Rod, CM93
charts are not known for having much detail unless you're in fairly populated & well traveled waters. They're OK along much of the QLD coast, but if you're planning to go to more
remote areas, detail & accuracy drop off significantly. They're also still a CMap product, even though they haven't been updated since 2011, so folks are cagey about
posting them online.
Because of this, we've been making our own extremely accurate & detailed
charts, using SAS Planet & Sat2Chart. The tools & data are all free on the
internet, but it does take a lot of time,
internet data, & a Windows computer. The charts themselves can be used on any computer that runs
OpenCPN, but the tools to make the charts only run on Windows.
The available chart data currently includes
Navionics & CMap
marine charts, which are reasonably accurate & have depths. But we actually prefer the
satellite imagery from ArcGIS, Bing (MSFT),
Google Earth, Nokia, etc. These are amazingly accurate, with max errors on the order of 3m. Superb geo-registration, & they show near-shore
reefs & shallows, including the GBR. They don't show everything, but where they show something, that's exactly where it is.
We've recently put together a
How-To page on Making mbTiles, which is a chart file format that
OpenCPN has been able to use for a couple of years, since v5. It's written so even a
novice can make high-quality navigational charts, & we also show you how to use the automation provided by Sat2Chart to get your computer to do the hard
work while you sleep (or do something else).
The page is only a few months old, so we encourage folks with questions to contact us. The only silly question is the one not asked, & if you have questions, it's a sure bet that others will have the same question, & we'd like to address those in the page itself.
Good luck!
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