Feature Requests

[sparticle]

@bcn Thanks for the link I was obviously looking at the wrong OpenCPN. The active Captain stuff is useful. As I said I am a user for a few years of O-Carts so we have the best and most up to charts from the UKHO. NM's are very active in our sailing area (Humber and North Sea) as there is a huge amount of offshore wind farm activity. It is a shame the UKHO doesn't really care about recreational marine. It wold be great to update the charts weekly but currently QTR'ly is the frequency.

I think your thinking is 180Degress out in respect of integration with OpenCPN. Garmin will never do it, but OpenCPN could see Navionics as useful and build a plugin. As you say the sounding (Sonar Charts) are early in their cycles but the POI and Active Captain stuff is very vibrant.

As a question to the gods of OpenCPN it is our intention to have a sort of Master/Slave type setup with our master OpenCPN at the Chart Table and a Tablet in the cockpit running Android OpenCPN acting as a slave. We don't really want to do VNC rather a full version of OpenCPN on the tablet showing the active route and being supplied nav data from the master via WIFI. Is this type of usage possible or even Master/Master so we could make changes to the route either from the tablet or the chart table.

I will have a go at installing the android app you pointed to the recent reviews are terrible for it! But hey ho. I will install on the RPI4 Android 12 on the saloon TV and see how that can work with the Chart Table OpenCPN


Cheers
Spart

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by bcn

...With reference to crowd sourced navigational charts - especially soundings - we are sceptical. And not only us.
POI are different animals.

I too am skeptical of crowd source navigational charts, especially soundings.

This report from our good friends explains how it can go all wrong:

https://svcrystalblues.blogspot.com/...sing-reef.html

Further, while I find Navionics charts helpful, I have found their software to be amateurish and inadequate, particularly in regards to waypoints and routes and lon/lat.

[mgrouch]

Originally Posted by rgleason

I had not heard of rpi running android. I will guess you are using the Opencpn Android version on that configuration. Please explain what you are saying further!

How is the massive user base and community contributing? What are they contributing too? I think OpenCPN Users should be contributing more, and I am not sure we need to dilute that by joining with some huge community.... of course it could be viewed as a positive thing, expanding OpenCPN's use, community support and recognition. I also don't know what the effect of supporting navionics instead of o-charts would be...because our intent is to support o-charts primarily as they are our access to many charts.

There is Android build for raspberry

https://konstakang.com/devices/rpi4/LineageOS18/

[sparticle]

https://konstakang.com/devices/rpi4/LineageOS19/

Updated link for RPI4 devices for Android 12. I have been running this for a while. It is pretty good.

Cheers
Spart

[rgleason]

tOO MANY different builds. There has to be a limit. Cheers.
Later: Besides Android does not have many Plugins, which is a disadvantage.

Originally Posted by sparticle

https://konstakang.com/devices/rpi4/LineageOS19/

Updated link for RPI4 devices for Android 12. I have been running this for a while. It is pretty good.

Cheers
Spart

[sparticle]

Originally Posted by rgleason

tOO MANY different builds. There has to be a limit. Cheers.
Later: Besides Android does not have many Plugins, which is a disadvantage.

Sure Rick, no problem. Was just an idea. I'll repost my other question in the right forum.

Cheers
Spart

[rgleason]

Originally Posted by sparticle

Sure Rick, no problem. Was just an idea. I'll repost my other question in the right forum.

Cheers
Spart

Spart thats just my blind first opinion. I am not the boss here, but an Android version that really works for rpi might be a good solution to the plethora of other rpi builds. Thanks for posting it. It might even get more of the PI building in Android over time.

[Corsair63]

Would be possible to compile the program natively for windows 10/11 x64?

and asking for the moon, also if possible to compile for windows 10/11 ARM64?

at least for x64 would gain more stability and performance in modern computers, I guess that most of us that are using computers on board we're using x64 capable processor even if you want to set-up a Raspberry in Windows, because that one is the version for ARM64.

