NOAA Charts: Automatic download/update for raster and vector charts.Adheres to IHO S-52/S-57/S-63 chart display standards.Vector charts contain much more information than most mariners realize. You can select any point and access all the data associated with each of the features. Full access to all data in vector charts.Chart quilting: When viewing areas covered by multiple charts, SEA iq will quilt them together, selecting the best available chart data for the scale you are viewing at.Supported formats: S-57, S-63, iENC, Bathymetric ENC, Port ENC, BSB/KAP, S-102.The density of information cannot yet approach that of traditional cartographic methods. It takes forever zooming in and out to get the whole picture, even with a large, high-resolution display. More broadly, I agree that the discontinuance of RNC charts is premature as the quality of the ENC visualizations is simply not high enough yet. It would then be an example of why good companies try to hire software developers who have experience with the industry or application for which the software is being developed. Perhaps it is an ill-considered decision made by someone who lacks any practical navigation experience. In properly written software the cans and nuns should all disappear at once rather than a soft decluttering algorithm being applied.Īs for Aquamap, well, the behavior you describe is probably intentional. In properly written visualization software, buoys and obstructions are one of the last things to go as you zoom out, and that has been my experience with Garmin handheld GPS, and Navionics, and OpenCPN. For land-based GIS, a similar process is followed in software by detecting the collision of marks and labels and having some sort of hierarchy, some sort of rules, and some sort of balancing that goes on to produce useful results.ĮNC visualization software does the same thing to some degree, as it must to produce readable results. ![]() Traditional, human-brain-guided cartography handles this tedious process on a case-by-case basis - areas with little to show get more trivial details while complex areas get only highlights. I dunno.įrom time to time people pay me to see that software is created so I know a thing or two from the inside.Ī major theoretical problem with GIS visualization software, of which chartplotter applications are but one of many examples, is presenting as much detail as possible without excessive clutter. I’m not in Camden, nor even on a boat, but there’s a bunch of live AIS targets banging around. Perhaps that’s overly complicated, but it has worked for years reliably so I haven’t changed it. That spits out a wifi network which my iPad is logged into, and thus gets gps and AIS data wirelessly. I do have a class A AIS with GPS, and I’ve fed that (NMEA 0183) into a little Raspberry Pi running Open Plotter. It does, with internet connection, give tide and current data and local AIS targets even without an AIS receiver (I have yet to figure out what the radius of that is, or where it gets the data, other than users have the option to share it). You can plug a heading and speed and position (and rate of turn :wacko: ) sensor into it, but nothing beyond that. It will do EBLs and VRMs and a couple other tools I’ve never used. It won’t figure the best lay line to the windward mark or do auto routings or have weather overlays. ![]() ![]() Beyond that, it’s a basic navigation tool. You wouldn’t know, other than the insistence to include a readout for rate of turn in one of the drop down tabs (how many boats under 250’ have that?) and an instruction manual that explains at length a great number of features I don’t have. It is originally intended as a tool for harbor pilots, and what I use is basically just a dumbed down version. I may have been thinking of the Furuno chart plotter which also uses NOAA ENC. As stated, I prefer ENC, though as noted above it does lack all land detail, which is a shame (and I poked in my home iPad and it does number the buoys. Charts are selectable ENC or RNC (for as long as RNC lasts I suppose). For me in Maine, for example, I’ve just got Block Island to Canadian Border. To save memory, one can select which zone(s) you want downloaded. The $5 one was “SEAiq USA”, which includes NOAA charts only for US waters and territories. There are several different versions and price points. Like I said, for what I paid for it, it’s great.
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