Google Earth plugin doesn't start Google Earth

[balticsailor]

I'm running on Windows 8:
OpenCPN 4.0.0
gecomapi_pi.dll 1.0 (Api ver. 106)
Google Earth 7.1.5.1557

When I click the GE icon in the OpenCPN toolbar the window opens empty and GE doesn't start. When I slightly pan the chart in OpenCPN nothing happens either. If I have GE running before I start the plugin it disappears immediately when I click the GE icon in the OpenCPN toolbar.

When I look in the log file I can see that OpenCPN loaded the gecomapi_pi.dll and no error messages.

I' uninstalled and reinstalled everything and tried with OpenCPN 3.2.2 as well to no avail.

Researching the problem I found here the statement "Google Earth 5.2 client will be the last version that supports the COM API". Is that my problem?

Any help much appreciated,
Achim

[nohal]

Achim...
Yes, most likely - the API the plugin relies on was finally removed from GE. If I understand the information available well, the last version working fine is 7.0

Pavel

[balticsailor]

Thank you, Pavel!

That brings me to the short term question: where can I still get GE 7.0?

And what are we going to do in the long term? Is it feasible to convert/rewrite the OpenCPN plugin to use the still available GE browser plugin and its Java Script version of the API?

Regards,
Achim

[nohal]

Originally Posted by balticsailor

Thank you, Pavel!

That brings me to the short term question: where can I still get GE 7.0?

At least for now from Google Earth - Select "Previous version"

And what are we going to do in the long term? Is it feasible to convert/rewrite the OpenCPN plugin to use the still available GE browser plugin and its Java Script version of the API?

As far as I'm concerned this is not the way to go. If I do any more development on this front, I will implement direct, cross platform, tile server support.
Of course anybody is more than welcome to implement anything else.

Pavel

[balticsailor]

Plugin 1.0 works like a charm with GE 7.0, thank you for the help!

@Pavel, I can at least commit to testing on Windows and maybe Android if you have anything you want others to try. My active development skills are outdated. I'm willing to brush up on them if you think that would be helpful. Maybe after you got going and have some more mundane coding task to farm out. Which plattforms and what development environment do you have in mind to achieve cross-plattform compatibility?

Achim

[nohal]

Originally Posted by balticsailor

Plugin 1.0 works like a charm with GE 7.0, thank you for the help!

@Pavel, I can at least commit to testing on Windows and maybe Android if you have anything you want others to try. My active development skills are outdated. I'm willing to brush up on them if you think that would be helpful. Maybe after you got going and have some more mundane coding task to farm out. Which plattforms and what development environment do you have in mind to achieve cross-plattform compatibility?

Achim

Achim...
OpenCPN and all the plugins are written in C++, a bit of rust does not matter - it has been around for decades
By crossplatform I mean running on all the platforms OpenCPN supports, which is Windows, Linux and OS X. IDE does not matter, on Windows you will probably want to use VisualStudio, as suggested in Compiling - Windows | Official OpenCPN Homepage
There is basically no need for you to have all the platforms available - The changes usually involved to make your stuff work everywhere are not that terrible (If GE is not involved, as it's API simply can't exist on any other platform but Windows)
If you want to get your hands dirty, pick just anything, there really is way more to develop than GE integration... For the beginning, hunting down your favorite bug (You have some, don't you?) is a good exercise.

Pavel

[yachtvalhalla]

Originally Posted by balticsailor

I'm running on Windows 8:
OpenCPN 4.0.0
gecomapi_pi.dll 1.0 (Api ver. 106)
Google Earth 7.1.5.1557

When I click the GE icon in the OpenCPN toolbar the window opens empty and GE doesn't start. When I slightly pan the chart in OpenCPN nothing happens either. If I have GE running before I start the plugin it disappears immediately when I click the GE icon in the OpenCPN toolbar.

