Charts / maps source ????

[Guest]

Does anyone know of a free-ware / shareware site that has limited detail maps / charts suitable for PC based navigation / GPS NMEA link ???? Example outline coastlines etc. with Lat Long reference ??????????
To use purely for plotting alongside in conjunction with the proper paper chart .........

I am looking for principally Solent / south coast UK ......

Has anyone ever considered putting together something like this ????

 

[philip_stevens]

Nigel,
try posting this on "uk.rec.sailing" newsgroup to see what response you get from there.

regards,
Philip

 

[davel]

Nigel,
I'm a recent convert to Oziexplorer (www.oziexplorer.com). This is a shareware program that allows you to use your own scanned charts to perform plotting, waypoint and route entry, PC based navigation etc etc. The advantages of this method include:
1. Cheap (evaluation program is free and an upgrade to a fully functioning version is about £50)
2. Charts are effectively free since you use scanned copies of your paper charts
3. You can use your paper charts as back-up (as opposed to software based charts where you're up the creek if your PC fails)
4. Interfaces to most GPS recievers for waypoint/route upload
5. Has a "moving map" function that allows realtime plotting of your position from data fed from your GPS.

Main disadvantage is having to scan in all your charts which can be time consuming (although strangely satisfying!). This is helped by using an image stiching program (I use panavue - www.panavue.com) which will re-assemble A4 scanned parts of your charts into a full sixed chart and you can't see the join - excellent program. I find that scanning, stitching and calibrating the charts in Ozi taks me a couple of hours for a 10 chart Admiralty Folio for, say, the Solent.

Let me know if you need more info.
Dave L.

 

[david_bagshaw]

Nigel,

Further to Dave l post , take a look at my site under voyages to see some of the things you can do with ozi.

Have fun

David
www.yachtman.co.uk

 

[Sammy]

Neptune route plotting/passage planning software is very good for the price abot £60 they do an older version which will run on an old 3.1 laptop which I use. GPS links in and shows on charts.

 

[Sammy]

After reading your post regarding Oziexplorer I thought I would try it out. So far absolutly brilliant. I would be interested to find out what hardware you use on board. My poor old laptop which is great as it runs directly on 12Volts is running Win 3.1 and its getting so difficult to find any decent software to run on it so a new toy looks forth coming.
Chris