Charts

[HappySeagull]

PS...there is actually a request for nmea sounder data logging in the tasklist...

[Extemporaneous]

Originally Posted by HappySeagull

PS...there is actually a request for nmea sounder data logging in the tasklist...

Could this become part of the VDR Plug-in perhaps?

Extemp.

[thatboatguy]

Originally Posted by HappySeagull

PS...there is actually a request for nmea sounder data logging in the tasklist...

That would be awesome. I *finally* plugged my AIS reciever into the com1 port in the back of the C29 Toughbook. We did the passage from St Augustine to Port Royal Sound as a test run and it worked great! Approaching Gray's Reef in total darkness we watched a boat ahead cross our paths over and again. At first I thought it was some kind of workboat keeping station to kill time but who does that beam to sea? Fishing trawl? In a posted fish sanctuary? This is *not* the first time I've had this happen out in the dead of night on some long watch and I always attributed it to some board ship that had time to kill messing with my head. But this time I had them dead to rights. As M/V Nancy Foster made another turn to put herself on collision with us I confidently made the radio call, and then put my tail between my legs and gave way, even though we were the stand-on vessel... heh heh, she was out there surveying the bottom and needed to stay on track.... :/



George

[HappySeagull]

Originally Posted by Extemporaneous

Could this become part of the VDR Plug-in perhaps?

Extemp.

Thanks,Extemporanous!I see there's a new version(VDR plugin) just out now!Might be just the thing for LittleChay to work with...?

[Littlechay]

Thanks for the replies gents but I'm not sure that the VDR plugin will help much except for depth logging. The rest of the data as far as the production of chartlets is concerned is recorded on a handheld.

Not sure about the GPX side of things. I really don't want to be putting in chart features, such as rocks, as waypoints that is just way too messy. There needs to a separate mechanism for chart features, and it has to available real time so that you can stick an object on the chart as you see it. It is possible to use waypoints for this a temporary measure - I do this in Ozi and then in Ozi you can convert the mark into a map feature, but as far as I know there is no chart feature in OpenCPN and therefore nothing to convert to.

I can't really make use of any of the plugins either as V2.4.x is way to buggy on my netbook (running Ubuntu 11.04) to use. I did try it, but I'll have to wait till a stable version comes out. I'm not sure what stage the Mac version is at.

I'll keep thinking about it.

Cheers

[Littlechay]

I've been having a look at the GPX issues here. I don't see any method of attaching files or photos directly to waypoints etc. as mentioned by Happy Seagull. Could somebody point me to the thread please?

Happy Seagull what are you referring to as Marks? Waypoints? I don't see much in the route manager for adding information.

The map features in Ozi that I was referring to would be fairly simple to extract from the .map files as they are just in there as CSV text so could be extracted and reformatted with a script or in a spread sheet and existing work could be ported across one way or another.

Perhaps features and comments from a .map file could be converted to gpx and imported as a layer(s). I have a lot of features for some areas though, several hundred.

I still see the importing and calibration of image files as an issue though. I know that there has been work done in Windows to produce Kap files from images with calibration data but it is such a long winded process. I don't know if there is a solution out there to directly convert Ozi map files to .kap or another format that openCPN can read? Or to graphically import and calibrate images within a single application. Additionally the solutions that I have read about don't seem to handle odd shaped images, they all seem to assume rectangles. OK for most cases admittedly.

Downloaded the latest version of 2.4 and it now behaves well enough that I can work with it, the tool bar stays on the screen more or less, it does occasionally reorient itself without reorienting the icons though .. not to handy.

I haven't looked into it in much detail yet but I don't see any options to do anything with the data recorded by VDR, there is a recored and a play button but no data export or anything like that. ....... just checked something, the Ozi track files (.plt) that I have been playing with have depth information (it's in as altitude) and this is correctly extracted by gpsbable and is in the .GPX files but this doesn't show in the tack files in OpenCPN. Grrrr i need depth. Anybody know if the future depth logging will use the altitude element?

[HappySeagull]

	
	

			
				

					Originally Posted by Littlechay
					
				
				
I've been having a look at the GPX issues here. I don't see any method of attaching files or photos directly to waypoints etc. as mentioned by Happy Seagull. Could somebody point me to the thread please?

Happy Seagull what are you referring to as Marks? Waypoints? I don't see much in the route manager for adding information.

The map features in Ozi that I was referring to would be fairly simple to extract from the .map files as they are just in there as CSV text so could be extracted and reformatted with a script or in a spread sheet and existing work could be ported across one way or another. 

Perhaps features and comments from a .map file could be converted to gpx and imported as a layer(s). I have a lot of features for some areas though, several hundred.

I still see the importing and calibration of image files as an issue though. I know that there has been work done in Windows to produce Kap files from images with calibration data but it is such a long winded process. I don't know if there is a solution out there to directly convert Ozi map files to .kap or another format that openCPN can read? Or to graphically import and calibrate images within a single application. Additionally the solutions that I have read about don't seem to handle odd shaped images, they all seem to assume rectangles. OK for most cases admittedly.

