Making track lines for marine closures

[J805]

I downloaded a GPX file of some existing marine closures which are shown as track lines on my charts like this:




I need to add some additional closures such as this. How can I go about entering them as tracks, just as the other ones are?





I see that I can enter waypoints and convert that into a route, but i'd rather have them as tracks so they show the same as the others.


I tried exporting the GPX and editing it, but the numbers for the tracks are in a different format than what is being used within ocpn. Why are they the same as what is being used for waypoints?



<name>Anacapa Island</name>
<extensions>
<opencpn:guid>20900000-8991-4b82-a32d-8b73454effff</opencpn:guid>
<opencpn:viz>1</opencpn:viz>
<opencpn:style width="3" />
<gpxx:TrackExtension>
<gpxxisplayColor>Red</gpxxisplayColor>
</gpxx:TrackExtension>
</extensions>
<trkseg>
<trkpt lat="34.064961746" lon="-119.409999987">
<time>2017-03-13T00:58:01Z</time>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="34.064962668" lon="-119.409999987">
<time>2017-03-13T00:58:01Z</time>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="34.064847920" lon="-119.409326501">
<time>2017-03-13T00:58:01Z</time>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="34.064660836" lon="-119.408300389">
<time>2017-03-13T00:58:01Z</time>
</trkpt>

[nohal]

I see that I can enter waypoints and convert that into a route, but i'd rather have them as tracks so they show the same as the others.

You do not need to create waypoints to create a route. It is pretty simple to modify a GPX file in a decent text editor and convert route to track (replace "rtept" with "trkpt", wrap all trkpt tags in a trkseg tag, replace "rte" with "trk", remove the unnecessary extensions, done)

I tried exporting the GPX and editing it, but the numbers for the tracks are in a different format than what is being used within ocpn.

What do you mean? In GPX, all the "numbers" (if you mean latitudes and longitudes) are decimal degrees. Always. They do not necessarily always use the same number of decimal places but that is no problem, unless you care about milimeter precision.

Why are they the same as what is being used for waypoints?

What do you mean?

<name>Anacapa Island</name>
<extensions>
<opencpn:guid>20900000-8991-4b82-a32d-8b73454effff</opencpn:guid>
<opencpn:viz>1</opencpn:viz>
<opencpn:style width="3" />
<gpxx:TrackExtension>
<gpxxisplayColor>Red</gpxxisplayColor>
</gpxx:TrackExtension>
</extensions>
<trkseg>
<trkpt lat="34.064961746" lon="-119.409999987">
<time>2017-03-13T00:58:01Z</time>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="34.064962668" lon="-119.409999987">
<time>2017-03-13T00:58:01Z</time>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="34.064847920" lon="-119.409326501">
<time>2017-03-13T00:58:01Z</time>
</trkpt>
<trkpt lat="34.064660836" lon="-119.408300389">
<time>2017-03-13T00:58:01Z</time>
</trkpt>

This is incomplete, and as such invalid GPX that we of course can't handle.

A complete minimal track in GPX will look like this:

  <trk>
    <name>Not needed, but we like to have one</name>
    <trkseg>
      <trkpt lat="37.809265000" lon="-122.448863333"></trkpt>
      <trkpt lat="37.809055000" lon="-122.448531667"></trkpt>
      <trkpt lat="37.808903333" lon="-122.448125000"></trkpt>
      <trkpt lat="37.808575000" lon="-122.447461667"></trkpt>
    </trkseg>
  </trk>

[J805]

Thanks, this makes more sense now. But how do I convert a standard ocpn waypoint format to decimal for the GPX file?



Is there a conversion tool somewhere to turn 33 59.300 to 33.988333333

[bdbcat]

J805...

"Is there a conversion tool somewhere to turn 33 59.300 to 33.988333333 "

Manual calculator.

59.300 / 60 = .988333333

Dave

[nohal]

Originally Posted by J805

Thanks, this makes more sense now. But how do I convert a standard ocpn waypoint format to decimal for the GPX file?



Is there a conversion tool somewhere to turn 33 59.300 to 33.988333333

Either switch OpenCPN to use decimal degree format (Toolbox->Display->Units) or learn to do the conversion from degrees and minutes to degrees, which is trivial math

DD MM.MMM => DD+(MM.MMM/60)

[J805]

Ahhh, got it now. Thank you guys for the help, much appreciated.



Sorry, i'm newbie to all this.