Plugin Watchdog

[Biggles]

For the past 10 days I have been trying without success to get Watchdog to sound an alarm when crossing a boundary line drawn using OCPN Draw. I have used every combination of the boundary setup, three computers (Win 7 64 and Win 7 32 and a Win 10 tablet). I did get the tablet to sound an alarm once, but I was unable to repeat it.

Thinking that maybe the NMEA source from my Comar AIS did not contain the required position sentence required by Watchdog, I also tried sourcing from my Furuno GP-80 and a Ublox-7 USB GPS receiver. Still the same result.

When I used Nobetec, all I had to do was click on the boundary tool, draw a line with my mouse and when the boat crossed the line the alarm went off. Simple, robust and above all, reliable.

Whilst Watchdog tries to do much more, frankly I cannot rely upon it to wake me when I am napping single handed.

Maybe I am doing something stupid? Unfortunately the info supplied with the plugin is minimal. Maybe the problem is not with Watchdog but with the line drawn by OPCN Draw?

Can anyone please help me understand what is going wrong please?

[jongough]

Biggles,
Can you create a few screen shots showing your setup in Watchdog and the Boundary you are trying to detect. Can you also include the version/patch numbers of WD, OD and OCPN.

I have just done this on my system and got the attached.

Jon

[Biggles]

Hello Jon,

thanks for the reply. I have set up a boundary for an alarm when closer than 0.5 nms. The yacht is in fact 105 metres from the line but no alarm has been triggered. Here are the screen shots. OCPN is 4.2.0.

Ian

[jongough]

Ian,
It looks like you are trying to use a single line that has no 'interior'. In the current version of Watchdog and OD this will not work (there is a feature request to enable the checking of 'line' crossing, but will probably not be until OD v1.2).

Try drawing a 3 or more point boundary, set the type as 'exclusion' as this will show the lines with shading on the inside (it will actually have no effect on your WD as you have selected type 'Any'), as this make some sort of sense. If you look at the boundary I drew you will see the shading on the inside.

The reason it will not work with the line you drew is that currently a check (about 160 actually) is done to see if a lat/lon is 'inside' the boundary, so unless you were VERY lucky getting a lat/lon inside a 'one dimensional' boundary is unlikely.

Jon

[Biggles]

Hi Jon,

hey thanks for solving the issue. A triangular boundary does work. I was trying to use it as I did in Nobeltec, which was much simpler. It would be nice to see a dialog pop up when the alarm is triggered offering a 1 click cancellation of the alarm whilst still retaining the boundary line.

It would also be better if the prog remembered the last choice of alarm sound so that when you set up a new line you don't have to reselect the sound. I use a whoopwhoop .wav file to differentiate from an AIS alert.

Looking forwards to 1.2 OD! Thanks for sorting this out Jon.

Cheers

Ian

[Hakan]

Ian
Of course you can get a pop-up message from Watchdog if you like.
You've maybe not read about it's facilities? Watchdog | Official OpenCPN Homepage
Also OD offers a lot more opportunities: Ocpn_Draw | Official OpenCPN Homepage
Håkan

[Biggles]

Hakan,


you have misunderstood my comment. Yes I know you can get a pop up message when the alarm is triggered. However this pop up does not permit you to cancel the alarm like Nobeltec did. If you have repeat triggering enabled which is sensible if you are relying on the alarm to wake you up, then as far as I can see, the alarm can only be cancelled by shutting down watchdog or deleting the boundary line. It would be much neater if you could cancel watchdog by clicking on a pop up message and at the same time leaving the boundary line on the chart for future use.


Regards


Ian

[Hakan]

Ian..
Oh - I see - sorry.
How about this feature then? In the small box listing your alarm set up and its present status you can click in the box to activate - X - or deactivate each alarm.
In the picture below my boundary watch is active and will alarm, if limits are exceeded, the other not.

[bcn]

Håkan,

what perhaps would be handy - not only for Ian - is an option to toggle the setting of an alarm when this alarm is firing and you acknowledge it.

A Deadman setting will most probably be persistent, Speed as well, but in the case of a boundary or line alarm that Jon is implementig now this is something like an Arrival Alert, which is needed just once.
Or a Start line for our racers...

Hubert

[jongough]

Don't forget you can set the alarm to auto reset, or to repeat (or not). Would these not be sufficient?

The new message for boundaries could also be used in weather routing and may make it make more sense.

I will not be able to do further work on OD or WD for a couple of weeks as I have had to go away, but if this is an issue can you raise a feature request on WD flyspray? I will then have a look when I get back.

Jon

[Hakan]

Hubert
re:"A Deadman setting will most probably be persistent, Speed as well, but in the case of a boundary or line alarm that Jon is implementig now this is something like an Arrival Alert, which is needed just once."
For the line I think I understand the purpose; you're maybe talking about a line limit on a route for example. That's a one time use - ok - and I suppose you suggest it should be able to delete the line watch upon acknowledge in pup-up window. Could be usable.
For a "normal" boundary, e.g. an area, I often use it persistent and without a GUID. For example some fish net squares.
Håkan

[Biggles]

Originally Posted by Hakan

Ian..
Oh - I see - sorry.
How about this feature then? In the small box listing your alarm set up and its present status you can click in the box to activate - X - or deactivate each alarm.
In the picture below my boundary watch is active and will alarm, if limits are exceeded, the other not.

It could be done your way, but as crossing a boundary could well be associated with a high activity requirement I would rather see the message pop up to say something like 'The vessel has crossed a boundary. Press Enter to cancel the alarm'. My experience so far with reset enabled is that the alarm keeps going off just when you think it has been silenced and you have just left the nav station to go and tack. A simple quick means of silencing it is needed. Pressing enter would be a very easy way. Nobeltec works this way and I have found it simple to use.

Thanks for the replies and thoughts and of course to the developer.

Ian

[jongough]

Hi,
I have just put into git patch 045 of the watchdog plugin. This uses the OD beta 1.1.1 'line crossing' check for boundaries. If you do not have the beta of OD the current method, i.e. checking for points inside a boundary, will be used. If you have the beta OD then for Distance it will:

check if a boundary is within the specified distance, based on 10deg increments starting at North. It will find the closest boundary and, if you have graphics enabled for the alarm, will draw a line to the closest part of the closest boundary

And for Time it will:

Check for a boundary within the specified time/distance from the boat based on the COG. Again, if you have graphics enabled for the alarm it will draw a line to the boundary.

This change should reduce the load on the system and provide for one dimensional boundaries being used above.

Jon

[plang732]

Hi,

The picture at http://www.thoe.be/guest/OCPN-Statusline.png is showing the the bearing is given from the cursor to the ship in the status line (which is not useful) and from the ship to the cursor in the original statusline of OpenCPN.

Is it possible to fix this ?

Thanks

Pierre