Data Sharing (GoogleEarth for Sailors)

[scotte]

Originally Posted by jonasaberg

If OpenCPN can use both commercial (e.g. Active Cap.) or something completely open the user can choose. Best is not to lock down the options.

Absolutely I agree with this - user should be able to choose. In the same we we choose what charts to use, what format (BSB/S57/whatever), we should be able to choose the datastream.

For example, I love how RosePoint incorporates the Coastal Pilot into Coastal Explorer (that's the only data available for that case, but just an example of an excellent source of data).

Originally Posted by jonasaberg

The problem with commercial options is that they are not always to stay. No offense intended Active Captain...

There's a lot of precedence for this, and that's precisely why it has to be carefully licensed and built. For an example of a company taking open, community-based data, then effectively stealing it for commercial purposes while locking out the community, look into the history of what Gracenote did to CDDB - CDDB - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[idpnd]

I've just run into a panbo article on activecaptain, and it seems to be pretty much the spec we're looking for:

Expect to see some exciting developments here including offline storage of all marker data with synchronization when an internet connection exists [...] While it's near impossible for one source to keep up on all marina details, for instance, let alone comment knowingly on their quality, we now know from the likes of online Amazon and Yelp reviews that a community of marina users could conceivably succeed at both goals.

Well, I would prefer an analogy to wikipedia, it being free, and by that I don't mean the freedom to ransack and pillage by the way - au contraire! i.e. "Content you send to us, whether via e-mail, forms, messages, ideas, and/or suggestions, becomes our sole property"

In my opinion the huge success of wikipedia is precisely due to the fact that people are perfectly aware they're contributing to a public good. The content produced within such a community cruising resource would naturally have to be owned by the community.

What I don't understand, Mr. Activecaptain, is why you don't use a free license that permits commercial exploitation. You could still sell your database to the simrads and you could still have proprietary bits from the marinas, and advertising, but you would guarantee contributors the continuing rights to their data.

As an ActiveCaptain participant I do care about the promise that the data will remain forever freely accessible on the Web, and I trust the Siegels 100% on that score.

Why not have a simple legal guarantee on that?

Attribution Share Alike - This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

It's not a commie conspiracy!

[Viking Sailor]

Originally Posted by ActiveCaptain

For those few people, and possibly the handful on this thread, here's my advice: Don't contribute to ActiveCaptain.

OK!

[manimaul]

ActiveCaptain,

You have a cool site and some great ideas. I am an open source enthusiast and contributor. And, the reason I am is because of the community, team work and sense of ownership of the final product. I think that if you want to harness the power of many technically minded people and open source community members, you will have to make them feel like a part of the community. Give us that sense of pride of ownership. One way to do this would be to make the contributions to active captain creative commons much like wikipedia. True innovation comes when we collaborate, share and work together. Helping each other is what makes us human. Open source equals teamwork.

[st599]

Originally Posted by st599

The BBC B and BBCBASIC?

Oops, forgot to say, a KML.KMZ output would be nice, especially to be able to send to non-boating guests to look at where they've been.

Even just a button that took the GPX output and ran it through GPSBabel to turn it into KMZ format.

The plugin feature would be awesome too - I've at least one idea I would like to play with.

[hackoon]

I would like to push the different ideologies away and come back to do something practical. We would just need some server with sql, xml, and php support, some virtual XEN-Server would do the job for a start and it is easy to move it somewhere else (10sec).
How difficult would it be to implement a changes-only data export function in opencpn?
Maybe some sort of sqlite database integration but it probably brakes wx compatibility .

[sredna]

It can't be very hard to use a sqlite database with openCPN, it is a standard package that can be statically or dynamically linked as you like it, and it would probably make a very efficient cache for that sort of data.

[Psyches]

Originally Posted by sredna

It can't be very hard to use a sqlite database with openCPN, it is a standard package that can be statically or dynamically linked as you like it, and it would probably make a very efficient cache for that sort of data.

Anders / sredna, right, doesn't look like it'd be that difficult to drop in. But to me it looks like sqlite is currently overkill for OpenCPN. Maybe not always, but for the plans recently discussed, including the more advanced ones. OpenCPN is mostly read, and really likes lots of memory for charts. All other storage and memory needs are negligible. Adding an embedded database with full ACID, full SQL, its own memory alloc needs, etc. would add a degree of complexity that the overall design should consider. For example, if the chart catalog were re-written to use sqlite (etc), that would change things - but again, this isn't needed currently. I personally think the time should be taken in better separating and abstracting code that's already there, and adding some more basic missing features. Anyway, that's my 2 cents...

Speaking of which - is your route manager work ready to share?

