OpenCPN General

[LeaseOnLife]

Barnakiel

I don't have a final answer on this, I asked the same question in the Beta forum:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...91&postcount=9

Some BSB and some GEO and CM93/2 and S57/ENC are supported. I say "some" because there are versions of BSB and GEO charts.

Maptech started with some encryption when introducing BSB 4.0 which I believe is not supported by opencpn.

Hopefully Dave chimes in with a final statement about supported chart formats.

Dirk

[sinbad7]

To my knowledge,none of them presently. I HAVE made a request to Dave some time ago to make OpenCPN accept scanned raster maps but he presently has his hands full preparing the new version.

The NZ maps can be reduced to 75 dpi resolution as this is more than adequate for a PC screen. You can further reduce the maps in physical size,and finally use a .jpg compression utility.

Most of the free/affordable nav progs. all have raster capability so I think in time OpenCPN will also need to offer this facility.

You can see an example from this link:

The original was 77 MB 150 dpi resolution,now reduced to 1 MB and 75 dpi.
You can even reduce the file size further by reducing the physical map size.

[dacust]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Can someone give me a tip - what format raster is supported by OpenCPN? Bmp, jpg, tiff ?

THX
b.

KAP - BSB - proprietary and must be licensed to produce them.

So, the trick is to find a public format, with tools to be able to create geo-referenced charts from images, and then convince Dave it'd be a good idea to support that format.

I vote for .tif, .jpg, .bmp with a world file. I can create .jpg's w/.jpws of the entire USA in photo and topo maps.

-dan

[sinbad7]

Correction re message 17.

The NZ map file was 3.8 MB originally,not 77 MB...

[sinbad7]

I'm starting with some .tiff images of New Zealand marine charts. 166 charts at 660mb. Good collection if we can get them veiwable in OpenCPN.

-dan

I seem to have lost the link to the NZ chart downloads. Could you please list it here?

[dacust]

Originally Posted by sinbad7

I seem to have lost the link to the NZ chart downloads. Could you please list it here?

It's on my Chart Links page. Last one in the first section.

-dan

[barnakiel]

Well if OpenCPN does NOT support any open raster then part of the discussion is pretty academic. Let's wait and see what they will support. It would be nice to stay as close to bmp/png/jpg as possible. Can these be geo-referenced?

But this is just half of the story since the future is definitely in the vectors and all vectors I know are just prohibitively expensive. OK for one area, but what about people cruising extensively? Is there anything like online swap for the cartridges by now?

I geo-referenced bmp for SeaClear and it was very easy and fast. I used Google Earth screen dumps, weather faxes, etc..

b.

[dacust]

I found a simple georeferincing tool. Does nothing but that. Easy to use. I did my first one in about 2 minutes. At that rate, I should be able to do the entire New Zealand set of 167 charts in one weekend, if I didn't go blind doing it....

Image Georeferencer - And, imaginatively enough, that's the name of it.

Supports png, bmp, gif, tif, jpg, and quite a few others.

Creates a World file. Does not alter the original image.

So, how about some of the rest of you that are interested in this, check out that tool and see what you think.

FYI: I found several others, but they all seem to want you to have another already-referenced image loaded to compare it to. They were also all able to do so much more, that I got quickly confused trying to figure how to do my simple task.

-dan

[LeaseOnLife]

Originally Posted by dacust

I found a simple georeferincing tool. Does nothing but that. Easy to use. I did my first one in about 2 minutes. At that rate, I should be able to do the entire New Zealand set of 167 charts in one weekend, if I didn't go blind doing it....

Image Georeferencer - And, imaginatively enough, that's the name of it.

Supports png, bmp, gif, tif, jpg, and quite a few others.

Creates a World file. Does not alter the original image.

So, how about some of the rest of you that are interested in this, check out that tool and see what you think.

FYI: I found several others, but they all seem to want you to have another already-referenced image loaded to compare it to. They were also all able to do so much more, that I got quickly confused trying to figure how to do my simple task.

-dan

dacust, great find! One issue though, it seems to only like x/y coordinates in UTM, am I correct? It would be great to be able to enter degrees, minutes, seconds or degrees, minutes, decimals. Did you find a setting to change this?

but I think we are getting somewhere! And source code is available too!

[dacust]

Originally Posted by LeaseOnLife

dacust, great find! One issue though, it seems to only like x/y coordinates in UTM, am I correct? It would be great to be able to enter degrees, minutes, seconds or degrees, minutes, decimals. Did you find a setting to change this?

but I think we are getting somewhere! And source code is available too!

Nope, I didn't find a way to change the inputs.

OK, so here are the others I found (and just to have all the links in the same place, I have gvSIG and Georeferencer there, too.):

Quantum GIS

MapMaker

gvSIG

Georeferencer

Both of these new ones seem to want you to have another already-georeferenced image to align it to.

BTW: You can put an image into Google Earth, but I found no way to save it with the georeferencing.

-dan

[LeaseOnLife]

Originally Posted by dacust

Both of these new ones seem to want you to have another already-georeferenced image to align it to.

BTW: You can put an image into Google Earth, but I found no way to save it with the georeferencing.

-dan

Been at most of the sites, having serious troubles with the more scientific GIS tools. Need something simple. Playing with QLandkarte QT right now...

[EOB]

To All,
Nautical Charts and safety!!!
The most important issue about navigation is SAFETY!
And to keep yourself in safe, everybody MUST USE THE LAST EDITION OF NAUTICAL CHART, UPDETED TO THE LAST NOTICE TO MARINERS.
In the USA and few other countries, you get it for free. Otherwise, you should spend some money...
Forget about CM93/2 2002, 2004, 2006; .hdr, .GEO, BSB2 etc; all outdated!
OpenCPN handles BSB version 3, S-57 version 2 (Dave, am I right?) and CM93 version 2 (equivalent S-57/2). CM93/2, as has been said in this forum, is no longer available but Jappensen still keep them updated for old users. And don´t forget it´s COPYRIGHTED. BSB3 is copyrighted too (MAPTECH/NOOA) but I think, NOOA allow its use (I´m not sure about that)
So, if you have a updated paper nautical chart and for important reason, like to use it, AND REALY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, you may scan it and convert to BSB3 to use it in OpenCPN.
Talking about BSB3...
,OpenCPN handles very well this format, and make the necessary conversion (ellipsoid, projection, datum etc) if and only if the chart has itself all the information needed. If does´t, the chart does not follow the BSB specification and/or probably, is outdated.
For not be boring, already being, please use good quality official charts!! (YES, there are poor quality official charts around the world...)


To Dave,
I would like OpenCPN has a way to make correction on charts (radio warnings) and show the NTMs embedded in BSB format. Let´s think about ...

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by EOB

The most important issue about navigation is SAFETY! And to keep yourself in safe, everybody MUST USE THE LAST EDITION OF NAUTICAL CHART, UPDETED TO THE LAST NOTICE TO MARINERS.
In the USA and few other countries, you get it for free. Otherwise, you should spend some money...

CAPS LOCK PROBLEM plus cross-posting.. Thanks for the advice

[sinbad7]

EOB

To All,
Nautical Charts and safety!!!
The most important issue about navigation is SAFETY!

I'd like to know WHERE you propose to have scanned raster charts converted to BSB2 ?

[EOB]

Originally Posted by sinbad7

EOB


I'd like to know WHERE you propose to have scanned raster charts converted to BSB2 ?

OpenCPN handles BSB2, but as I said, probably it was outdated...