Watchdog Plugin

[RogerD]

Jon:
I have downloaded your latest WD 1.9040 (Win 10). The Note on the Edit Alarm page is good.
I think one of the problems people are having is using your "Boundary" alarm, which is an "alarm on entering" with an OD Inclusion boundary. In your New Alarm page you have both a Boundary Alarm and an Anchor Alarm.
When a new Boundary Alarm is selected (or Edit on an existing Boundary Alarm), the page shows both Boundary and Anchor Watch. Since the top section of the Edit Alarm page deals only with the "alarm on entering" I suggest you add a Heading "Exclusion Alarm" (or whatever wording you and your translators can agree on). Then change Anchor Watch alarm to "Inclusion Alarm" since it is an "alarm on leaving" a boundry when used with a GUID.

The Anchor alarm Edit alarm page details what most sailors would expect for an anchor alarm, a circle about a point that raises an alarm if the boat goes outside. You may wish to add a note that an "Inclusion" boundary alarm can be used to set up a more elaborate acnhor watch zone.

Good work on both these plugins.

Roger

[NAV]

Originally Posted by NAV

Beside the 4 types of Boundary Alarms mentioned above, WD has the following alarm functionality:
1. alarm when approaching coastlines (Landfall Alarm)
2. alarm when NMEA-data stream stops
3. deadman alarm
4. alarm related to distance to reference position (anchor alarm)
5. alarm when course over ground deviates more than set;
6. alarms when speed deviates more then set (two types: overspeed for more than set maximum, and underspeed for less than set minimum).

In total 11 different types of alarms.

I forgot three types: the Landfall alarm consists of 2 types also, distance and time. The Course alarm consists of 3 types, port, starboard and both.

So total is 14 types.

[NAV]

Originally Posted by RogerD

...... I suggest you add a Heading "Exclusion Alarm" (or whatever wording you and your translators can agree on). Then change Anchor Watch alarm to "Inclusion Alarm" since it is an "alarm on leaving" a boundry when used with a GUID.

For the header I suggest: 'Boundary approach', for the anchor watch I suggest the more general 'Inside/Outside boundary'.

[NAV]

Another inconsistency. The text messages for the Boundary Alarms (Time and Distance) are unnecessary different for the situation where you are inside a boundary. 'Time' says: '- inside active boundary', while 'Distance' says: '- inside boundary' (so for 'Distance' no difference in active and inactive). See picture.

[rgleason]

Nav, your description is an excellent summary, and should be included somewhere in the documentation. It would be very worthwhile to refine this so to improve understanding and accuracy!
===

For each of these 4 types of WD alarms, in OD the area can be flagged graphically (only) to avoid, to stay within or to be a general area without additional graphical indication, and to be active (showing) or inactive (greyed or hidden) [I would prefer showing/greyed or hidden]. Not in all possible cases these parameters will effect WD.[I am not sure if any of these parameters affect WD, in fact I think none of them affect WD, I may be wrong, but Jon would be able to advise.]

Only for the first 2 types of WD alarms mentioned above, in WD the alarm can be flagged to react only for areas that are (in OD) labeled as to avoid, or to stay within, or for all areas. And again, on top of that, you can indicate in WD whether this should be done only for areas labeled in OD as active, or inactive, or both.

There is something I am not understanding here, [I have not gotten completely into the weeds and details with both the WD and OD plugins.] NAV are you saying that the OD parameter for "inclusion, exclusion and neither" is passed to WD and used?
-If so, I believe that is incorrect.
-If not, I believe this sentence needs a little more work for clarity.

Thank you for taking the time to write this summary. I think it can become a part of the "Summary of Interaction between WD & OD Plugins."

Perhaps Jon could review?

[rgleason]

Gilletarom,

Not to qibble, but for your interest in how different nationalities think...

"Inclusion" : Sounds if boat comes within a boundary with external grid

I might write it this way for better understanding:

"Inclusion" : Sounds if boat wanders outside a boundary [as in sheep pen] which may happen to be showing the recommended graphic with an external grid [this is a separate user choice for the graphic representation "inclusion" done from within OD].

For brevity perhaps:

"Inclusion": Alarm when boat escapes the enclosure/boundary [sheep pen, boat pen].

Note: An Alarm can be "Sound" or "Message only"

Pen or Enclosure
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_%28enclosure%29

[NAV]

Originally Posted by rgleason

There is something I am not understanding here, [I have not gotten completely into the weeds and details with both the WD and OD plugins.] NAV are you saying that the OD parameter for "inclusion, exclusion and neither" is passed to WD and used?
-If so, I believe that is incorrect.
-If not, I believe this sentence needs a little more work for clarity.
.........................

Perhaps Jon could review?

I wouldn't know how else WD can sound an alarm only for a certain boundary type (e.g. exclusion) and for a certain status (e.g. active).

A review by Jon would be good and is appreciated.

[rgleason]

Regarding the listing of Nmea alarms. This time based feature may be expanded to include max/min values or range checking, as for example Depth. (future)

[Gilletarom]

Originally Posted by rgleason

Gilletarom, ...

Alarm when boat escapes the enclosure/boundary ...

I do not undestand ... "Escape" can be understand by "Come in or go out" . But, now, if I understand the functionning of WD, we have never "Go out" ... ?
Best regards. GilletaroM.

[jongough]

Roger,
Could we just have 'Exclusion Alarms' as a heading to the top section, remove the paragraph regarding entering boundaries, and change Anchor Watch to 'Inclusion Alarm'? Would this then simplify the screen and still make sense?

