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seandepagnier · 26-02-2013, 17:01

I ordered a usb radio stick on ebay, it is $8 free shipping, and it is possible to modify it to work in the hf range. Without modifying you need a $50 upconverter to make it work, this method might also work better, but I didn't want to spend $50...

Also the same $8 usb stick (r820t) can do ais.

rgleason · 26-02-2013, 17:09

Which one are you getting? I might do that! I need something to learn this stuff and if it works the USB, low power, cost, AIS and HF is all I will need possibly! Its right in line with Sirf GPS pucks.

rgleason · 26-02-2013, 18:28

After Build
========== Build: 15 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 up-to-date, 11 skipped ==========
Debug
Opencpn 3.1.1405

Weatherfax - brought up mercator. Skew slider was 1/2 way, tried sliding it back to the right. Got error.
In dbgheap.c
else
{
_RPT3(_CRT_ERROR, "HEAP CORRUPTION DETECTED: after %hs block (#%d) at 0x%p.\n"
"CRT detected that the application wrote to memory after end of heap buffer.\n",
szBlockUseName[_BLOCK_TYPE(pHead->nBlockUse)],
pHead->lRequest,
(BYTE *) pbData(pHead));
}

I found Step and stepped through it for awhile then picked Continue and a completely skewed Mercator appeared!!
Now I am going to try to slide it back to be unskewed.
Perhaps we should have an UNDO?

Got
" Microsoft Visula C++ Debbug Library
Debug error
Program ...opnecpn
HEAP Corruption detected after Normal block (#17041771) at 0x13D20040.
CRT detected that the application wrote to memory after end of heap buffer.
Press retry to debug the applicaton."

Fax now appears unskewed in background.

Pressing Retry
"Opencpn.exe has triggereed a breakpoint. Break or Continue.

Hit Break. Then Step Into F11

goes into memset.asm and tries to recover memory. Finally pick Continue.
Fax image window pops to the top and Opencpn is behiind.

Then try changing the size to 0.7
Compputer speeds up (harddisk) and the image converter is slow.
Go into stepping. and it steps through code in memset.asm in loops,
then finally gets to:

}
__finally {
/* unlock the heap
*/
_munlock(_HEAP_LOCK);
}

Gave up on this, not getting any code lines really. See image below.

Then started just trying to do a simple mercator fax
Found that Coord settings were not being saved and it was difficult to recall them.
Tried Removing Cooordinate Settings and it did not seem to work.
Computer is running with very high CPU useage and operations are slow..

Then tried doing same things in a Release version, It was faster getting to setting the coords, ... found that I could not remove coords in the release version.

I don't think I am helping this effort much.

rgleason · 26-02-2013, 19:09

I finally tried turning off OpenGL, in the release version of 3.1.417. It appears some other Opengl problems have cropped up with this new version of the plugin, OpenGL was working much better than this, although it still had some problems.

Anyway, with Opengl off, now things are much better. Skew, phase, size, and coordinates are much better. The coord naming and saving needs some work or I have corrupted my saved coords somehow. I can't seem to remove named coordinates, and I have a lot of blank spaces. It would be nice If I could clean out and reset this list too.

With OpenGL off I when I delete all faxes from the list the most receent one still stays up on the chart. I have to shut down the progam to rewirte the chart without the fax. Is that correct?

Should I test with OpenGL on and Off? I wonder what the opengl problems are?
I had gone to just using Intel Integrated Graphics instead of Nvidia and I thought that and your changes had helped. Maybe I should just take Opengl back to using the Nvidia card, so that that is tested too?

Anyway, I think that many of the problems I was seeing with the computer being slow and high CPU's were from OpenGL problems.

mrm · 27-02-2013, 04:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by boat_alexandra

Precise timing how?

A quote from: JWX

"In most ways, radiofax reception is a simple matter of decoding tones and constructing an image, but there is one exception — the radiofax protocol requires a very high degree of time synchronization between sender and receiver. To receive charts that are not diagonally out of alignment requires a clock synchronization accuracy of about one part in a million, much better accuracy than computer clocks tend to have."

What I meant was that obtaining samples is easy (your sound card hardware will do that for you) but placing those samples precisely on a time line in a multitasking environment is the challenging part.

May be even more challenging from within a plugin, which should not preempt main program (OpenCPN).

Besides, I really do not believe in 'do it all' kitchen-and-sink programs. I very much prefer the Unix way of simple utilities which can be easily integrated. Much more flexible that way IMO.

Marius

rgleason · 27-02-2013, 18:31

Quote:

The coord naming and saving needs some work or I have corrupted my saved coords somehow. I can't seem to remove named coordinates, and I have a lot of blank spaces. It would be nice If I could clean out and reset this list too.

Thinking about this last night, the Name seems to be removed, but the record may not be removed, which leaves a blank space. I might try to find this in the code.

Sean, I think it might be better if we try to do this at a less speedy pace, knowing that progress will be gradual, and hope that others will contribute with more meaningful programming too. That may be less frustrating for you. ..As they say, Rome was not built in a day, and you should have time to enjoy NZ and all it offers and not feel so tied to this promising baby you've created.

