Weather Routing

[Gilletarom]

Hello Sean d'Epagnier,

Originally Posted by bewitched

....
In the Plot window the descriptions are misleading. Please use the standard terminology:
Course Over Ground (COG) not Boat Course Ground
True Wind Direction (TWD) not Wind Course
True Wind Angle (TWA) not Wind Direction
Set & Drift not Current Direction and Current Velocity
etc.
...

I agree with this part of the post bewitched.

For a long time I wanted to put up a tutorial for this plugin, as indeed for all your other plugins. And during ong, I delayed the work. It must be said that understanding the items of this plugin has long been really mysterious. That explains it.

To the point that the translation initiated by Pavel in June 2014, I took over translation later was completely incomprehensible to users, like me!
Fortunately, I was able to get the help of a more experienced sailor. And it allowed me to improve the translation in French.

There are several kinds of users OpenCPN. In France, we have more and more inexperienced users at a computer. We also have many new inexperienced users in terminology used in chartplotters.

It is important for them that throughout OpenCPN, heart and plugins, there is a great homogeneity in the meaning of the words used. It is also important that the same situations (or contexts) be named with the same words and / or the same sentences. And it is important that the usual words and common expressions, are not replaced with unusual words and phrases.
Thus, alpha users who ask us naive questions on our forums will be less trouble for using OpenCPN and these plugins.

That said, for example, Set, is less understandable Current Direction and Drift is worse than Current Velocity.

A debate should have been initiated on this subject. And a mini dictionary, including definitions as simple as possible should have been implemented in the manual on OpenCPN opencpn.org website.

This is already the case in one of the two French tutorials where a glossary, constantly enriched, was set up.

Best regards. Gilletarom.

[rgleason]

Gille you judge too much. This is a volunteer army and you can't demand, but you may suggest.

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[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by Gilletarom

Hello Sean d'Epagnier,


For a long time I wanted to put up a tutorial for this plugin, as indeed for all your other plugins. And during ong, I delayed the work. It must be said that understanding the items of this plugin has long been really mysterious. That explains it.

This is by far the most complicated plugin for opencpn I know of.

To the point that the translation initiated by Pavel in June 2014, I took over translation later was completely incomprehensible to users, like me!
Fortunately, I was able to get the help of a more experienced sailor. And it allowed me to improve the translation in French.

There are several kinds of users OpenCPN. In France, we have more and more inexperienced users at a computer. We also have many new inexperienced users in terminology used in chartplotters.

It's great to think of them, but I need help and suggestions because I often don't see it from their perspective.

Originally Posted by Gilletarom

Hello Sean of Epagnier,

The contents of the file in French language has evolved in recent days in the Crowdin.
There are still some items that are not translated correctly but it will come.

On the other hand, there are some items in the crowdin, and therefore are translated, but that does not appear translated on screen .

I have not synced with the crowdin translations. So far it is a manual process, I am waiting for an automatic script before I do it more frequently.

I also recall that the absence of a slider in the boat definition window prevents using WR on PCs with small screens.

I did push changes to github to hopefully fix the boat window problem. I am waiting for more improvements before releasing a new version, for now you have to build from source.

Originally Posted by bewitched

My 2c..

I understand that I can read conditions along the route from the grib plugin, but I find that wind barbs along the route very useful for quickly understanding where I might get sleep, sail changes etc. See attached pic as example...(also, this shows a window open showing spreadsheet data for each position on route).

So.. you want the weather routing plugin to be able to render grib wind barbs but using isochron so the map is across the timespan of the map on screen?

Route Sensitivity - the ability to test the sensitivity of the route. i.e. what if the wind is only 90% that forecast, etc.

Please post more details on this idea and what options are needed, how it would work etc...

A comprehensive 'Help" document. There are terms in the Route Configuration that are a mystery to me. Options: "inverted regions", Constraints: "wind vs current" are examples. If the user is required to make a choice, he should understand what that choice is.

What happens when you select Help->Information from the menu? It should open a browser explaining these items.

