Feature Requests

[Dsanduril]

NavmonPC is for Windows based platforms. Nice for what it does, but limited to Windows. I guess I'm proselytizing a little bit for SignalK, but I really don't care what app, the thing I like is the browser based approach. That makes the display portion largely hardware and OS agnostic. The billions of people that have adopted the browser and tens of thousands of applications that use it means that a lot of the heavy lifting is already done.

I work in industrial control systems and many of the software packages are going to HTML5 browser-based displays because they are so ubiquitous. The back-end can be proprietary (or not), it can be SQL-based, or NMEA-driven, or whatever you want. But once you move the front-end to a web server and the display portion to a browser you free the user to design their own display, which is a feature I love. The art+science of getting information into the human brain is poorly recognized in the marine instrument industry, and I prefer to be able to put together an interface that prioritizes the data I want prioritized, in the order I want it displayed. Not something to be used for charting (there is still a place for dedicated software) but for simpler data displays.

@Hakan,

Your system is similar to ours. We run OpenPlotter on a Pi 3 (moving this season to a Pi 4). It runs 24/7 and without the monitor consumes about 4W. Anchor watch when stopped, and AIS watch and alarms when underway.

We have a number of different tablets and whatnot that can look at that display over WiFi, all very straightforward and inexpensive. So, I think very similar to your use.

But I'm not a huge fan of the display portion (sense a theme here?) of the Dashboard plugin for use as an instrument display. In no way do I want to disparage the authors in any way. They gave their time and their code freely. They made decisions on how it would look and what it would do based on their desires. As with every open-source project we can either live with it, help develop it further, or roll our own (and hopefully then share it back if it is useful).

What I want beyond what I currently have (a chartplotter display based on OpenCPN that is available pretty much anywhere on the boat) is a better instrument display. Just the data, no maps, no moving boat icons, no frills. Readable from a distance. Day or night. That's why I'm experimenting with e-ink. It has so many advantages in outdoor tropical sunlight use that I may (? not to a point where I can decide yet) be willing to live with the restrictions.

And SignalK, that can be run with and coexist on the same small platform as OpenCPN, seems to provide a nice road to getting there.

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

You can broadcast the nmea data thru a simple nmea/wifi bridge... I have noticed many new people do not understand that if there are many nmea instruments a kind of 'mixer' (aka multiplexer) is required as a first step. So that your gps, depth, wind, ais, etc. data all at once in one wifi stream. ... b.

Barakiel, Do you (or anyone) have a recommendation for a good mux? Ocelot's got some 0182 sources, ST1 main instruments & autopilot, & now N2K (SimTalk) GPS. I bought a ShipModul MiniPlex-3 mux with N2K & Ethernet, & connected everything (including a WiFi router) to it, but it's not performing as advertised. It doesn't seem to forward AIS info, & the N2K isn't getting onto the ST1 (although it gets to the router), so my RayMarine autopilot isn't seeing the Simrad GPS. All very frustrating. If anyone knows of a better mux solution for 0182/N2K/ST1/Ethernet, I'd love to hear it.

Also, part of this effort is to get the Simrad 3G radar signal into OpenCPN. Do I have to turn the router into a simple bridge to do that? Or is there a better way for the router to forward the radar signal to both the display & OpenCPN? I don't know what IP address or port the radar uses. TIA!

[barnakiel]

I only have an old Brooke unit that has I think 3 normal and one fast entries and SeaTalk one.


Mine is like this: https://cdnkey-bb0b.kxcdn.com/images...ux_ais_2Dc.jpg


On Ray side I have their regular SeaTalk and slow nmea mixer.


I have this: https://www.raymarine.es/uploadedima...nce/E85001.jpg



Both of the above are way 20 century stuff (read: prehistoric), but they work fine so I am not shopping.


Today you will find much fancier and newer designs around. The standard now is N2K and the muxes and everything will rather use 38400 baud to fly the data around - there is much more data and the slower older muxes will simply not deliver. imho



My boat has only very basic stuff. And only gps and ais are used over the wireless (for the devices in the cockpit).