Downloaded the latest version of 2.4 and it now behaves well enough that I can work with it, the tool bar stays on the screen more or less, it does occasionally reorient itself without reorienting the icons though .. not to handy.

I haven't looked into it in much detail yet but I don't see any options to do anything with the data recorded by VDR, there is a recored and a play button but no data export or anything like that. ....... just checked something, the Ozi track files (.plt) that I have been playing with have depth information (it's in as altitude) and this is correctly extracted by gpsbable and is in the .GPX files but this doesn't show in the tack files in OpenCPN. Grrrr i need depth. Anybody know if the future depth logging will use the altitude element?
			
		

map2kap converts OZI to kaps start here:
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post625591

example of rebuilt chart in tiff2kap start about here
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post608102

newest version of Tiff2kap is called imgkap..
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post686535
it's a bit of a strain to sort through these threads,I know.I'd do a howto wiki if I knew how and there was enough interest...
I didn't like the command line stuff myself when I started but thanks to some help from Cagney,Dacust,marcos and Nohal,etc. it got very easy very fast for the simple things required in these.In fact,there's some automating scripts.

marks,waypoints same thing.waypoints are on a routetrack but all editable and noteable on.
I'll hunt upt the best thread on photos in marks ...

[HappySeagull]

writing info and pix into marks,waypoints...
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post652894

tip:
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post654754
not pretty, but works great

an icon can be made for any mark/waypoint...Cagney showed that an entire picture converted to xpm format serves well if you don't mind changing the "show/not show in the mark/waypoint dialogue..(the eye) see

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ons-57906.html

[HappySeagull]

Picture as mark example...






ok,an odd example -a harbour view is more likely-but it's handy and mine...
note that it's turned off and on in OpenCPN's track dialogue...by clicking on the icon there...
a disadvantage is that it covers the chart when it's on but it's REALLY quick to create a mark-as-picture...

Cagney had another great idea...make the picture into a chart and it'll appear in the chart bar as a selection....see the Tiff2kap link above...it's in there somewhere.but you can DO the SAME with map2kap using OZI to calibrate the image.

You can remove it from the quilting in openCPN so it's not a nuisance....

The stuff is here,and works well.Finding it is the trick.and come to that,the libbsb with mc2bsbh and all can go pretty quick too, with some practise .
TIP:
Note that command lines for these can be worked up in a text editor and
just pasted into the black cmd window(right clickIN the window,choose paste)....this makes for easy backtracking or reopening and so on.

[Littlechay]

Thanks!!! That is all really good stuff. I don't have access to any native windows machines and would like to do this on Linux.

Anybody got this to run under wine?

I downloaded the map2kap.exe and it runs but of course can't find a bunch of stuff and I'm not sure that it can all be installed in the wine environment.

If I can get this to work I can port across years of work from Ozi. !!!

I'm at sea a lot without internet access. I'd like to help with something perhaps in documentation as I can see that is a problem area. Only problem will be that if I write any documentation while at sea it will be outdated by the time I can post it!

[cagney]

I downloaded the map2kap.exe and it runs but of course can't find a bunch of stuff and I'm not sure that it can all be installed in the wine environment.

Have a look at the mak2kap thread. map2kap is written in "ruby" and developed on linux. I did an exe file for win users for easy installation. Some people had problems with dependencies etc.

Thomas

[HappySeagull]

Yes...I'm sorry about my windose slant.It's what I have and so corrupting that I forget that these are more native to Linux!
In Windows,the dependencies ain't bad at all.Simplest,for point+clickers like me is just put em in the same folder as map2kap...

[Littlechay]

Thanks for all the pointers. Got it all running now. map2kap doesn't handle the ozi map features but I think that might be possible in the future.. anyway I have posted a more detailed note over on the map2kap thread.

P.S. and OT but I have a really bad net connection via WiFi here and browsing the long threads it hard work. I have tried going to print view and downloading which is fine but if the thread is longer than 40 posts it has to be done in sections. Anybody know if it's possible to get more than 40 posts to show up?

[Littlechay]

Does anybody have a copy of "Global Mapper" who would be prepared to convert one image for me. I have an important image in OziExplorer ozfx3 format that I need converted to a tiff so that I can then convert it to a .kap for use in OpenCpn. I no longer have the original image, at least not here on the boat with me.

if anybody has a copy of Global Mapper or another application that can make the conversion I could email you the ozfx3 file.

Cheers, and thanks.

[dougwm10]

MAPMEDIA RASTER CHARTS – the older version with file names ending in the extension *.map

I have a large collection of the older Mapmedia raster charts whose files end with the extension *.map and I would like to use them in OpenCPN. At this time there does not appear to be a conversion or adaptation process available that would enable them to be used. There are probably a great number of other people in a similar situation so any help in solving this problem would be appreciated by a large number of sailors

Is there anyone capable and sufficiently computer savvy who can create a patch to achieve this. There is already a patch available for these charts that works with MAXSEA its name is “mapmedia-patch.exe “written by RK but I have been unable to contact this person hence my open request for help.

If there is anyone who can reverse engineer software and / or would be able to adapt the Maxsea patch to work with OpenCPN then please contact me and I will send them the file.