In the Plot window the descriptions are misleading. Please use the standard terminology:
Course Over Ground (COG) not Boat Course Ground
True Wind Direction (TWD) not Wind Course
True Wind Angle (TWA) not Wind Direction
Set & Drift not Current Direction and Current Velocity
etc.

Good suggestions, I will work on improving the terminology.

All the above is a winge and a whine I know, so I'll end with a complement: The choices and constraints available to the user in the route configuration is great. In future revisions, please never loose this 'tinkerability'. It's the core of a good route planner.

Yes, well I plan to add more options, and only remove ones determined to have no value.

Originally Posted by bewitched

I must admit I have quite a bit of trouble getting the polars into the correct format. I have them in a .txt file in the format that Expedition likes. Is there a quick and easy way to convert them to the OCPN Plugin format?

It should accept anything separated with ; , or spaces for the polar.

Also, what exactly is the OCPN plugin format? Is there a .txt file anywhere that shows this? (links to the Shannon38 files don't seen to be there in the user manual)

There are various polar files included with the plugin in the data directory.

[rgleason]

Gik

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[rgleason]

Gille i was too harsh but there is something to this. Your suggestions are welcome and terminology does need to be improved. Where have you been for 2 years during dev? I know. Busy!

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[rgleason]

Bewitched I will look at the shannon file but I did see it at the bottom of the wiki.



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[bewitched]

Originally Posted by Gilletarom

A debate should have been initiated on this subject. And a mini dictionary, including definitions as simple as possible should have been implemented in the manual on OpenCPN opencpn.org website.

I'll start the debate..

AWA - Apparent Wind Angle – Wind angle in degrees to port or starboard of the HDG, as measured by the onboard wind instrument

AWS - Apparent Wind Speed – Wind speed in knots as measured by the onboard wind instrument

BSP - Boat Speed – Speed of the boat in knots through the water as measured by the onboard speed transducer

COG - Course Over Ground – Compass direction over the earth in which the boat is moving. Calculated as HDG + Leeway + Current.

CRS – Course – Compass direction that the boat is moving through the water (HDG + Leeway)

DFT - Current Drift – Speed of the current in knots.

GWD - Ground Wind Direction - Compass direction from which the wind is coming over the surface of the earth.

GWS - Ground Wind Speed - Wind speed in knots over the surface of the earth.

HDG - Heading - Compass direction in which the boat is pointed.

SET – Current Set - Compass direction that the tide is running towards.

SOG - Speed over the earth that the boat is moving in knots.

TWD - True Wind Direction. Compass direction from which the wind is coming over the surface of the water.

TWA – True Wind Angle - Wind angle in degrees to port or starboard of CRS.

TWS - True Wind Speed. Wind speed in knots over the surface of the water.

[bewitched]

Sorry Boat Alexandra, can't multi quote without getting lost.

The Help File - Sorry, didn't see that

For the windbarbs - take a look at the pic in my post above #674. The wind data at each grib time slot (3hr in this case) is shown as a wind barb on the course. It's a nice to have for me, that's all.

For the sensitivity, I was thinking along the lines of: 1 run for the weather data in the grib to define a route (which is what we have now), then perhaps the ability do a second run as a "what if" the wind speed was 90% of the values in the grib, and a third at say 110% etc. Each outcome could be shown as a separate route and an indication of how sensitive to the forecast the route is. Same for current info.

I'll persevere with the polars

I have posted some other suggestions for standard terms above - hope this helps.

[bewitched]

Attached is an explanation of the different types of wind used in boat instrumentation. I wrote if for some sail training I was doing a while back.

If any of it is any use to you, please use it

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by bewitched

For the windbarbs - take a look at the pic in my post above #674. The wind data at each grib time slot (3hr in this case) is shown as a wind barb on the course. It's a nice to have for me, that's all.

What you want is already implemented in the grib plugin, or do you suggest a new feature?

