OpenCPN Radar Overlay PlugIn

[Hakan]

Matt..
Thanks - Very nice pictures. Third time right - or how do you say it? I must take my boat out for a ride soon.
The "Manual Control" in your pictures I don't recognise. Do we have the same version of BR24radar_pi or where did you find them?
Håkan

[rgleason]

Looks good Matt! Maybe G drive does not like those external references. Perhaps it is my use of Dropbox screenshot folder located on my drive that is causing the problem, I'll try from another directory. Thanks. Good to know you are using it regularly.

[Hakan]

All..
A report using br24radar_pi and wire less network.

I’ve my BR24 scanner connected to a wire less router in DHCP mode. The scanner and one PC are connected to the inbound switch by cables. The other PS is connected via the wire less network.
Conclusions:
It’s not at all a good idea using wire less connection for navigation.
Once the computer used for navigation is hard wire connected a secondary wire less computer may be used as an additional viewer.
Nothing seems opposite to what’s said in the paper referred to in previous posts

The wire less data are:
IP segment: 192.168.x.x
Rate: 36 Mbps (18 - 24 Mb/s)
Mode: 802.11g
Signal: 46%

Notes:

• The wire less connection is working but it’s not very reliable. Other net work traffic seems to be seriously disturbing.
• The PC that’s wire less connected can’t be master. It seems that control signals are not transmitted in a reliable way.
  And it won’t help if I disconnect the hard wired PC and try connecting only to the wire less.
• I can use the wire less PC to also view the scanned picture but it’s likely to lose contact randomly.

Håkan

[Hakan]

All..

Again a test report using BR24radar_pi and Win.
As said before. This plugin is very promising. I do await Dave's range revision.
I've tested to stress the UDP system but no problem noticed:
My normal OCPN set up is to have one instance for detailed views and a portable instance beside for overview. The first O is then a master where all NMEA is coming in. Using local host all relevant messages are "broadcast" to the portable O. My first though was that this will drown the BR24 connection but not at all. It's working without problem. Even the portable instance is connected to the BR24 scanner.
See attached screen capture as both picture and pdf. (Please don't care about the strange echoes. The scanner is at home and the VDR play is from harbour.)

Other notes and some requests according to my opinion:
1. Draw the range ring with less thickness. 1/4 of the actual would be nice.
2. Show actual value on the Gain slider in the Radar Control box. (Compare heading offset slider in options dialogue box)
3. The Toolbox icon is sometimes doubled and there are actually two places in the code rows ~230 and ~340 where an icon is created???
4. A bug: Row ~1360. After this changes the function is working although I haven't seen any dramatic effect.

void br24radar_pi::SetRejectionMode(int mode)
{
    settings.rejection = mode;
    if (settings.master_mode) {
        char br_rejection_cmd[] = {
            (byte)0x08,
            (byte)0xc1,     //(byte)0x0c, Always c1 for transmit?
            //0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, //Interference rejection is 1 byte according to paper? e.g. 08 c1 00 [01, 02, 03]
            (char) settings.rejection
        };
        TransmitCmd(br_rejection_cmd, sizeof(br_rejection_cmd));
        wxString msg;
        msg.Printf(wxT("Rejection mode: %o"), settings.rejection) ; //br_rejection_cmd[]); Gives a more understandable message?
        if (Log) wxLogMessage(msg);
    }

5. Make most log texts conditional to avoid log flooding. (Yes I know it's a Alfa version. Just a reminder )I made a temporally work around for my own sake in my example above(#IF DEBUG Log = true). There is a "verbose" condition to use?

Håkan

[Hakan]

Hi...Anyone for a test? (Matt?)
I found a function in the BR24 scanner called "Target Boost". A text in a manual describe it as: "This feature increases the size of radar targets, making them easier to see on the radar panel."
I've putt in this function in the br24radar_pi and would appreciate if anyone could test "in real life". My boat is not ready for cruising so I can't go out and judge if the function is useful. If not we don't need to incorporate it in the official plugin.
Unfortunately I only have access to Windows build so a .dll is attached.
Also the changes as a git diff is attached though.
Please save the files and discard all .pdf extensions as usual.