Jon

Originally Posted by RogerD

Jon:
I have downloaded your latest WD 1.9040 (Win 10). The Note on the Edit Alarm page is good.
I think one of the problems people are having is using your "Boundary" alarm, which is an "alarm on entering" with an OD Inclusion boundary. In your New Alarm page you have both a Boundary Alarm and an Anchor Alarm.
When a new Boundary Alarm is selected (or Edit on an existing Boundary Alarm), the page shows both Boundary and Anchor Watch. Since the top section of the Edit Alarm page deals only with the "alarm on entering" I suggest you add a Heading "Exclusion Alarm" (or whatever wording you and your translators can agree on). Then change Anchor Watch alarm to "Inclusion Alarm" since it is an "alarm on leaving" a boundry when used with a GUID.

The Anchor alarm Edit alarm page details what most sailors would expect for an anchor alarm, a circle about a point that raises an alarm if the boat goes outside. You may wish to add a note that an "Inclusion" boundary alarm can be used to set up a more elaborate acnhor watch zone.

Good work on both these plugins.

Roger

[RogerD]

Jon:
Yes that would probably work. Although, someone might get confused by an Exclusion alarm on an Inclusion boundary.

Roger

[jongough]

Hi,
WD and OD are independent plugins. OD knows about drawing geo-referenced objects, WD knows how to sound alarms. Now the two can work together by passing and receiving messages, in this case JSON messages (basically a text string of elements and values).

For the alarms where WD needs boundary information it asks OD, via a message, whether a Lat/Lon is inside a boundary. WD can adds further requirements asking for boundaries in a particular state and of a particular type. Both the state and type are the same as OD uses, i.e. Active/Inactive and Exclusion/Inclusion/Neither, or the inclusive 'Any', meaning don't care, just want any type and/or any state.

In OD the boundaries checked are both an OD Boundary and an OD Boundary Point with range rings showing. They are both boundaries, so this, to me, seems logical. The type of boundary applies to both, but the state currently only applies to Boundaries not Boundary Points. This is because there is currently no state for a Boundary Point, this may have to change in future.

When OD completes its check of Lat/Lon inside boundaries it replies with a single message containing the first boundary that the Lat/Lon is inside AND which matches the type and state requested. The response message contains the Name, Description, GUID, Type and State of the boundary found.

WD uses the returned message to decide if to sound the alarm and uses some of the information in the messages that are then displayed to the user, i.e. a change in text in the watchdog window and a message box if requested.

Messaging in OCPN is synchronous, broadcast where every plugin that registers for messages and OCPN will receive every message sent. All processing of messages are synchronous, i.e. each plugin has to process each message completely and return to OCPN (the controller) before the next plugin can process the message.

OD messages can be used by any plugin and OCPN itself to get information. I have defined a structure to the content of the message to specify the source requester, the type of message (Request/Response), the message i.e. FindPointInAnyBoundary, the message id (may contain an identifier for the source requester) and then the message contents, i.e. Lat, Lon, Type, etc.

So a request looks like:
Source: "WATCHDOG_PI"
Type: "Request"
Msg: "FindPointInAnyBoundary"
MsgId: "distance"
lat: 54.0001
lon: -30.1001
BoundaryType: "Exclusion"
BoundaryState: "Active"

This message is then given a destination in the send process, in this case "OCPN_DRAW_PI"

The response will look like:
Source: "OCPN_DRAW_PI"
Type: "Response"
Msg: "FindPointInAnyBoundary"
MsgId: "distance"
GUID: "62ec7520-b58f-4087-b077-ae1c581dfec1"
lat: 54.0001
lon: -30.1001
Name: "Rocks"
Description: "Good fisihing"
Found: false
BoundaryObjectType: "Boundary"
BoundaryType: "Exclusion"

This message is then given a destination in the send process of the originator, in the case above "WATCHDOG_PI"

Using this construct there are validation checks to make sure messages are valid to process. If they are not there will be error messages put in the opencpn.log file with relevant information.

Currently this message construct is used by OD, WD, WR and the AIS processing in OCPN. In some cases there is no response message expected, i.e. AIS just sends messages, but in others the response is important.

So, for OD, it does not care where the message came from or why, it will just respond with what it finds. For WD it just wants to know if it should sound an alarm or not. WR just wants to know if the current Lat/Lon is valid for further processing or not. AIS just provides information on each target it is dealing with.

Now the check frequency in the WD alarm screen determines how often to check for a Lat/Lon being in a boundary. One other item is that for each boundary check based on time there are up to 11 Lat/Lon messages to OD, for each distance check there are up to 163 Lat/Lon messages to OD.

Hope this helps someone

Jon

[jongough]

Roger,
I think someone will always get confused. I am trying to reduce the number of those and reduce the size of the dialog as it is already too big for some. I was hoping that using the word 'Exclusion' would suggest the alarm would be sounded on entering or about to enter. The Inclusion boundary is just a name not an indication of whether you should be in or out of it, and you may want to be alerted to entering a good area, i.e race area, good fishing ground, etc.

Jon

Originally Posted by RogerD

Jon:
Yes that would probably work. Although, someone might get confused by an Exclusion alarm on an Inclusion boundary.

Roger

[jongough]

NAV,
Fixed with OD patch 671.

Jon

Originally Posted by NAV

Jon,
The answer to both questions is yes.

[RogerD]

Jon:
Yes. Do it the simple way and let the manual get into details.

Roger

Roger,
Could we just have 'Exclusion Alarms' as a heading to the top section, remove the paragraph regarding entering boundaries, and change Anchor Watch to 'Inclusion Alarm'? Would this then simplify the screen and still make sense?

Jon