For the sensitivity, I was thinking along the lines of: 1 run for the weather data in the grib to define a route (which is what we have now), then perhaps the ability do a second run as a "what if" the wind speed was 90% of the values in the grib, and a third at say 110% etc. Each outcome could be shown as a separate route and an indication of how sensitive to the forecast the route is. Same for current info.

This seems simple enough. I just need an additional configuration option which is a wind speed multiplier. It won't do anything with wind direction.

It would be really interesting to somehow get multiple grib files where each have a likelyhood percentage.. I have heard of this data but never found a source.

[rgleason]

Bewitched I agree with some changes. We need a precise list of terminology that applies to OPENCPN. I suggested this some time ago but did not persue it. I had some sources for definitions. Can you start a new page in the manual and leave a link here?





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[rgleason]

Then weather route can link to it too!

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[Gilletarom]

Hello Sean d'Epagnier,

Sorry to bother you but I noticed a small bug.

I created two weather-points and creat a weather-route. I successfully compiled this configuration.

then:

- I deleted this route and the two weather-points.
- I created two other weather-points.
- When I wanted to create a route, before compiling the new configuration still using one of the old points I deleted.

You should probably understand by looking at the attached screenshot. The red cross should be gone and the new red cross should be where I placed a mooring mark. See screen copy 1

Please, note, that if I shutdown weather-routing and OpenCPN, THEN, if I run O, and weater-routing, the destroyed weather-point is still present.

See screen copy 2

Best regards, Gilletarom.

[wdkester]

Originally Posted by bewitched

I'll start the debate..

AWA - Apparent Wind Angle – Wind angle in degrees to port or starboard of the HDG, as measured by the onboard wind instrument

AWS - Apparent Wind Speed – Wind speed in knots as measured by the onboard wind instrument

BSP - Boat Speed – Speed of the boat in knots through the water as measured by the onboard speed transducer

COG - Course Over Ground – Compass direction over the earth in which the boat is moving. Calculated as HDG + Leeway + Current.

CRS – Course – Compass direction that the boat is moving through the water (HDG + Leeway)

DFT - Current Drift – Speed of the current in knots.

GWD - Ground Wind Direction - Compass direction from which the wind is coming over the surface of the earth.

GWS - Ground Wind Speed - Wind speed in knots over the surface of the earth.

HDG - Heading - Compass direction in which the boat is pointed.

SET – Current Set - Compass direction that the tide is running towards.

SOG - Speed over the earth that the boat is moving in knots.

TWD - True Wind Direction. Compass direction from which the wind is coming over the surface of the water.

TWA – True Wind Angle - Wind angle in degrees to port or starboard of CRS.

TWS - True Wind Speed. Wind speed in knots over the surface of the water.

I agree, except for SET and DRIFT. Neither are self defining and both have more than one meaning to sailors. To me, Current Velocity and Current Direction are reasonably clear and self defining. I would say Tidal Current Velocity if it weren't for the Gulf Stream and other non-tidal currents.

For a mostly amateur user base, including yours truly, I think we should avoid the acronyms/abbreviations and use the full spelling for all of the above terms.

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by Gilletarom

Hello Sean d'Epagnier,

Sorry to bother you but I noticed a small bug.

I created two weather-points and creat a weather-route. I successfully compiled this configuration.

then:

- I deleted this route and the two weather-points.
- I created two other weather-points.
- When I wanted to create a route, before compiling the new configuration still using one of the old points I deleted.

You should probably understand by looking at the attached screenshot. The red cross should be gone and the new red cross should be where I placed a mooring mark. See screen copy 1

Please, note, that if I shutdown weather-routing and OpenCPN, THEN, if I run O, and weater-routing, the destroyed weather-point is still present.

See screen copy 2

Best regards, Gilletarom.

I tried to reproduce but do not find any problems. Maybe you can give more specific instructions for how to reproduce the bug.

In the second screen copy, there are 3 possible positions. If you edit the configuration, can you select "France" correct? Are you saying you deleted "Angleterre" and it appeared again?