......
Any help much appreciated,
Achim

Paul Higgins fixed this problem for GE2KAP and it also fixes the GE plugin for OpenCPN. Go to http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...kap-43680.html

Terry

[phiggins]

You can download my fix here:

http://gdayii.ca/Downloads/Fix_GE_API.zip

then unzip to some directory like: C:\GE_Fix then unzip password is: phiggins

After unzipping follow the instructions in the README.txt and remember you must run in it in an Administrator command prompt.

[seandepagnier]

I was playing around with the subsurface diving application a few months ago and it automatically loaded google earth imagery into the application. I'm not exactly sure how they did it but they are also gplv2 and support all the platforms we do. They use the Qt toolkit. I think maybe this is a good step for the future because the current plugins do not work for me as I have no windows and so ge2kap cannot work not even in wine. There is little chance it can ever work in android.

I also want to see support for automatic coastline scanning to get the highest detail along the coast with the minimum data size and minimum user interaction. We also should support older imagery so you can get high and low tides, so it might download 3 images: most recent, the highest and lowest tide available for any given location. It might be useful to load even more imagery than this depending on lighting conditions to reveal reefs better, or if there are clouds. Eventually we could have some sort of image recognition to detect the differences between the different ages of images, and distribute and share this data so users can avoid downloading useless images. Finally, it should use a lot more than 4 reference points to get maximum accuracy.

[bcn]

Originally Posted by boat_alexandra

I also want to see support for automatic coastline scanning to get the highest detail along the coast with the minimum data size and minimum user interaction. We also should support older imagery so you can get high and low tides, so it might download 3 images: most recent, the highest and lowest tide available for any given location. It might be useful to load even more imagery than this depending on lighting conditions to reveal reefs better, or if there are clouds. Eventually we could have some sort of image recognition to detect the differences between the different ages of images, and distribute and share this data so users can avoid downloading useless images. Finally, it should use a lot more than 4 reference points to get maximum accuracy.

Sean,

interesting field - do you think this can be completely automatic?
GSHHG mentions some manual intervention, at least for quality control.
This is a fractal problem, isn´t it? So at what detail do you stop?
And how good is the base material/images?
Google is licensing all their stuff for G Earth from third parties - hiRes coastlines or inland images are from cartographic institutes. And this is one reason why from their legal conditions you can use this exclusively privately.
Even pulling a repository together from GE tiles is stretching the conditions I fear. Always the same issues with Intelectual Property concepts. ...


Are there free satellite or aerogrammetry pictures?
Yes, some, but not in 1m or better resolution. The recently by ESA launched Sentinel-2A will deliver multispectral (incl. visible) images with 10m resolution and I understand that those will be available like the rest of the results from the Copernikus mission. Just prepare some PByte disks.


Hubert

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by bcn

Sean,

interesting field - do you think this can be completely automatic?

More or less, yes. My concept is the user selects a rectangle on the chart, and the plugin then shows many little rectangles that it will grab to cover the region (with lots constraints and settings to customize it)

GSHHG mentions some manual intervention, at least for quality control.
This is a fractal problem, isn´t it? So at what detail do you stop?

Two possibilities, use the highest detail gshhs, or use the reef contours from cm93.

Even pulling a repository together from GE tiles is stretching the conditions I fear. Always the same issues with Intelectual Property concepts. ...

If this is a problem, then the current ge2kap is also already a problem.

Are there free satellite or aerogrammetry pictures?
Yes, some, but not in 1m or better resolution. The recently by ESA launched Sentinel-2A will deliver multispectral (incl. visible) images with 10m resolution and I understand that those will be available like the rest of the results from the Copernikus mission. Just prepare some PByte disks.


Hubert

Maybe we can use this, but we always want the highest resolution that exists.

[bcn]

Originally Posted by boat_alexandra

Two possibilities, use the highest detail gshhs, or use the reef contours from cm93.

Funny, thought about it exactly the other way around:
use the generated (and georeferenced) shore line from the photos to check against existing vector charts.
Discovering this way deviations or not charted objects or "ghost" objects - remember that shoal near Australia they saw last year that it did not exist.