Originally Posted by hackoon

I would like to push the different ideologies away and come back to do something practical. We would just need some server with sql, xml, and php support, some virtual XEN-Server would do the job for a start and it is easy to move it somewhere else (10sec).
How difficult would it be to implement a changes-only data export function in opencpn?
Maybe some sort of sqlite database integration but it probably brakes wx compatibility .

Hackoon, agreed. I think I've lost some context though - I'm unclear which data you'd want to export as change deltas exactly. Doesn't look like sqlite would break wxWidgets, but might make future porting more difficult, and I stand by my comments above. It might not be that difficult to export deltas, but it'd require version or timestamps that do not exist on most data today. I think to do it properly, we should quickly review what we have and think about what we want, and extend schema (aka current structs, classes and the few refs between them) to accomodate. Again, my 2 cents worth.

Mark

[sredna]

Mark,
You are probably right, the amout of waypoints people want to store is probably not that big SQlite is very small footprint though, so if openCPN ever needs that sort of storage it is the obvious choice.

About the route manager: I asked a question about it in the beta/technical thread, but it is progressing nicely, I can (kinda) zoom a route into the view, in vector charts. Raster charts dislike custom zoom scales, so I need to adjust to something acceptable for those, should not be hard.

With that done, I'm cool about showing it off, I can look at tooltip support later.

I am going away for the weekend (sailing coach training ), but I should be able to present a preview patch next week, I'd very much appreciate some testing by others

Anders

[Viking Sailor]

Hi Guy's,

You know that just using the "mark" system that is currently implemented in OpenCPN it is possible to drop a mark on any type of chart, annotate it, turn on and off the annotation, change the mark type, and save and reload it using GPX files. Also, a real nice feature is that it is you can import multiple GPX files thus combining external info with local info. Things that could to be added include a comment box and more symbol types. Also, it would be nice to delete tracks, waypoints, and marks that are specific to a GPX file.

Included are a set of pic's exemplifying the process of adding marks to a BSB chart, saving them, and reloading them onto a CM93 chart.

Paul

[sredna]

Paul,
That is of course right. And I plan to add support for description, types (aka tags) and links to waypoints and routes (following the gpx spec). You can already add your own icons, by placing xpm files in the proper directory (<opencpn-data>/UserIcons).

The issues here (or one of them) is more a way to download and maintain external marks from various sources, as most sources does not provide a way to turn a query into a gpx file.

Also, it would be smart if we could upload marks from within openCPN, so that they could be shared by others.

Anders

[Viking Sailor]

Originally Posted by sredna

Paul,
That is of course right. And I plan to add support for description, types (aka tags) and links to waypoints and routes (following the gpx spec). You can already add your own icons, by placing xpm files in the proper directory (<opencpn-data>/UserIcons).

The issues here (or one of them) is more a way to download and maintain external marks from various sources, as most sources does not provide a way to turn a query into a gpx file.

Also, it would be smart if we could upload marks from within openCPN, so that they could be shared by others.

Anders

Anders,

I am really sorry, but I have questions about your response.

First, I thought that this was about exchanging info amongst sailors using OpenCPN. What other sources are you thinking will be using this capability?

Second, adding remote file transfer functionality to OpenCPN seems redundant. OpenCPN already uses file transfers for Grib data why not continue with this same method for GPX info? One nice thing about using GPX files to transfer this info is that for SSB/Ham email you get 5:1 file compression.

Third, I don't think it is reasonable to expect each person to generate and maintain their own XPM files. Won't you need to add these same XPM files for what you want to do?

I would expect that skippers would upload there .gpx files to the OpenCPN web site for other skippers to use. I suspect that these files would best be saved in a geo-structured file system.

Best regards,

Paul

[sinbad7]

Paul..

Thanks for the GPX storage/retreival tip.
Not sure where you find the upload/download page for the gpx files?
Is it accessable from within OpenCPN or must you have a gpx receiver?

Could be handy tool to jump direct to world locations.

[sinbad7]

Paul..

Found it!! Forgotten to tick GPX icons..

Didn't move to the mark as expected. But of course it couldn't as it concerns ALL the marks entered.

Wish there had been a way to set up a way to "go to map display 1."
or whatever map area had been previously set up for a given number or
name description. Would avoid long panning sessions.

Regds
Tore

[manimaul]

OK, I think it's time to do this ... create our own creative commons wiki cruising guide / map. I'm experimenting with some wiki-map technology and talking to the rest of the team about details. If anybody is interested in development with real web and or GIS dev experience, please PM me.

Details:

I'm basing the wiki-map on openstreetmap, openlayers and mapnik
technologies. The map can (will) support the following features:

Anchorages, Marinas, Services (reviews, notes, pictures upload, video upload)
Private layer data such as routes, photos and marks upload and
download. (gpx, kml import and export)
Map layers (google {sat photo/street/etc}, openstreetmap, raster and
vector chart tiles, etc etc)

Will