Thanks Håkan

[RobbieW]

Originally Posted by blue22

Over the weekend, I installed the radar plugin for a GMR18 on 3 systems (Win7-32x, Win7-64x and Win 8.1 64x) on 2 laptops. I've attached some notes. The most fun was having it run in Master mode simultaneously on 2 laptops and a display, using a wireless router (and no cables) to the laptops. It's a robust and versatile program, great job. I look forward to seeing other people's comments and experiences.

Hi Blue22, just read your document and now trying to make sense of it. What really interests me is that you say you have your PCs wirelessly connecting through gradar to the dome.

As Garmin have chosen a fixed IP address for the dome, did you have to configure the wireless router to accept and broadcast data from that fixed address?

I have a setup where NMEA data from both GPS and AIS is distributed wirelessly via my router using muttnik's kplex utility - compiled to run on Tomato in an RT-N16 router. What I'd like to be able to do is plug the ethernet cable from the dome into the same router and have radar data wirelessly available as well. That router is currently configured to run addresses in the 192.168.20.xx range.

What I'm having trouble getting my head around is the addressing I'm going to need to try and set up in both router and PC, given that I understand the gradar plugin will fail if it cant see addresses in the required range.

More openly, does the BR24 plugin suffer the same addressing constraints as it seems the gradar one does?

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by RobbieW

.........More openly, does the BR24 plugin suffer the same addressing constraints as it seems the gradar one does?

Robbie...
I haven't test Garmin but I can comment the BR24 part which seems much easier.
The BR24 UDP messaging don't care much about IP addresses but more of different ports for single tasks like scan data and commands. A consequence of that is when I use a direct wire connection to the PC the radar can have one IP segment like 169.254.129.235 and the PC another like 172.16.1.1. But when connected via a router the router itself seems more strict. For BR24 that's not a problem since it's set up to accept a DHCP distribution of IP addresses and use whatever it gets. When I used a router both the BR24 and the PCs where in the 192.168.x.x segment.
The br24radar_pi plugin don't care much about IP addresses either. It looks for specific ports messages coming from something having a IP-type address (0.0.0.0)

In your Garmin case you could maybe try to set the router to use addresses in the 172.16.1.x segment instead?
Håkan

[Hakan]

Br24 rendering is sometimes very unreliable.

Using br24radar_pi and Win7 on a PC, ~1 GHz, 1 Gb Ram and ~500 Mb graphic mem)


I’ve mentioned this some posts ago but now I can show what I mean. The scanner rendering is in Auto range mode not very good. It my be connected to that I’m using a somewhat dated PCs. But I do think its worth to spend some efforts to be able to use that kind of machines as well.
The scanner picture is sometimes disappearing totally and afterwards parts by parts built up again. And then on a movement by the boat the picture is gone and starts to render again. When I switch to manual range this behaviour disappears to show a stable picture.
There is a (bad quality) telephone video attached showing the screen while I toggle between auto and manual range mode.
I don't know enough about rendering (or if its about scanner data buffering) to be able to point to where the problem may be but any hints for a change or if can do more tests to support a solution please let me know.

Håkan

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Br24 rendering is sometimes very unreliable...........

I've a strange feeling of some kind of a one-man show in this thread?
Well-well...Upon lack of response I may have to stuck to "if you want a thing done well, do it yourself".

Anyway - The issue is solved! After my yesterday's post I accidentally run into the br24radar_pi commit log in Git. There I found this:

Author: canboat Date: Mon May 20 11:48:02 2013 +0200

Use a much finer beam than 1 degree.

New setting "BeamWidth" (ini file, no UI support yet.)
The radar comes back with possibly 4096 different rotations. They were mapped onto an array with 1 degree separation (without averaging) before. Now we take every line into consideration
if BeamWidth=1, and ignore BeamWidth-1 scanlines if BeamWidth > 1.
Set BeamWidth to a higher value to reduce CPU usage, if needed.
The software automatically adapts and draws the correct image if the scanlines are fewer, as in a BR24. 4G has been seen to send up to 2048 scanlines per rotation.

