Messy o-charts

[Kapu]

Am I doing something wrong when o-charts appear quite messy? Enclosed is a snapshot from my home waters (o-charts on the left) and frankly speaking it looks terrible. The most annoying feature is that waterways are shown with such a thin line that they are barely visible. I have tried different settings of OpenCPN but haven't found any improvements.

On the right is the same area from an Android app Mapitare. Quite a difference.

[sv_pelagia]

Interesting. Excluding land features such as height contours (which are not usually shown on o charts) , I do not see the o-charts as "worse". Also, you should consider changing your vector chart settings, sjch as depth chart contours.

A better comparison would be how they compare with official vexmctor charts (or even paper charts).

[Kapu]

Of course it's not so important how fancy the chart looks but if you have great difficulties in recognizing which line to follow then the chart is not very good. In our scattered archipelago there are lots of waterways crisscrossing with other lines. Waterways should be clearly identifiable.

I just wonder if it's possible to make waterways more visible in o-charts. Some time ago I asked this from the manufacturer of o-charts but didn't get any answer.

[Hakan]

Kapu..
The "recommended tracks" (RECTRC) are not able to change by the user. I suppose what's on the o-charts does following the S-52 standard for ENC charts.
The charts from o-charts and details included are as distributed from the Finnish Hydrographical office. OCPN or o-chart doesn't change or add anything. But I do agree waterways around Sökö could have been more detailed. Maybe no commercial ship traffic there?

[Kapu]

Håkan,

Thank you for your reply. I think you are right about unchanged official source data that has been used. Navionics charts have the same handicap of poorely identifiable waterways. Unfortunately it’s not any better on ship routes. Enclosed is Helsinki harbor area where ships to Stockholm and Tallinn are sailing. Obviously Mapitare is processing the official data somehow as they are targeting to same looks as paper charts.

My old Raymarine E120 MFD broke down and I replaced it by a PC and OpenCPN with o-charts. Just recently I succeeded to get Mapitare on PC when I updated to Win11 an installed Windows Subsystem for Android but I still need also OpenCPN because it’s not possible to connect radar to Mapitare. Well, I’m still struggling with Raymarine radar and OpenCPN but at least it maybe possible to make it work...

[bergius]

Originally Posted by Kapu

Thank you for your reply. I think you are right about unchanged official source data that has been used. Navionics charts have the same handicap of poorely identifiable waterways. Unfortunately it’s not any better on ship routes. Enclosed is Helsinki harbor area where ships to Stockholm and Tallinn are sailing.

Agreed, Navionics is really poor with recommended routes and lights. Here’s that same spot in Orca:



and Navionics:



And for comparison, OpenSeaMap (without soundings):



I guess wherever the Navionics maps design is made, people don’t use recommended routes. In the rocky coasts of Finland and Sweden they’re quite important.

[bcn]

That's Helsinki with the o-charts (FI ENC) cell. S-52 presentation standard with Display Category "All".


As Håkan pointed already out, OpenCPN is using the S-52 standard for portrayal of ENCs like the plain S-57, S-63 or the oesu OpenCPN format of o-charts. Nothing added, nothing modified.
We show what the cartographer designed into a given cell.



There are settings that will influence colors like those for shallow or safety depth or the zoom level slider at Options|Display|advanced concerning objects presented at a defined zoom level in case of quilted quilted charts.


Yes, we are aware about the importance of recommended tracks in Scandinavian waters.