Ray e7 vs OCPN waypoints

[bhcva]

I do all my planning with OCPN and love it! Trying to move routes to my e7 is impossible with the e7 requiring unique waypoint IDs among all the routes (unless i am doing something wrong?). Are others experiencing the same problem and what have you done about it?
Thanks, Bruce

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by bhcva

I do all my planning with OCPN and love it! Trying to move routes to my e7 is impossible with the e7 requiring unique waypoint IDs among all the routes (unless i am doing something wrong?). Are others experiencing the same problem and what have you done about it?
Thanks, Bruce

Bruce,

I don't have an e7 but I feel sure there must be something amiss. It makes no sense that every route should be made up of unique way points. It is quite common that more than one route could use the same way point. Or do I misunderstand the problem?

I would also suggest you ask Raymarine tech support at:

Raymarine Technical Forum

[bhcva]

AGREE...don't know why they would do this. I'm not at the boat and I don't recall how they name they if they are created on the e7....probably just a one-up number.

QUOTE FROM RAY TECH FORUM:
"When planning waypoints and routes (particularly when using a third party navigational planning product to do so) care must be taken to ensure that the following Raymarine product constraints are adhered to:

Constraints for Axiom MFDs, a/c/e/eS/gS-Series MFDs, and Dragonfly Displays:
- Maximum number of waypoints: 3000
- Waypoint/Route'/Track Name Length: 16 characters (DO NOT USE APOSTROPHE (') OR DOUBLE QUOTE (") CHARACTERS)
- Duplication of waypoint, route, or track names prohibited
- Waypoint comments: 32 characters (DO NOT USE APOSTROPHE (') OR DOUBLE QUOTE (") CHARACTERS)
- Routes: 200 waypoints per route; 150 routes max; routes must not use the same waypoint for consecutive points within the route (NOTE: Dragonfly displays do not support routes)
- Tracks: 10,000 points per track; 15 tracks max"

[jstevens]

Based on the rules you quoted, the waypoint name must be unique, not duplicated by any other waypoint on the e7. Sounds like the e7 follows the same rules as my 15 year old C-Series MFD. All waypoints, whether part of a route or not, reside in a single repository or file and must have a unique identifier. Waypoints can be grouped by a route or group name, but the waypoint name must be unique to all waypoints on the MFD.
When you create a route in OpenCPN and generate waypoints for the route, the names of those waypoints are unique to the route but can be duplicated in other routes.
So there can be a problem if you try to import more than one route from OpenCPN.
AFIK, the only way to do this is go into the property window for each route and rename the waypoints (right click on the waypoint in the list). Be careful to not create a name of more than 16 chars. My C-Series would truncate the name to the 16 character limit, which can then produce a duplicate name (if you create names such as - <long route name><waypoint ID>).
Anyway that's my understanding of the issue and how I had to deal with it between OpenCPN and my C-series.

John

[bhcva]

Thanks John....understand.
Do you know if Ray's Nav Planner will import the OCPN routes and allow the 'automatic' change of the IDs? I'm not sure if I want to waste $50 to find out. Ray has such crappy software.

[jstevens]

Bruce.,
I think I installed a trial version of Nav Planner several years ago, but decided it wasn't worth even a few $ over the nav software I used (OpenCPN, SOB, Fugawi, SeaClear, etc.). Check to see if you can download a trial version and test it.
I did write my own utility to convert a GPX file with waypoints to a format that could be loaded onto my C-series. The utility does insure that each waypoint name is unique and less than 16 characters. Unfortunately it outputs an Excel workbook required by my C-series, and not a GPX file. It is also not an elegant piece of software, just one of many quick and dirty programs I've written to solve one problem or another.
If you are stumped by all other options I could modify it to output a Raymarine filtered gpx file in addition to the Excel workbook.
The existing program is here: GPXconverterVBA

John

[bhcva]

Thanks John. I'll have a look.