OpenCPN

[LeaseOnLife]

XP, 903, NOT reproducible, but Dave said to keep the crash reports coming:

Opencpn had been running for several hours, displaying a BSB chart with many AIS target (Newport, RI). I moved the cursor over a moored AIS class B target, the name showed up, ok. The I right clicked to find out more => boom, no log entry at crash time.

After re-starting opencn, the same procedure worked without problem.

I will leave opencpn running and see if I can reproduce this in several hours again.

[idpnd]

+1 for the hole, the cross makes it look Christian/like a coffin! Love the 3D shading as well, can't wait to see it on my OpenCPN in action

[sinbad7]

Klaas...

Perhaps something like this? Otherwise enuf said!!

[blubaju]

Will, how would it look like if the boat is much sleeker, almost as wide as the hole? Sidewalls already touching the ring > giving an "eyecatch" like the crossbar before and the bishop might leave my mind again... just a try?

[LeaseOnLife]

Dave

Could opencpn use, maintain aMMSI - shipnames list, and continually add to it?


AIS targets show up first with some minimal info (Position, COG, heading, SOG, MMSI). This info is transmitted often. But the full info, including ship name is not transmitted that often.

Many websites have MMSI and shipname info. It would be great to feed a list of the big boys to opencpn, not having to wait for the full info to be received.

To make this more interesting, here is another story:

We were some 20 miles out of Charleston, SC after 3 nights, coming from the Bahamas. Our transmission was broke, we had no, or little wind to sail.

An AIS target showed a CPA of less than a mile within 20 minutes, and these big boys move fast, like 20 knots.

Calling the ship "at position x y with course z" did not get a response. I do have a DSC enabled VHF, but didn't think of programming the MMSI into the VHF, then hail the bridge with DSC. Finally, with 10 minutes TCPA, the full info showed up and I called "MAERSK DARTMOUTH", who responded after the 2nd call. No problem, they steered a couple of degrees away from us, thanked us for an early warning and we saw the ship steaming by.

That day we made it within a few miles to Charleston, then we got a tow to a boatyard.

[kiwiradical]

Can I make a request for the own ship icon to be bright green (in day mode)?

The key attribute for the icon is that it be easily seen at a glance, the eye is most sensitive to green, and it especially stands out in 'red light' night vision situations..obviously it should be dimmed on night displays, but green, even dim, stands out.

Try a green icon, you'll see it certainly is obvious.

David

[sinbad7]

Lease OnLife...

EXACTLY why we asked Dave to always include the MMSI number,AND the name when it becomes available. For rapid identification,he also very kindly included the ship name or MMSI number on target mouse over. I am also hoping he will soon make the text in the AIS query box 'copyable' so you can copy ship details to the clipboard and not have to look for pencil and paper.

I don't think it would be within the scope of OpenCPN to record and maintain a database of ALL ships,and in any case,how would you connect to the internet unless you are so lucky to have long distance wireless equipment on board.

Provided you are able to obtain at least the Name,MMSI,Call sign or IMO number, AND you have a wireless internet connection,there are several ship directories where you can find full details of the ship.

For example my own LiveAisWorld, YACHTMARINE - Live AIS World Ship Monitoring

For long distance 'real-time' AIS information,you can also try this network to see if your area is covered: Login

[blubaju]

Dave,

it should be possible to use an external graphic named "myvessel.???", limited to 49x99 or 99x99 pixels, popular graphic or icon format and every one could change it for himself, be it baby buggy, bike, space ship or even a boat. Never ever we will find a shape that suits all ;-)

You see, plenty of future uses of openCPN. openCPN is sleek, once it can be loaded into the upcoming new cellphones/PDAs - great future!

[sinbad7]

Bluebayou/Dave...

Perhaps at a minimum we could have a user selectable boat type icon, i.e. Sail or Motor boat,and may the twain never share 'the happy hour'

[ColdFusion]

Originally Posted by blubaju

Dave,

it should be possible to use an external graphic named "myvessel.???", limited to 49x99 or 99x99 pixels, popular graphic or icon format and every one could change it for himself...

I *really* like that idea

[kiwiradical]

....lets make it an animated gif...... :-) endless possibilities......some even clean....

[LeaseOnLife]

Sinbad, were are working from different perspectives: You would like to have AIS info available for cut'n'paste using the internet. No problem with that, I would like to have that too. But when I have internet, I am usually also an arm chair sailor, comfortably sitting in an anchorage playing/planning the next voyage.

For the times away from any internet sources: I would like to have a database of MMSI vs ship information, readily available when needed, on the sea. I do not believe that db would be very big! Limit it to Class A as a start.

Using any of the db technologies, it should not be hard to get ALL major ships into a db, do the lookup in the db first for displayin opencpn, then wait for additional AIS info to trickle in.

[scotte]

A configurable COM port rate on the "NMEA Data Source" would be handy. While 4800bps is obviously the proper default, it would be handy to change that to 38400bps (or potentially other speeds). Currently, this can be done by slaving to the AIS Data Port (at least at 38400bps), but in some circumstances being able to divorce and configure these specifically would be useful...

[bdbcat]

Manimaul....

More fiddling with scale.

I find that the bishop hat at 33 x 65 looks pretty good. This is about the size of the old coffin/tanker model.

I can scale at runtime, but it would be better if done before natively on the SVG.

Also, tidesml fell out of the icon.cpp file.

Re your earlier question:
The reason that a transparent tidesml icon impacts performance:

When we draw a chart with tide stations overlayed, we have to draw the icon at each tide station for each chart movement. Thats a lot of redraws for chart dragging with the mouse. Solid icons are simply copied onto the display space, as expected. However, a transparent icon requires a "transparent blit" operation to retain the information behind the bitmap. This is more expensive that a simple copy, both in cycles and memory usage.

I noticed the potential impact while adapting the code for png icons. But, to be honest, I see no real impact in actual performance on my machine.

So, lets use the new transparent tidesml icon in the next Beta, and see how it looks to others.


details, details.....

Thanks
Dave

[Zoef]

Originally Posted by blubaju

Another irritation, there is a conflict with GPS-Gate. Like before, openCPN runs, clean exit, I start again, no other software accessing a GPS-Gate controlled port, but openCPN starts with an error: can not access Port 6, close other software. I look at GPSGate, can not find a mistake, restart GPSGate and openCPN and everything is fine. Some times GPSgate is not running any more too. Not regularly, but say 15%.Who is the culprit? don't know.

Blubaju,
Maybe it's a timing issue. You know that GpsGate doesn't start if no GPS signal is available at the moment it launches itself. This condition could happen when you start the laptop. To test, disable "start GpsGate at boot"
and start it by hand after a few seconds.
Klaas