[rgleason]

Originally Posted by Corsair63

Would be possible to compile the program natively for windows 10/11 x64?

and asking for the moon, also if possible to compile for windows 10/11 ARM64?

at least for x64 would gain more stability and performance in modern computers, I guess that most of us that are using computers on board we're using x64 capable processor even if you want to set-up a Raspberry in Windows, because that one is the version for ARM64.

There has to be a limit to the number of versions. We depend on free open source cloud resources for building and repositories and they have limits too which we have reached. I currently have a notice that I have exceeded my use limits and will have to wait until 7/1.


Also each new compilation takes is toll in time and effort on all of us, across the board. --Just my 2 cents.

[Corsair63]

Hi rgleason,

thanks for the answer.

don't you think that Windows x86 machines are very few by now?
most of our computers are x64 capable either using windows x64.
it have to be considered that windows 11 is only x64 & ARM64, x86 has been deprecated by Microsoft, as it was expected in view of the CPUs developments.

I'm retired, so if I can do anything just let me know, I had some fundament of computing but when computers run on pedals
My last programming work was around 30 years ago with turbo pascal, and everything was done in one file and no dependencies.

so if you tell me what to install and how to run it I could try (and destroy my computers )

[Flower_alfa]

Am using Qgis, Open cpn and Google earth!
Qgis has good stability wich is lacking in open cpn. Next Google earth shows waters depths, that mouse pointer information can bi used to build charts. Am interested in setting up open cpn to show GEBCO geo tiff bathymetry image as base chart in open cpn, if developers can make that feature a live in open cpn, so users can download GEBCO image file and enable it in open cpn. Wish open cpn had more stability when working with portable external hard drive, main is Toshiba hdd.

[Rasbats]

GEBCO geo tiff bathymetry image

Flower_alpha ...

Have you tried using the photolayer plugin? It is in the main catalog. You may need to convert mercator to lat lon.

Mike

[bcn]

Originally Posted by Flower_alfa

Am using Qgis, Open cpn and Google earth!
Qgis has good stability wich is lacking in open cpn.

If you suffer instablities in your OpenCPN (version, system running OCPN,..) just describe and document the faults you see. The best way to get rid of them. Here, on Flyspray, on Github....

[rgleason]

I think this is a vague and mean "drive by" comment without sufficent detail to be taken seriously and. it is unlikely they have the time or inclination to get it resolved.

[alanrothenbush]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

I'd like to see some back and forth discussion here, and something more than "I want opencpn to ....."

I'd like to start a new thread with a feature request, but I can't quite figure out how .. all I see is a "Reply" option, hence this reply.

Let me begin by saying that I find OpenCPN fabulous as a pre-trip tool; sitting at my desk in front of a large screen with a mouse in hand, it's absolutely fabulous.

Sadly, what I'll say next is very much along the lines of "I want opencpn to ..."

You see, I find it near useless in the cockpit of my 28' sailboat in anything but the gentlest of seas, and even becalmed, there are functions just not accessible or usable.

One example is the measurement of distance. I frequently want to know the distance to a rock, a buoy, a waypoint, etc., and also want to know long it's going to take me to get there at my current speed.

A rock an hour away is irrelevant. A rock a minute away means stop the sightseeing!

Time/distance measurement is one of the most important features to me of marine navigational software.

But trying to tap with my finger on a tablet screen at JUST the right spot .. twice .. is pretty much impossible, even in my living room. It's absolutely impossible on the boat.

As a result, I don't use OpenCPN on my wonderful Panasonic Toughbook tablet when in the cockpit. Rather, I use Navionics or I-Boating on a much less sunlight friendly, much less rugged Android tablet.

Both these two apps allow a person to move the start and endpoints of a measurement with no problem at all. (They also allow easy access to the function!)

OpenCPN has evolved over the years to include a staggering number of wonderful features. But this most basic functionality is missing ...

So, my feature request: Make OpenCPN tablet friendly when used in the cockpit of an actual boat.