opencpn/include, and the source file (routemanager.cpp) goes into opencpn/src.

As I finally made it to build the actual opencpn.exe I've tried to add the routemanagerdialog as described above.

After patching and adding the files, rerun the configure script (autoconf users) or whatever else you do, and rebuild.

Trying to compile the latest version with the included routemanagerdialog threw the following errors:

routemanagerdialog.cpp
\src\routemanagerdialog.cpp(241) : error C2039: 'IsVisible': Ist kein Element von 'Route'
\include\navutil.h(233): Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'
\src\routemanagerdialog.cpp(293) : error C2039: 'IsVisible': Ist kein Element von 'Route'
\include\navutil.h(233): Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'
\src\routemanagerdialog.cpp(294) : error C2039: 'SetVisible': Ist kein Element von 'Route'
\include\navutil.h(233): Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'
\src\routemanagerdialog.cpp(391) : error C2039: 'IsVisible': Ist kein Element von 'Route'
\include\navutil.h(233): Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'
\src\routemanagerdialog.cpp(393) : error C2039: 'SetVisible': Ist kein Element von 'Route'
\include\navutil.h(233): Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'
\src\routemanagerdialog.cpp(394) : error C2039: 'IsVisible': Ist kein Element von 'Route'
\include\navutil.h(233): Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'
\src\routemanagerdialog.cpp(460) : error C2039: 'IsVisible': Ist kein Element von 'Route'
\include\navutil.h(233): Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'
\src\routemanagerdialog.cpp(462) : error C2039: 'SetVisible': Ist kein Element von 'Route'
\include\navutil.h(233): Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'
\src\routemanagerdialog.cpp(515) : error C2039: 'SetVisible': Ist kein Element von 'Route'
\include\navutil.h(233): Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'
\src\routemanagerdialog.cpp(515) : error C2039: 'IsVisible': Ist kein Element von 'Route'
\include\navutil.h(233): Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'
\src\routemanagerdialog.cpp(516) : error C2039: 'IsVisible': Ist kein Element von 'Route'
\include\navutil.h(233): Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'

Where "Ist kein Element von 'Route'" means: Is no element of 'Route' and
"Siehe Deklaration von 'Route'" => see declaration of 'Route'

What to test

Please test if all functions of the dialog is working as you expect, and report any crashes, misfunctions and other thoughts you may have here.

Couldn't get so far by now.

Is there anything else to do/ mention for the Windows version?
As far as I understand the above error messages they all belong to a 'problem' with (missing?) declaration(s) of variable(s) in 'navutil.h' which is/are used in 'routemanagerdialog'.

Thanks for any further help.

Gunther

[PjotrC]

I gave it some thought and I think it is a bug. There is no reason for rejecting a valid sentence.

NMEA definition of the sentence is:

!<message>,d*xx where d is the fill digit, xx is two-hex-digits checksum

OCPN assumes that there is nothing beyond xx, but CR,LF or LF,CR. Usually it holds.

In reality, there could be white space...
In my case the line ends with CR,CR,LF.

It is safer to look for '*' starting from the '!' and to assume that all before '!' and all after *xx is garbage.

How did I produce the stream? AIS SImulator from mats.kagstrom@hitos.no in demo mode disables COM output. The only option is to use a TCP listener to record the stream. I used PolarCOM (btw, an excellent companion to OCPN). Normally I would never look inside the file, since 4 well known programs accepted it directly.

I attach a proposed/tested checksum code (with debug code removed for clarity). I hope the slight performance penalty is acceptable.

Cheers,

Piotr

Most programs allow an option to turn off checksumming. Of course it is a matter of policy, but I think that if only strictly correct input is accepted, it is better to flag the errors somehow, so the user knows something is wrong (a count in the log upon exit or periodically?, change color of the rotating dash to red?) .

[sinbad7]

Hi all..

Don't seem to have any problems now receiving ALL available AIS targets on OpenCPN.

My only puzzle is why so many of message 5 (green) are missing. They should follow shortly after message 1.

See sample from the Southern Baltic at 20:55 UTC 07 feb.

[PjotrC]

I'm not very good at arithmetics, but AIS message type 1-3 is 168 bits long (168/6=28: fill digit 0) and AIS type 5 is 424 bits long (424/6=70,(6666....): fill digit ?) ... I could be mistaken, of course.
Maybe it needs investigation.
Maybe more data needed...
With AIS Simulator it is really a lot of adrenaline - 1 minute to set up a case... - just like furling the sky sail on a tall ship in a squall .

Clearly, a perfectly-behaved (embedded) NMEA source will not create trouble of this kind, but safe is safe.

Cheers,

Piotr

[Psyches]

Originally Posted by idpnd

That is a very important observation.. I think Sindbad has been using opencpn as a shore station in Brazil, and he used to complain a lot about lack of targets etc, but I thought that was improved..

Agreed. Piotr I've tagged your post to look at when I have some time - several good observations in there to track down. It'd be best if Dave looks at this since I've done little in that area, but I'll do what I can.

Mark

[Psyches]

Gunther, it looks like you haven't gone thru the code patch process yet. The total steps involved for the work are: (1) place include file and source in the proper directories, (2) add the source to the project, (3) perform the patch process. The patch process comes form unix, but tool versions exist for win32...look for gnu patch and follow the earlier instructions (I believe Anders posted them, can't remember for sure). This is outside the scope of normal mswin dev, but will be useful to get used to, for this case and likely future ones (since we do lots of linux work).

Mark

[sinbad7]

Piotr..

The strange thing is,message 5 is received fairly consistently from specific geographical areas whilst being absent fairly consistently globally. AIS data feeds come from many different sources and is buffered briefly in Siitech's servers in Vancouver.

Having maintained the data feed consistently over a LONG period,the number of final (green) targets increase somewhat but still does not explain the absence of the rest.

We have been investigating this phenomena for some time but have so far failed to find the reason.

As an example,the attached samples shows a 100% reception of relevant messages.