Google Earth to BSB / KAP

[sinbad7]

Paul/r.fairman..

Not bad huh? with a little help from my friends!

Tore

[sinbad7]

Re my #106.

Only problem is,the calibration of the final .kap map is incorrect as the overlaid CM93 with transparent land areas has to be manually adjusted.

The present conversion process:

1. Display required CM93 area in OpenCPN having set the 'Mariners standard' to display only grey land areas.

2. Capture with Snagit9 as .gif file and define the land areas transparent as white,save.

3. Open GE and adjust to cover the CM93 map area. Overlay the CM93 file and adjust.

4. Run GE2KAP which will produce the final .kap map in 100% opacity for both maps.

Tore

[unbusted67]

Paul, you are doing a huge service to the Cruising Community. Thank you. I, for one, will be clicking donate.

[unbusted67]

I am getting an error message on the Beta version that says an error has occured on line 812 "External command failed filepath/etc -colors 127 filenameetc" Any thoughts on what this means?

[sinbad7]

unbusted67..

As an alternative,Paul is now working on an optional overlay in .gif with a transparent land area plus the geo refs of two diagonal map corners. This new option in GE2KAP will allow the creation of an overlaid .kap map where the CM93 and the GE maps both have the same 100% opacity. The corner geo locs as well as the scale can easily be noted from the CM93 map area displayed via OpenCPN.

The land area of the CM93 map can easily be made transparent in either Gimp2 or Snagit9 and saved as a .gif file.

Tore

[unbusted67]

Originally Posted by sinbad7

unbusted67..

As an alternative,Paul is now working on an optional overlay in .gif with a transparent land area plus the geo refs of two diagonal map corners. This new option in GE2KAP will allow the creation of an overlaid .kap map where the CM93 and the GE maps both have the same 100% opacity. The corner geo locs as well as the scale can easily be noted from the CM93 map area displayed via OpenCPN.

The land area of the CM93 map can easily be made transparent in either Gimp2 or Snagit9 and saved as a .gif file.

Tore

Tore, I am not familiar with the CM39 protocol also how do you export a transparent file from GIMP2?

[sinbad7]

Unbusted67.

Most of the users of OpenCPN have the CM93 vector map system installed.
You simply display the area of interest in the scale of your choice and use the free screen capture prog. Snagit9 to edit the map,selecting the land areas you wish to be transparent before saving it as a .gif file. At the point of selecting the CM93 map area,make a note of the geo locations of the TL(top left) and BR(bottom right) corners as well as the maps scale found at the bottom right of the OpenCPN window.
Then follow the GE2KAP instructions to convert the final .kap map.

Read also my #94 and #107

Tore

[unbusted67]

Ahhh I see. I am currently overlaying a Raster Chart with a GE image and my KAP software is giving me the "this may take a while" dialogue. What, in people's experience, is "a while" and what is a crashed piece of software. I am going on 10 minutes.

[sinbad7]

unbusted67..

Far too long.. hope you did not try to load the entire .kap raster chart?
Presently you can only overlay a screen sized raster .kap chart.

NOTE. Only .kap charts can be used as overlays at the moment but soon you will also
be able to use any raster chart as long as you also provide the scale and the geo refs of the TL(top left) and BR(bottom right) map corners. (screen corners)

Here is an overlay I just did manually using GE overlay function with a partially transparent .gif map.

Tore

[unbusted67]

Originally Posted by sinbad7

unbusted67..

Far too long.. hope you did not try to load the entire .kap raster chart?
Presently you can only overlay a screen sized raster .kap chart.

NOTE. Only .kap charts can be used as overlays at the moment but soon you will also
be able to use any raster chart as long as you also provide the scale and the geo refs of the TL(top left) and BR(bottom right) map corners. (screen corners)

Here is an overlay I just did manually using GE overlay function with a partially transparent .gif map.

Tore

I guess I am a little confused about how to use the GE2KAP software without going through the rigmarole of saving a file out of GE and then converting it to a .KAP. Can I load a two files into the converter without using GE?

[sinbad7]

Hi again..

Perhaps I confused the issue.. I was referring to an OVERLAY conversion where you can only use a .kap file presently.

You can of course use GE2KAP to convert a selected GE screen area to a .kap chart.

No,you can not do overlays in GE2KAP directly without using Google Earth.

Tore

[unbusted67]

hmmm that's all well and good but how do you match the zoom referencing in GE with that of you original ENC. I can match up the lat and lon all I want but that doesn't help me if the zoom is off.

[phiggins]

Unbusted67

Could you send me the GE2KAP.Log as well as the .KAP file you are trying to overlay. Send: to phiggins()gmn-usa.com (replace the () with a @)

Yes it sometimes takes the ImageMagick command a long time. Seems to happen when the scale of the GE picture is drastically different from the .KAP you are trying to overlay. I am looking at ways to get around this or at least notify the user.

[unbusted67]

One problem with this process is that when you download BSBs from NOAA they are broken up into individual KAP files. When you go to select a KAP file for overlaying from your chart catalogue there is a BSB file and then 3 or 4 KAP files that go along with it. I am wondering if this is why my computer seems to be grinding to a halt every time I go to make the conversion. GE2KAP won't let me select the BSB file only one of the 3 KAP files.

[unbusted67]

Ok will do. I need to put this down for a bit. I've been at it all day rotting my brain. I'll get back to you guys tomorrow.