BTW if in your boat you have something very integrated, a mux may not be needed at all - I sometimes fix up B&G and other new systems and they all have data already on N2K - nothing to mux there then. So you just take whatever nmea is already available from the most convenient out port (I take it from plotters most of the time).


b.

[Dsanduril]

Feature request - if it hasn't been covered before.

I've been playing with quilting a bit, and especially with it off, but probably useful on, when I hover over a piano key it would be really nice if the chart outline (presuming you have them displayed) for that chart was emphasized. Right now on hover I get the name (not really so useful now with ENC) and scale info. Would be great if it actually showed a bold outline in the display.

Anyone else? If it's just me then I'll live, otherwise I can put it is Flyspray.

[Hakan]

@Dsanduril
Yes, Openplotter ver 2 and Signalk's instrument plugins would cover your needs I think. Various instruments can be shown as HTML on any gadget connected to the same network.

[Hakan]

[QUOTE=Jon Hacking;
Also, part of this effort is to get the Simrad 3G radar signal into OpenCPN. Do I have to turn the router into a simple bridge to do that? Or is there a better way for the router to forward the radar signal to both the display & OpenCPN? I don't know what IP address or port the radar uses. TIA![/QUOTE]

The most reliable 3G connection is a wired IP. Use a common IP-switch and connect both OCPN and the display. I wouldn't recommend wifi and a router for that. But If you'd try to use wifi and a sophisticated router for the radar traffic just use the standard router set up. Don't care about IP address as long all units are on the same net.

Read more here: https://github.com/opencpn-radar-pi/...n-%28Navico%29


And Jon; Have a look at Openplotter with it's Signalk, serial, K-plex, one-wire, I2C-net and more connection facilities. Would cover any mux needs.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

Feature request - if it hasn't been covered before.

I've been playing with quilting a bit, and especially with it off, but probably useful on, when I hover over a piano key it would be really nice if the chart outline (presuming you have them displayed) for that chart was emphasized. Right now on hover I get the name (not really so useful now with ENC) and scale info. Would be great if it actually showed a bold outline in the display.

Anyone else? If it's just me then I'll live, otherwise I can put it is Flyspray.

It does highlight the entire chart if it is visible.

[Dsanduril]

Originally Posted by Hakan

@Dsanduril
Yes, Openplotter ver 2 and Signalk's instrument plugins would cover your needs I think. Various instruments can be shown as HTML on any gadget connected to the same network.

Yes, I love the SignalK interface, it's what I use. As noted above, I'm now playing with e-ink displays for the outdoor read quality. This summer will be a big test.

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

It does highlight the entire chart if it is visible.

Now that you say that, I do see that behavior sometimes. When I wrote that yesterday I had a bunch of small area outlines (fully displayed) and none of them highlighted. But now I do remember seeing it at other times, the whole area of the proposed chart would turn red. I'll have to play around and see if I can figure out when it does and doesn't work.

[bdbcat]

Dsanuril...
The chart highlights in red when the mouse arrow is "rolled over" a chart selection button at the bottom of the screen.


Dave

[Dsanduril]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

Dsanuril...
The chart highlights in red when the mouse arrow is "rolled over" a chart selection button at the bottom of the screen.


Dave

As I noted above, I sometimes see that behavior. Right now I'm not seeing it at all, except when I mouse over the CM-93 piano key and the whole screen turns red. I know I've seen it is the past (recently) so I'm trying to figure out why I see it sometimes and not other times. Right now (5.1.612) I am getting the popup that tells me filename, scale, projection, etc. but not the red overlay. Will see if I can sort out when I see it and when I don't. And play with different OS's to see if that's a difference.

[Dsanduril]

Here's a not great cinematography example. There are a dozen chart keys at the bottom, and only the CM93 key and one other chart key show the highlight. Still trying to sort out the why/when.

[Hakan]

Dsanduril..
Let's see if this can sort out some of it:

Only the charts belonging to the chart "family" viewed at the moment are highlighted.
You've three families; CM93 yellow, ENC green and rasters blue.
I you show CM93 charts neither of the other two will highlight.
If you show a raster chart only other rasters will highlight on mouse over.
The same goes for highlight of ENC cells.