Someone in the OpenCpn community must know more about the particulars of getting Opengl in a plugin working, and they might be able to fix it quickly and easily without you having to

, when your time is more effectively spent on the weatherfax wav and image files part.

Also perhaps some talent will step in to help with the download and other parts of the interface when they see how useful the plugin is.

I would not get discouraged at this point, you''ve achieved a lot.

seandepagnier · 27-02-2013, 19:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrm

A quote from: JWX

What I meant was that obtaining samples is easy (your sound card hardware will do that for you) but placing those samples precisely on a time line in a multitasking environment is the challenging part.

May be even more challenging from within a plugin, which should not preempt main program (OpenCPN).

Not really, because it would use audio capture routines and is not going to miss any samples. That said, the diagonal misalignment is likely, and will occur in standalone program or a plugin, there is not a difference, this is why we need skew correction.

Quote:

Besides, I really do not believe in 'do it all' kitchen-and-sink programs. I very much prefer the Unix way of simple utilities which can be easily integrated. Much more flexible that way IMO.

Marius

Well yes, fine, in that case you can just load an image. I am an emacs user.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgleason

Thinking about this last night, the Name seems to be removed, but the record may not be removed, which leaves a blank space. I might try to find this in the code.

Sean, I think it might be better if we try to do this at a less speedy pace, knowing that progress will be gradual, and hope that others will contribute with more meaningful programming too. That may be less frustrating for you. ..As they say, Rome was not built in a day, and you should have time to enjoy NZ and all it offers and not feel so tied to this promising baby you've created.

Someone in the OpenCpn community must know more about the particulars of getting Opengl in a plugin working, and they might be able to fix it quickly and easily without you having to

, when your time is more effectively spent on the weatherfax wav and image files part.

You can edit the opencpn config file, not sure where it is on windows, it could even possibly be in the registry.

I updated the code it should work with spaces in coords now, and also the skew should work.

Is it completely white in opengl? This is a texture size limitation I need to address.

seandepagnier · 27-02-2013, 19:51

update.. skew is still broken.. at least now I have a test case for that.

rgleason · 27-02-2013, 19:55

Sean,

That was a quick response and update. Lost Lan and Internet yesterday, too hot router became toast, and DSL modem is still misbehaving. Read Dave's announcement about new 3.2.0 version and checked out the Documentation pages and ran into this OpenGL information which puts OpenGL problems into perspective:

"Microsoft has gone from support to hostility towards OpenGL. There is currently a lot of trouble with OpenGL on Vista and W7 for all OpenGL applications, not just OpenCPN.
"OpenCPNs performance with OpenGL is highly dependent upon your graphics hardware and drivers.
"Some graphics chip sets (e.g.intel 945G) have rather poor OpenGL driver support, so that we cannot fully utilize the hardware acceleration potential of these systems.
"nVidia graphics, even very old cards, seem to perform very well.
"There is a lot of trouble with OpenGL on Vista and W7. Microsoft implemented a new screen compositing model for Vista and later, which "broke" many OpenGL apps
Conclusion:Using OpenGL with OpenCPN will be a significant upgrade for some users of OpenCPN, but OpenGL may not be "better" for everyone's OCPN application.
So, user's choice. If OpenGL works better for you, then use it. If not, the old DC based graphics render system is still in place, with performance equivalent to Version 2.5.0.
Find the latest driver for your graphic card. The driver that came with your operating system, is not likely to be the best. Start looking at your graphic card makers home page.
Go to the ToolBox->Settings and tick the two boxes "Use OpenGL" and "Enable Smooth Panning/Zooming".
If you have a lot of graphic memory, or very little, try to add the following to your config (ini on windows) file: "GPUMemorySize=nnn"
where nnn is graphics card memory size, in MBytes. 256 MBytes is the default.

-----

A. Coordinate Setting - Good idea will edit config file to remove white spaces.

B. Not sure what you mean. -White in the fax area when the renderer is working? If so, yes it is white under the thin strip of fax at the top that has already been written, underneath that the area is completely white, ready for the image rendered to convert and write the image. I think it is working, but it is really really slow using the Intel Integrated HP Graphics, so I am going to try the Nvidia card again, or turn of OpenGL when using weatherfax - "Is it completely white in opengl? This is a texture size limitation I need to address." -Also going to try that memory limit

"GPUMemorySize=nnn"

C. Thanks for the update, will check it out! and let you know more about OpenGL on Nvidia again (like you really want to know

) The funny thing is that the Nvidia openGL seems to work fine with OpenCPN. When I was testing the new Icons and Settings/Options with Jesper, we had some troubles at first and then they were resolved pretty quickly. There must be some aspects about this intensive image operation that OpenGL is pretty picky about. Maybe I'll learn something more that will help. I don't think there is a good way to debug OpenGL, but at least we now what it is now.

Best,
Rick

rgleason · 01-03-2013, 17:59

git got weatherfax_pi 100%.
first cmake tinyxml was not found -is this important?
second cmake --build .
looks like tinyxml compiled -flashed by. There were 253 warnings and 0 errors.

