Google Earth Plugin

[r.fairman]

Great Work

I go away for 2 weeks and find on my return a fully functioning GE Plugin. It is possible to export a route from OpenCPN as a gpx and preload it into GE. When closing GE you are prompted to save the route into myplace. When you open GE with the plugin the route is displayed.

Is it possible to plot the boats GPS position on the chart and in the GE Plugin window. Fugawi will do this. This would be very useful.

I am wrting a book on PC based marine navigation a la SeaClear Unleashed. Development moves so fast in OpenCPN I am continually rewriting this section.

regards

richard

[sinbad7]

Pavel..

Did I mention that the GE window when called does not open but just displays the right edge all the way to the left in the OpenCPN window and it has to be pulled out to it's desired size which I think should be 50% by default.

Could you please add a simple Save .jpg feature in the menu.
As you can bear no responsibility for it's further use,if any,there is no need for any complex algorithms defining it's scope/limitations.

Thanks and regards

Tore

[Gilletarom]

Hello,

As with other plug-ins, I am available to perform the translation in French language file for this plug-in.

Best regards

Gilletarom.

[yoruk]

Hello
for our next trip in the Black Sea., we tested 140 charts Google transparency with c-map for Opencpn.
We used the program GE2KAP P Higgins, v 3.4.2
This link, with a screen shot :
Sinop
Michel
Sorry my english is poor…

[nohal]

GE fans...
Version 0.3 beta of the GE plugin is available

Changes since the 0.2 beta:
- Added config options to control more aspects of the behavior
- Added the possibility to save the current view as .JPG image.
- The plugin tries to disconnect from the chart viewport semi-intelligently when the user starts to fiddle with the GE view
- The boat position can be transferred to the GE window
- New plugin icon
- Fixed all the crashes found here

Known problems in this version:
- Disabling the plugin in toolbox while it's window is open leaves the pane on screen
- Toolbar icon state on enabling the plugin is wrong
- Plugin window size resets to default when it's reopened
- AUI code generally needs rework

Feature wise the plugin is approaching what I've planned for now. The window sizing and docking logic generally sucks - the wxAuiManager author was probably born on a different planet than me - the fixes will be in the next version, if I experience a bit of an enlightenment...
As I'm in armchair mode right now and don't even have a NMEA simulator installed, all the logic dealing with boat movement is absolutely untested.
This version also brings a few internal optimizations trying to save a few CPU cycles. This logic will need some tuning not to be annoying, any feedback appreciated.

Important note for GE offline use
GE tries to connect to the internet on startup and if it's not available it waits for some time (about a minute on my machine), hoping the connection will come alive. There is nothing that could be done about it, so you have to be patient waiting for the plugin to start in this scenario. After another while, GE displays two dialogs telling you, that there's no internet connection and whether you want to troubleshoot the problem. Answering No to the question is the thing to do. Unfortunately while displaying these dialogs, GE "steals" the focus and mouse wheel events don't get to OpenCPN anymore. To reclaim the mouse for OpenCPN, resize the GE plugin view a little bit and you are set again. This is inconvenient, I know, but currently I can't find any other workaround.

Populating the GE cache for offline use
Google Earth is designed with a permanent highspeed connection to the internet in mind, but can be used offline if the necessary imagery data is available in the local cache on disk.
To make the data available locally, it's necessary to visit all the places we want to see before the computer is disconnected from the internet.
Fortunately we are not the only people facing this problem and several tools exist, helping to simplify this process. Probably the best for our use is GoogleEarth Voyager - read about it and find the download links at Google Earth Caching Programs III
GEV comes with a comprehensive documentation covering the whole problem - definitely worth reading to understand what's going on.

Installation and usage instructions
It does NOT work with OpenCPN 2.3.1 as it relies on the API extensions introduced in version 2.4

Before you use it:
- Make sure you are using Microsoft Windows. Sorry, there is no chance to get this running on any normal operating system
- Download OpenCPN, version 2.4.0310 beta from Download OpenCPN | Official OpenCPN Homepage and install it
- To make the view sizing work reasonably, run Google Earth and turn off the toolbar and the sidebar in the View menu or Ctrl + Alt + T and Ctrl + Alt + B respectively
- Download the attached file gecomapi_pi.doc, change the extension to .dll and place it into the plugin directory in your OpenCPN installation

Run OpenCPN, go to Toolbox and enable the GE plugin on the Plugins tab
The plugin icon appears in the toolbar

[sinbad7]

Pavel..