Consequently will a ENC not quilt with a raster chart at the same time, or vice versa.

But as a kind of inconsistency will a raster quilt with CM93 if no rasters are available beside another raster chart. Very handy!


To swap chart family to be shown you have to click a chart bar belonging to desired chart family.


Håkan

[Dsanduril]

That's interesting, and maybe explains a bit, and makes me feel a bit stupid (RTFM!). But I did some playing around and came to find (short version) that the highlighting works as described when chart quilting is turned on.

I have both NOAA RNCs and NOAA ENCs. With the ENCs I take quite a performance hit. But I love their capabilities. So I've been experimenting with quilting (on/off), and small groups of 5-20 ENC charts, and a few other flavors. In short, with quilting off I get no highlight. And yet this is exactly where I want it. So I know, when hovering over the piano keys, which chart is the next one to the north (south/east/west). Right now, with quilting off I have to blindly click piano keys (or hope the pop-up has a title/name) to find the next chart along my route.

I'm guessing it is the quilting engine that is figuring out where charts lie in relation to each other and calculating what to highlight on the fly? With quilting off the static borders show, but there's no calculation of what to highlight?

I guess even after years of use I didn't even know this feature was here because with quilting on I just zoom in/out, pan, etc. as I like and almost never use the piano keys. On rare occasions, yes, but not often. Now I am trying to use them regularly.

[MaVi]

Hi all,

I run OpenCPN on a Pi4 (OpenPlotter) and love it very much.

Unfortunately, the system only gets a date / time when the GPS has a fix. This can take a while. As a result, all tracks that are started automatically on boot have date somewhere in 1980.

It would be SOOO nice if OpenCPN would
-Recognise it doesn't yet have a verifiable (GPS) date / time
- Retroactively re-date (time) track details of the active track

I have not yet found hoe I can do that manually from OpenCPN- I need to go into a text editor, which is bothersome.

Thanks so much!

Example track data:See where, on leg 15 I suddenly get a GPS time- which not only messes with sorting, but also adds to the time en route...

Track properties
Name
Depart From
Destination
Total distance 7.89 NMi

Departure Time (m/d/y h:m) 1/12/1980 11:23:26 AM
Time enroute 14770 Days, 00:44

Leg Distance Bearing Latitude Longitude Timestamp Speed
--- 431.71 NMi 048 °T 52° 31.0293' N 005° 04.3635' E 01/12/1980 12:23:13 --
10 0.01 NMi 071 °T 52° 31.1520' N 005° 04.6005' E 01/12/1980 12:29:21 3.01
11 0.01 NMi 048 °T 52° 31.1579' N 005° 04.6114' E 01/12/1980 12:29:35 2.28
12 0.01 NMi 027 °T 52° 31.1679' N 005° 04.6199' E 01/12/1980 12:29:57 1.84
13 0.03 NMi 046 °T 52° 31.1912' N 005° 04.6596' E 01/12/1980 12:30:55 2.08
14 0.06 NMi 050 °T 52° 31.2306' N 005° 04.7372' E 01/12/1980 12:32:16 2.73
15 0.04 NMi 071 °T 52° 31.2431' N 005° 04.7976' E 06/20/2020 13:32:56 0.00
16 0.02 NMi 068 °T 52° 31.2519' N 005° 04.8336' E 06/20/2020 13:33:20 3.54
17 0.09 NMi 036 °T 52° 31.3248' N 005° 04.9202' E 06/20/2020 13:34:46 3.77
18 0.04 NMi 030 °T 52° 31.3618' N 005° 04.9558' E 06/20/2020 13:35:26 3.86

[fgd3]

Is there no provision for fitting the RPI4 with a real-time clock or for entering the date and time at boot time? What about a separate power supply for your GPS so it can be powered up and allowed to acquire a position before the RPI4 is booted?


How is your track getting the first six positions if you don't have a GPS fix? How would you retroactively adjust the times of those points? If your GPS doesn't have a fix you don't know where you were or at what time when those points were entered in your log.


Fabbian