Radar plugin v5.0.0 released

[Sailormatt]

Hi All

So a step closer, I now have the E120 connected to the radar and working
However on the radar screen in openCPN I have the error:

Interface 169.254.203.123 Cannot Bind UDP socket to port 1

Anyone have any pointers?

[Mattzilla]

Hi, I just noticed when I try the AUTO gain, click to show offshore, it changes back to Harbour after 5 seconds. Why is that? Using B&G Halo

[Hakan]

Mattzilla..
I don't have a Halo but a 3G but could it be if you are zoomed to a short range it may be the Halo is using Harbor when close?
What happens if you zoom out and get a long range?

[Mattzilla]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Mattzilla..
I don't have a Halo but a 3G but could it be if you are zoomed to a short range it may be the Halo is using Harbor when close?
What happens if you zoom out and get a long range?

I tried zoomed all the way out, and to confirm this is the "Sea clutter" in adjust menu, I clicked Auto so displayed offshore, but it changed back to "Harbour" on its own.

[botanybay]

A question of how difficult it would be to translate one radars image to a different manufacturer?

The first question is if there is anything in the test lashups which allows one to push a known image back onto the manufacturers display (e.g. Pretend to be the Radar Scanner rather than Pretend to be the MFD)?

If that exists I might try (if no one has tried before) to translate the output of Brand Xs scanner and display (and possibly limited control) on a different Brands MFD using a software translation.

The primary reason would be if I were to buy the current "Best" scanner (no matter which maker) which I plan to have running on OpenCPN but have some limited ability to populate the original MFD displays already aboard.

Is this just too crazy an idea or something which might not take a huge amount of effort.

Thoughts?

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by Mattzilla

I tried zoomed all the way out, and to confirm this is the "Sea clutter" in adjust menu, I clicked Auto so displayed offshore, but it changed back to "Harbour" on its own.

There has now been some changes to the code regarding sea clutter on Halo. It may be that will solve your issue. This update will be included in the radar_pi version released for the coming OCPN v5.8.
Thanks for your patience.

[Hakan]

botanybay...
I can't say I can follow your thoughts.
But I can comment the word: "Image" that may be a misunderstanding.
What's drawn on screen based on the data from a radar scanner is not an image or a picture possible to catch. The data are "blobs" with a range and an angle pointing to where on the actual screen to draw it. In some case you can see a vector turning around the screen printing blobs on it's way around.
So the radar program is parsing the streaming data to decide where on the vector to print a blob. This is nothing to catch except you have a radar program to parse the same data.
But of course you can always use a VNC viewer to show the entire PC screen. But not on a normal plotter.

[botanybay]

Originally Posted by Hakan

botanybay...
I can't say I can follow your thoughts.
But I can comment the word: "Image" that may be a misunderstanding.
What's drawn on screen based on the data from a radar scanner is not an image or a picture possible to catch. The data are "blobs" with a range and an angle pointing to where on the actual screen to draw it. In some case you can see a vector turning around the screen printing blobs on it's way around.
So the radar program is parsing the streaming data to decide where on the vector to print a blob. This is nothing to catch except you have a radar program to parse the same data.
But of course you can always use a VNC viewer to show the entire PC screen. But not on a normal plotter.

Sorry for being a bit "informal", yes, the question is if it would be possible to translate the "blob" information from one format to another (e.g. as some kind of bridge) and allow the display from another vendor see some approximation of what the RADAR was seeing.

What I was curious about is if anyone had tried feeding "blob" information back to a MFD and gotten the correct response? Either as a test lashup (send the same known data to an MFD and the Radar Plugin and see if they do the same thing) or other activity.

I can certainly go look at the data interpretation portions of each input to the RADAR plugin and see what each format looks like and then try creating a message in that format and try putting a "blob" onto my existing MFD.

An example flow I am thinking of:

B&G Radar -> Radar Plugin input reader -> Raymarine interpretation of B&G message -> Raymarine MFD.

Why would one want to do this? Probably incremental updates of navigation systems on a boat. The mast is in the air and you don't want to replace the RADAR scanner right now but updating the navigation suite or the Radar Scanner dies, you want to buy a new scanner which is compatible with where you plan to update the navigation suite in the next couple of years.

Just wondering if anyone has thought about the problem and if the formats are just too different? I see a couple of possible paths:
1) Just translate each message to be consistent between the two units, probably works if both rotate at the same rate and have similar capabilities
2) Take the input and generate a "view" of the world from the scanner then translate this view of the world back into something the MFD can understand.

Most likely with enough understanding of the formats it is possible but is it worth the trouble to code up?

Within the Radar Plugin data is there a repository of the messages received from the various vendors scanners or is the best place to look the code itself?

Thanks

[Mattzilla]

I have used the Anydesk app on Axiom 9 to remote view desktop of OpenCPN laptop. Is a way to remote view B&G/Navico on a Raymarine.

[merrimac]

Radar users,

We're happy to inform ou that there is now an updated set of Beta packages available in the Beta catalog, intended for O 5.7.1 Beta. Where needed these are now built with wx 3.2 so that they work with the updated wxWidgets library in OpenCPN.

This also fixes a number of small issues on HALO: Sea Clutter was broken, the no transmit zones could not be set on the port side, updated translations, and some other minor stuff.

After updating the Beta catalog you should be able to install/update to Radar v5.5.0-beta.

Please report if this works for you or not. Once we get favourable feedback the plugin will be released to the Master catalog.

Kind regards,

Håkan, Douwe and Kees

[merrimac]

Originally Posted by botanybay

A question of how difficult it would be to translate one radars image to a different manufacturer?

...

Is this just too crazy an idea or something which might not take a huge amount of effort.

Thoughts?

It is not impossible but I don't see which developer would be interested in doing all that work. I certainly have no interest in coding this as it is a pretty big nightmare getting everything to work, as you also have to translate commands back the other way. This is even worse than translating the picture as outside gain/sea/rain there are many many controls that are unique to a particular radar. You also need actual radars and MFDs. So someone has to spend thousands of euros just so you can save a few. I don't see it happening.

Currently just supporting (for instance) Garmin and Raymarine by the core devs that all happen to have a Navico radar is already quite hard.

Open Source software generally happens because a developer has a need, not because an end-user has a desire. So in other words: go ahead my friend and do it yourself.

[merrimac]

Originally Posted by Sailormatt

Hi All

So a step closer, I now have the E120 connected to the radar and working
However on the radar screen in openCPN I have the error:

Interface 169.254.203.123 Cannot Bind UDP socket to port 1

Anyone have any pointers?

This is some other ethernet device that is not being cooperative. Can you disable this device?

(We should probably remove all error messages once the radar is working. I thought we already did this. Please report this as an issue on github, with a screen shot.)

[bcn]

For translation:
"Display timing" Context/usage?

[Hakan]

bcn..
It's the text for a button on the installation menu for some scanners.
For info about timing see here "@Signal timing"

[bcn]

Thanks for the link. The content of Signal Timing is clear for me.


I don't find that in the UI of the plug-in.
Why when "Display timing" and not "Signal timing"?