Looks great BUT,why have you reduced the size of the Saved .jpg image?

Saving the image in .kml format and starting GE displays the FULL size which can be saved in GE the normal way. So why make it so difficult?

Tore

[nohal]

Tore,
the JPG is a screenshot of what the plugin shows, no reduction at all. KML file is not an image at all, it's just a command saying to GE: Move the camera to certain position and point it to certain direction. We've been talking about it quite a bit before...
The JPG product of the plugin is the same as what GE does when you hit Ctrl+Alt+S.
Or maybe I'm missing something, but in this case really doubt that.
The most that could be done to make the JPG bigger is making the GE view cover the whole screen for a while and take the screenshot. Will look weird though.

Pavel

[sinbad7]

Pavel..

Have a look at the scope between the two attached screen dumps.
One is from the plugin having extended to full width.
The other is from a saved .kml file.

Yes I kow it's only a set of co-ordinates and not a bitmap.

The problem is that combined with the top frame of OpenCPN plus the large white area at the bottom of the plugin,reduces the height of the map by at least 5 cm.

Guess we'll have to use GE direct to activate the .kml file and save it as .jpg if we want to use the bitmap for conversion to .kap

Do'nt get me wrong,it's still a very useful plugin and fine for on-line use.

Thanks for the new version...

Tore

[HappySeagull]

I'm a fan!It's better.Nice touch,the screengrabber!And nice icon too!

(edit:Oh! There's the zoom!(on my touchpad it's Hold rightclick and finger downwards on the touchpad...)

[sinbad7]

Pavel..

Sorry,the previous samples were misleading because they had different scales.
Here are two samples from the same GE capture,one saves as .jpg and the other from a saved .kml file.

Tore

[nohal]

Tore,
attached is an overlay of the two images you posted. There is a little disproportion to be noted. It would (if GE is not a totally useless piece of a toy) be equal to 0 if the proportions of the GE window while you made your second screenshot were right (means the same like with the plugin, from the picture it's obvious they were not). Unfortunately there is nothing that could be done in this situation. The "error" (and I would not even call it an error) is comparing apples to pears.
The solution for KAP generation would be integrating it into the plugin. Which is what I'm not going to do before I'm sure it can be done right without producing shitty results. And currently I'm not sure about it being doable (or at least the limits for making it more or less safe)...

Pavel

[sinbad7]

Pavel..

I have asked Dave if he could make a 'Full screen' option for OpnCPN.

I would also suggest you might use a small right mouse click window as in OpenCPN to select the save options and other possible extras. This would free the bottom half of the screen of the GE plugin display. Could the GE display not be made to cover from top to bottom?

The problem is that combined with the top frame of OpenCPN plus the large white area at the bottom of the plugin,reduces the height of the map by at least 5 cm.

Anyway,it's early days and many improvements will no doubt be forthcoming.

Tore

[janp391]

Yes me GE-fan.
Have a problem with the new version. The GE picture does not follow when moving around on the chart and are not following in zooming. Reverted back to the earlier version and all was working again. Did I miss something?

[nohal]

Jan,
you prove what I was feared about when implementing the possibility to have the two views disconnected
Note the checkbox Connected to chart viewport under the GE map - if it's not checked, the views are independent (and it is designed to be so)
Maybe it's time for some documentation although I never thought it will be needed.

The plugin disconnects automatically when you change the GE view more than a certain small amount - this is to allow loading KML files without making the plugin forget about them immediately etc.
There is a config option to tell the plugin whether this automatic (and not that intelligent) routine should be used. In the config dialog it's called Disconnect from Viewport on GE action. Unfortunately this config switch does nothing right now, but will in 0.4...

Pavel

[nohal]

Originally Posted by sinbad7

I would also suggest you might use a small right mouse click window as in OpenCPN to select the save options and other possible extras. This would free the bottom half of the screen of the GE plugin display. Could the GE display not be made to cover from top to bottom?

Not a fan of right click magic. Do you really think those 15 pixels at the bottom are worth it? Also would not do anything on the GE screen etc. Lot of problems, little gains I think.
By top to bottom you mean something like on the attached screenshot? I would say it's already possible. Unless you mean something else.
While docked we will always be restricted by the area that OpenCPN reserves for it -also a good thing to keep the GUI consistent.

Anyway,it's early days and many improvements will no doubt be forthcoming.

That's for sure. What I'm not sure is whether I want to fight with GE a lot more. To be honest I have different projects which are much more fun on my mind. And the winter is over even here, not to forget