Open CPN / navionics

[CAPTAIN FANTASTIC]

Thanks RichardS and RobbieW for the clarity.

 

[GHA]

, just a pity it doesnt (yet?) take NMEA2000 sentences.

Not directly in opencpn but siganlk will do that for you and convert to nmea1083. Opencpn can get data from nmea0183 or signalk.
Signalk is easy to install on windows now as well as linux and can probably do anything with data you could ever want to do in the real world.
SignalK/signalk-server-windows

 

[GHA]

As a matter of interest; what are the advantages of OpenCPN over Navionics?; is it the cost of annual fee of ~ £35 for Navionics? if this is the only reason, over a period of 10 years the cost is only appro £350, which is not too bad. Any other reasons?

It's a bit like a really simple text editor and a full blown feature rich word processor. Both do a similar job but opencpn can do an awful lot more, many plugins like displaying weather data from gribs or synoptics or historical hurricane tracks, save all events to playback later, save automatically to a logbook. As mentioned the ais display is excellent. Displaying satellite images as charts is gold dust in many places. Must be as feature packed as software costing hundreds.
But navionics is very quick and easy.

 

[RobbieW]

It's a bit like a really simple text editor and a full blown feature rich word processor. Both do a similar job but opencpn can do an awful lot more, many plugins like displaying weather data from gribs or synoptics or historical hurricane tracks, save all events to playback later, save automatically to a logbook. As mentioned the ais display is excellent. Displaying satellite images as charts is gold dust in many places. Must be as feature packed as software costing hundreds.
But navionics is very quick and easy.

I'd forgotten all the plugins, the weather routing one is fun too.

btw, like the strap line

 

[laika]

what are the advantages of OpenCPN over Navionics?

Navionics does what Navionics does. Support is hopeless. Your only option for data input is wifi and it's only since the AIS support was added that configuration of this was possible without trial and error: previously it *would* accept GPS input over wifi to facilitate the "community depth map" thing but they didn't tell you "how" and just assumed you'd buy one of their supported devices.

OpenCPN's data inputs are all configurable and (imho) obvious. It takes serial/usb or wifi input in nmea-0183 or gpsd formats. Plus you can take in serial and put out wifi, making your computer an nmea to wifi device feeding your phone/tablet. It supports a range of charts (not just navionics) including free north american ones as Robin mentions above. As well as superior AIS plotting it will also plot Navico or Garmin radar and do a bunch of things via plugins including displaying all your instrument data, controlling your autopilot, doing routing, weather routing and more...
Plugins for OpenCPN

...plus the quality of help and advice via the opencpn sub-forum of cruisers forum is so much better than navionics.

Disclaimer: I think I've actually spent more time in the last 10 years submitting pull requests to OpenCPN than actually using it, but that's because my interest in electronic navigation is largely from the technical rather than practical angle. For actual navigation I like dividers, an almanac and a portland plotter. Moreover for AIS it's my helm chartplotter I'll be looking at not a laptop on the chart table. But if I *did* regularly use an electronic nav program it would be OpenCPN.

 

[CAPTAIN FANTASTIC]

Brilliant explanations for using OpenCPN, thanks. I may one day soon start using OpenCPN; at present I use stand-alone instruments such as Chartplotters, AIS transponder, Radar, etc

 

[rogerthebodger]

My main OpenCPN display is at my chart table from a 12Vdc truck PC.

I have a car DVD display of the helm driven by a VGA to video converter attached to the PC VGA output.

GPS is by a USB mouse and AIS is by a NASA AIS engine with r RS232 to USB converter.

 

[billcole]

It's a bit like a really simple text editor and a full blown feature rich word processor. Both do a similar job but opencpn can do an awful lot more, many plugins like displaying weather data from gribs or synoptics or historical hurricane tracks, save all events to playback later, save automatically to a logbook. As mentioned the ais display is excellent. Displaying satellite images as charts is gold dust in many places. Must be as feature packed as software costing hundreds.
But navionics is very quick and easy.

Is this the PC version you're talking about, or is the Android OpenCPN app that powerful too ?

