Marine traffic density images in the weatherfax plugin

[conachair]

This worked well after a quick play, on windows use the snipper prog to capture a screen section of the very useful marine traffic density display, then make a note of a couple of lat/long points and turn it into a weatherfax image in the weatherfax plugin.

[rgleason]

Good idea, I had tried to get Marine Traffic to provide monthly marine traffic data that could be added to Climatology. Instead of providing sortable data by ship type or tonnage, they choose to simply post an image for each month, which is a little less useful.

[conachair]

That does seem to work quite well, I'd a few images turned into kap file with ge2kap but it was a long winded process , then someone asked on another forum about transparent images and a little switch clicked
Is there something somewhere which describes the file format where the lat/longs are stored? Istr it's xml with a user and built in. Might be nice to maybe stitch a load of images together for an area with the lat/long process done up on github or somewhere for others to use.
Maybe python could automate the process, scraping the site. Though prob beyond my meagre programming skills and possibly a bit naughty.
Handy thing to have though, some strange busy areas seem to pop up along coasts.

[seandepagnier]

Where can I download the actual AIS streams used to generate this chart?

It would be possible for a plugin to display the ships depending on time of year, and also filters for types of ships, as well as showing the speed they are moving.

[rgleason]

Sean, I wrote Marine Traffic several years ago and was put in touch with the president I believe. I offered Opencpn's assistance in getting traffic density maps created if we could have access to their data. In the end he decided that they would only share the data as images and make services available for greater specificity of routes, tonnage, etc.

Originally Posted by boat_alexandra

Where can I download the actual AIS streams used to generate this chart?

It would be possible for a plugin to display the ships depending on time of year, and also filters for types of ships, as well as showing the speed they are moving.

See these posts in the Climatology Database Search thread
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...rchid=29100765




Also please see this Marinetraffic Page which has selections for Vessel Type and Vessel Size, also by Year!
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais...ry:25.0/zoom:3


Maybe some of that could be used?

[rgleason]

Sean, I think this would be a a very helpful thing to know about crossing oceans. I wonder if would be worthwhile to approach marine traffic again, with a specific request.

[Moo]

This might help

https://towardsdatascience.com/creat...a-30bc68d8530e

[Baksteen]

Why through Weatherfax and not MBTile? If one would have a (free/open) georeferenced image the conversion would be very simple.

I don't think MarineTraffic density maps are free of use? Anyone has a link?

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Baksteen

Why through Weatherfax and not MBTile? If one would have a (free/open) georeferenced image the conversion would be very simple.

Done that before but it's actually much nice to have the image overlaid on a chart. And *much* easier to use the weatherfax prog.

I don't think MarineTraffic density maps are free of use? Anyone has a link?

Free on their web site, though maybe copywrite so could be a bit cheeky copying and pasting, who's to know... -

[seandepagnier]

I'm still confused why we cannot download the data used to create the images.

How does marine traffic get this? With this data a plugin could have configurable displays showing the traffic at various times of year, and the speed of the vessels and many more filters.

[250224]

I suppose Marine traffic has to pay satellite providers for the AIS data. This probably is not cheap. For coastal location they have (and sponsor) AIS base stations. So I understand that they neither can nor want to give their data away gratis.

What I do not understand however is their outrageous pricing. And the method to entice people with free access only to severly restrict it later. E.g. the voyage data which has been displayed some years ago and now needs a riciculous expensive voyage plan.

Marine traffic is dead as far as I'm concerned. I visit the website very sparingly now and ad block to the max. With more reasonable prices and a more honest approach I likely would have paid (like tidal and newspaper).

[Moo]

I suppose that one could use the API to a site like openais and collect the data for a year or two and produce your own. But all the routes are shown on the charts in references such as Ocean passages of the world, and indeed the planning charts (either paper or raster equivalents) have the routes marked on then.

Investing time and effort in this seems pointless to me, more so when folk usually have internet access when at the planning stage.

Pretty pictures but that is all they are.

[Baksteen]

Originally Posted by conachair

Done that before but it's actually much nice to have the image overlaid on a chart. And *much* easier to use the weatherfax prog.

Easier to view, or easier to generate? By converting to MBTiles, you can actually directly convert the tile-service to an MBTile file using e.g. MapProxy.
You can also load the tiles into qGIS, alter them and export them to e.g. GeoTiff and convert that one into MBTiles. And if you'd go for qGIS version 3.8 or later, you can even directly export them as MBTile. Is that still easier than manually georeferencing the screencapture?

I do agree, viewing MBTiles in OpenCPN is not yet what I think it should be. Mainly in terms of rendering the individual layers or transparency. Indeed for now, Weatherfax seems a good option to add transparency and overlay the image on a chart.
Still, hopefully next big update will have some more advanced display of MBTile.

Originally Posted by conachair

Free on their web site, though maybe copywrite so could be a bit cheeky copying and pasting, who's to know... -

Mm, they're not too strict about its use as I can see from the User Agreement. As long as you do not distribute them. So please don't do so. Such services rely and assume some sort of 'trust'. They put money in the development, and would like to have you view it within their website (for obvious reasons). When they see it is being abused, it is easy for them to take it offline or increase security on it. Than we're not even allowed anymore to use it for personal use.. Please think about it, also in relation to the copied Navionics charts.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Baksteen

Easier to view, or easier to generate?

Both. By a long way.