New From Nobeltec

[St. Elsewhere]

An announcement was just made regarding TimeZero Trident from Nobeltec. The is a no dongle, run all sorts of charts faster than ever plotter.

Go here for details: Nobeltec: The Future Has No Dongle

[dacust]

Originally Posted by St. Elsewhere

An announcement was just made regarding TimeZero Trident from Nobeltec. The is a no dongle, run all sorts of charts faster than ever plotter.

Go here for details: Nobeltec: The Future Has No Dongle

Sounds good. Hopefully it is.

But to me, it's just another bounce in a dizzying history.

What's new?

• New chart engine - really fast. - The old one was really fast, to me. Maybe it's faster now? They don't do a comparison, so maybe it's just marketing hype for the new chart engine.
• No dongle - There was no dongle when I first bought VNS - then there was, then there isn't.
• Supports free ENC and Raster - They did that once before, as well.

Basically, yep it sounds good. But my faith in that company wore out some time ago. Last time they supported the free ENC charts, the support lasted less than 6 months and they ripped it out again with the lame excuse that they couldn't control/guarantee the quality of the data (that's the data coming from NOAA - the same data they use to create their own charts).

They made raster charts a optional cost feature when Max-Pro came out. Then a release or two later made it free again.

Don't get me wrong, I still have a fairly up-to-date copy of Admiral MAX-PRO. And I love it.

I just never know what shenanigans they will pull next. Every time I think the next time will be the last one. But so far they have managed to only annoy me just as far as they could without running me off. Or they reinstated a pulled feature before I had time to go buy something else.

The one that REALLY annoyed me was when they refused to support the S-57 charts. I had finally made my mind up to switch. Then, out of the blue, they announced support! For about $300 I could upgrade! My faith restored, I paid and upgraded. About 6 months later they removed support. When I complained to support and said I thought they should refund my money since that was the only reason I upgraded, they apologized profusely and refused.

-dan

[David M]

Interesting Dan. I am considering upgrading my old VNS. I need something that just works yet is sophisticated enough. One thing I need to be able to categorize way points and routes by user. What this mean is that I need to be able to assign way points (sampling stations) and routes to different scientists I work with. I cannot have all scientists way points and routes up at once, the screen just gets too cluttered.

The other thing I need is to be able to click and drag waypoints within a route in order to very quickly change that route, without having to go into a menu.

A third nice option would be able to download free NOAA raster scan and vector charts....is this possible with any software?

[St. Elsewhere]

Originally Posted by David M

A third nice option would be able to download free NOAA raster scan and vector charts....is this possible with any software?

David doesn't this mean Trident will do exactly that?

The Charts?
TimeZero Trident will run MapMedia 3D charts, including official S-57 vector and raster charts from hydrographic offices around the world, as well as vector charts from C-MAP by Jeppesen and DataCore by Navionics. The bottom line on this feature is that you will have access to the best cartography available and you can run in and out of the different charts without any work on your part.

[dacust]

David,

I'll post the first response here, and then move other comments to your other thread.

Like St. Elsewhere says, the newest Nobeltec supports the free charts and more chart types than it did before (more than mine).

As to organizing waypoints like you need, I'm not sure it can easily do that. But it's been a while since I played with mine. I'll fire it up this evening and see what I can come up with.

I got my serious gripes with Nobeltec as a company, but as I've said, they have yet to go far enough to make me run. If it really has the features that you need, I would still recommend it.

I really like some of the additional features of Admiral over VNS.

One of the big ones is NavView which would especially be great with touchscreens. Also, if the bottom is important to you, I think you only get the 3D view with chart overlay with Admiral. You have VNS, so you can correct me if I am wrong.

If you have some questions, I can maybe do some screen shots, etc.

St. Elsewhere: Do you currently have any version of Nobeltec?

-dan

[St. Elsewhere]

Originally Posted by dacust

St. Elsewhere: Do you currently have any version of Nobeltec?

-dan

Yes. VNS 10.7

[dacust]

Originally Posted by St. Elsewhere

Yes. VNS 10.7

Maybe you could drop by David's thread and tell him how your version compares to the old VNS 6.0 that he has.

-dan

[St. Elsewhere]

Originally Posted by dacust

Maybe you could drop by David's thread and tell him how your version compares to the old VNS 6.0 that he has.

-dan

I can not give David much of a comparison of VNS 10.7 to his VNS 6.0 because it has been long enough since I had 6.0 that I can not remember its features that well. With four major revisions between our two versions it is just too hard to remember the changes in each of them.

Also, 10.7 is not of interest to him because it does not have the features he wants, but TimeZero Trident will have the ability to run the charts of interest to him.

Waiting a few weeks for it to be released will yield better information. It does appear that the new ownership is correcting the things that turned off many Nobeltec users in the past.

[David M]

Originally Posted by dacust

David,

I'll post the first response here, and then move other comments to your other thread.

Like St. Elsewhere says, the newest Nobeltec supports the free charts and more chart types than it did before (more than mine).

As to organizing waypoints like you need, I'm not sure it can easily do that. But it's been a while since I played with mine. I'll fire it up this evening and see what I can come up with.

I got my serious gripes with Nobeltec as a company, but as I've said, they have yet to go far enough to make me run. If it really has the features that you need, I would still recommend it.

I really like some of the additional features of Admiral over VNS.

One of the big ones is NavView which would especially be great with touchscreens. Also, if the bottom is important to you, I think you only get the 3D view with chart overlay with Admiral. You have VNS, so you can correct me if I am wrong.

If you have some questions, I can maybe do some screen shots, etc.

St. Elsewhere: Do you currently have any version of Nobeltec?

-dan

Uggh... I started adding to this thread and then realized I should start my own. I thought I had deleted what I had written. My apologies to St. Elsewhere.

[SailFastTri]

Originally Posted by David M

Interesting Dan. I am considering upgrading my old VNS. I need something that just works yet is sophisticated enough. One thing I need to be able to categorize way points and routes by user. What this mean is that I need to be able to assign way points (sampling stations) and routes to different scientists I work with. I cannot have all scientists way points and routes up at once, the screen just gets too cluttered.

The other thing I need is to be able to click and drag waypoints within a route in order to very quickly change that route, without having to go into a menu.

A third nice option would be able to download free NOAA raster scan and vector charts....is this possible with any software?

I had almost the exact same story as Dan when they yanked S-57 but they offered me some free options to placate me. I switched to Coastal Explorer after that and haven't looked back. CE will do exactly what you want. As for keeping each scientists waypoints separate, CE lets you store user profiles in user-named data files that have a '.nob' extension. The NOB (navigation object) files contain user annotations, vessel and display default settings, annotations, routes and waypoints, tracks and logs, etc. Basically a NOB file is a custom user environment. You can selectively export navigation objects from the currently open NOB file to another.

CE automates NOAA raster and vector (S57) chart updates -- all you need is an Internet connection. Configure the regions you want to update and choose "sync". Go make coffee.