When I edit the BeamWitdth value in the .ini file the rendering is fine. It's a slightly slower update of the picture upon boat movements but not much disturbing. I used a BeamWidth value of "4" instead of default "0". It has to be fine tuned when I eventually can take the boat out for a cruise but when debugging it seems that BeamWidth is compared to if it's more then "2". Let's see....
I may have a look if the BeamWidth can be put into the UI.
Håkan

[CarCode]

Originally Posted by Hakan

I've a strange feeling of some kind of a one-man show in this thread?

No, no, I eagerly read your thread. But since I don't have a radar yet I can't write anything about. But I have copied the interesting parts for later use.

Gerhard

[Tristan]

Originally Posted by CarCode

No, no, I eagerly read your thread. But since I don't have a radar yet I can't write anything about. But I have copied the interesting parts for later use.

Gerhard

Same here
Tristan

[Taarnskov]

I will purchase a radar in the fall, and then participate with testing. I have an old radar which i plan to exchange with a new modern radar.

Regards, Lars

[jonasaberg]

Oh yes Håkan, I read every post!
Please continue to document your work. Highly appreciated.

[jonasaberg]

Håkan and others,

The below text is speculative.... it is meant to start a discussion since I believe that we will soon have only the 3G and 4G domes to buy. Will it be a show stopper for the development of the BR24 branch or not? It is important for us interested readers that pan to get a dome in the future.

Has anyone investigated the situation regarding upgrades of the radar software? I don't fully understand whether there is a firmware in the radar dome itself or what is referred to in this document.
http://www.simrad-yachting.com/Globa...mrad_BandG.pdf

Also, I wanted to investigate if there is a difference between radar domes sold om different markets. Example, will there be functional differences on domes sold in the US vs Europe? I checked this site for BR24:
Downloads for Broadband Radarâ„¢ | Lowrance
and this for 3G
Downloads for Broadband 3Gâ„¢ Radar | Lowrance
In the documentation it states that both the BR24 and the 3G is sold in Europe with an RI10 or RI11 interface box that need to be connected between the radar dome and the display, but not in the US. Does it indicate there is a difference between the radar domes? Or do I misunderstand this, is it the European displays that need these interface boxes rather than the dome?

Both links contains manuals for the two. As far as I understand it 3G is a newer version of the BR24 that partly work on the same external displays. Does it mean that both work with the BR24 plug-in? Has anyone tried a 3G instead of a BR24? Does it work? I think the BR24 is disappearing and soon we will probably only have new 3G's and 4G's to purchase.

In the BR24 manual http://www.lowrance.cn/upload/Lowran...000760_D_w.pdf on page 27 it states that BR24 is compatible with:
Simrad GB40, NX40/45,
Northstar 8000i, M84/M121
Lowrance HDS

The Radar_3G_4G manual http://www.lowrance.cn/upload/Lowran...3-003_EN_P.pdf on page 26 states that the 3G works on:
Simrad NSO, NSE, NSS, Lowrance HDS and B&G Zeus displays
and that 4G works with the same displays but that NSS and HDS do not support all features on the 4G.

So the common display for BR24, 3G and 4G is the Lowrance HDS. Does it mean that the domes all share the same communication specification, or does it mean that the Lowrance HDS was software upgradable with code to communicate with the 3G and 4G, but this was not possible with the earlier displays?

Comments? Do we have someone in the community that has tried to connect a 3G or 4G to the BR24 plug in?

[Tristan]

There is a 5-pin cable which came with the 4G. The cable is supposed to be used to connect the RI10 box to a Simrad's ethernet router (or plotter). I'm trying to make a connection from an RI10 to a common ethernet router using half of the cable. Does anybody have the pin-out of this cable - couldn't find it in the Simrad manuals?
I have to use the RI10 to "inject" the HDT to the ethernet stream and also to get MARPA from it. I'm planning to use OpenCPN Radar Overlay PlugIn only - no plotters.
T.