Under opencpn-git/build/plugins/weatherfax_pi/debug I found a new weatherfax_pi.dll

Under opencpn-git/build/plugins/weatherfax_pi/release I found a Feb 26 weatherfax_pi.dll so it was not compiled.

Then I went to MS VC++ Express and set it to do a Release and picked Release build. Attached is the Output.txt file as doc. I then found a new Release dll in
opencpn-git/build/plugins/weatherfax_pi/release with todays date weatherfax_pi.dll so I am going to copy to an Opencpn 3.1.1417 version that is working rather than debug tonight, so I simply copied over the Feb 26 version. This release dll has been renamed by adding .doc and attached if anyone wants to test. -

Take off the extensions so that it reads weatherfax_pi.dll and copy it to your opencpn/plugins directory and let Sean know what you find please.

Loaded two weatherfaxes fine. Worked great.
Loaded polar weatherfax defined "Get Mapping" etc. It did not appear. Went back and edited it and realized that after "Get Mapping" we should hit "Apply" to straighten out the meridians.. Then I can pick the coords easier. It was almost straight, perhaps the printed meridian was not exactly vertical.... I wonder if we could have a line guide of some sort?

-It didn't work very well for me. I need to get a better polar with the lat long!!!! but it did do what I told it to. This was all without OpenGL turned on.

LJH · 02-03-2013, 01:51

Just loaded the dll and a few images. It is quite a bit different from the last version I tried. I trialed it with OpenGL On. (Win7 SP1 (64bit) NVIDA GTX560M)

Edit Fax Image Window cannot be maximized – it is much easier to work with a larger window so you don't have to continually scroll back and forth to set you coordinates or mapping information. (see first two screen captures)

Image Correction

Rotation button
Skew – I did not need it, but the image either did not move or it lagged the slider considerably

Coordinate Mapping Correction

What is the purpose of the size multiplier?
Polar – There was no vertical meridian on the fax, so I had to estimate. Maybe we could have a vertical guide line in the middle of the window when we select polar that we can use a reference when scrolling.
I tend to work left to right – almost missed the apply button! Maybe should switch its position with the Get Mapping button so it is a bit more intuitive.
After Apply the window goes blank. It took a while before I realized that it had worked and there was just no information in the new top left corner! Might have been more obvious in a maximized window.

Configure Image Coordinates

I am more of a keyboard user that a mouse user and like to tab through the entry windows. I have a tendency to end up with -500 when I want 50W. Can you make it so that the coordinates are highlighted by default so that one can type over the displayed coordinates.
New colours for the coordinate lines are great.

The last version cropped the image at the coordinates entered, this did not

Turned off Open GL. Fax images looked good. The satellite image was a touch grainy, but usable.

Some screen captures below with OpenGL on. Note: the fax images were received by SSB they are not from the internet.

Looks great.

LeaseOnLife · 02-03-2013, 05:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by LJH

Polar – There was no vertical meridian on the fax, so I had to estimate. Maybe we could have a vertical guide line in the middle of the window when we select polar that we can use a reference when scrolling.

Good idea, but sometimes the line is not in the middle! To test, I added the red line to this polar fax, then calibrated. Worked nicely with an off-center vertical line.

rgleason · 02-03-2013, 07:52

Some great examples and good suggestions above...fast response. This morning I tried Polar again, with OpenGL unchecked. It worked fine. Below are some screen shots.

Loaded, phase and skew sliders to adjust - not shown
After "Get mapping", "Applied" then "Resize" to 0.5 "Applied" - below
After "Set Coordinates" and then add Lat Long values. - below
After "Finish" Adjust contrast and background, invert. -below

----
Sean, some interface thoughts to reinforce previous ideas or to suggest new ones:

Skew slider comes up in the middle normally, can we have a tick mark showing the middle location, so we can go back to that setting?, perhaps even quarter marks.
Item 2 above, "Get Mapping" Perhaps when this is clicked, first message "Place line along vertical meridian" "Ok" then the cursor becomes a "vertical line" that is placed on the fax with a single click at the proper location. Then there is a prompt for the two latitude points.
When using the attached 13021903-Polar.png, Resize, Apply (before doing Get Mapping) disappears from the screen (try to resize it larger) before setting the vertical meridian. "Reset" has to be hit to make it appear at normal size. The reason I would like to increase the size is to be able to see the text better for lat long which is more important than having to scroll because the image gets bigger. After I got out a physical magnifier and guessed at some lat long, and applied the Get Mapping vertical meridian, the image processer appeared to apply both the Polar adjustment and the resize.
To help solve the same problem, seeing Lat Long text, A magnifier tool might help, just click on it on the side and move it around, then click again to stop magnifying.
Only worked with internet downloaded faxes this session.

Thank you Sean. I will next try this with OpenGL checked, using the Nvidia Adapter rather than the onboard Intel High Performance Graphics OpenGL, because NVIDIA supposedly is better OpenGL.

rgleason · 02-03-2013, 08:00

I guess I would also like to make a suggestion that there be some changes to reduce the amount of menu area that cuts into the image area, without reducing legibility, so that we have more area to show the image.

Also here is the image of 13021903-Polar.png overlaid on a chart successfully.