 

[GHA]

Is this the PC version you're talking about, or is the Android OpenCPN app that powerful too ?

That's PC. Quite a few plugs are available for android but not all and it's a bit more fiddly on a tablet, like anything, but still very powerful.

 

[Birdseye]

A lot of long term cruisers use Open CPN together with the CM93 charts which are available I am told for download on the net. Personally I am still in the paper and dividers era.

 

[Robin]

A lot of long term cruisers use Open CPN together with the CM93 charts which are available I am told for download on the net. Personally I am still in the paper and dividers era.

See post #10. Not so easy to find these days though. fortunately when my old 'puter went tits up I had them stored on a CD tor reload.

 

[adwuk]

Ignoring the fact that they are pirated (plainly speaking, theft), I really don't understand why people continue to use CM93 charts that are 10 years out of date - especially when the excellent o-charts are available at such a reasonable cost.

 

[RichardS]

I really don't understand why people continue to use CM93 charts that are 10 years out of date - especially when the excellent o-charts are available at such a reasonable cost.

It all depends upon what you use OpenCPN for. It is just for passage planning on your PC/tablet, maybe at home before you go down to the boat, then CM93 is perfect.

If, like me, you use OpenCPN for AIS, then it is also ideal, especially with all the detailed turned to zero as none of that is necessary and it speeds the draw rate up considerably without it.

As usual, different strokes for different folks.

Richard

 

[rogerthebodger]

Ignoring the fact that they are pirated (plainly speaking, theft), I really don't understand why people continue to use CM93 charts that are 10 years out of date - especially when the excellent o-charts are available at such a reasonable cost.

The fact that o-charts are not available in my sailing ground I have no alternative.

The other issue is that most of the data for the charts were paid for from state funds (taxation) we have already paid for the data anyway.

You need to look at where the funds come from for services like keeping the charts up to date.

There is also a question as to who has copyright. If its an organ of state it means the citizens of the country are in effect the copyright holders.

 

[[163233]]

I quite fancy trying OpenCPN. Is the Android version up to date and can you compile the android version from source?
Also, is there a good open source wifi/nmea bridge option as my tablet won't have cabled connections?

 

[GHA]

I quite fancy trying OpenCPN. Is the Android version up to date and can you compile the android version from source?
Also, is there a good open source wifi/nmea bridge option as my tablet won't have cabled connections?

There are 2 versions on android, an old one from maison something and the official one from dave register think it is. Official one , about £8 is kept up to date with forum help. The old version came about cos some bloke got angry about charging for open source so compiled his own and put it up on google apps. Way out of date now. You can compile from source, it is still open source but doing that every time there's a prog or plugin update sounds a lot of work for a few quid.

 

[adwuk]

Also, is there a good open source wifi/nmea bridge option as my tablet won't have cabled connections?

OpenCPN has a pretty powerful "connections" configuration which allows you to connect to TCP and UDP network sources. So anything that broadcasts your network data over wifi can most likely be used. Actisense make a device for NMEA2000 networks, but I rolled my own for a few quid less a number of years ago.

 

[Robin]

Ignoring the fact that they are pirated (plainly speaking, theft), I really don't understand why people continue to use CM93 charts that are 10 years out of date - especially when the excellent o-charts are available at such a reasonable cost.

See my post #13. For planning on a larger screen than a notebook, phone or small plotter, they work just fine, no worse than the huge and largely unupdated paper chart folio I had and ditched Now if totally free, instantly available and bang up to date like they are in the USA where my laptop had the full east coast and gulf coast sets, vector and raster, then for sure I would think differently. They are not so I don't. perhaps I should feel pangs of guilt but I don't.

 

[Hoolie]

I have CM93 charts and oesenc on the same PC and with the split screen now available on OpenCPN I can display them side by side. It's uncanny that the charts are pretty well identical, even the depth markers match exactly. I don't support using CM93 for navigation but I agree they are perfectly fine for planning purposes.

 

[mattonthesea]

O-charts are so cheap it's hardly worth using those old pirated ones. They also have more useful information to small boats that CMap remove, like drying heights, for example. That's unless you are sailing in an area that o-charts don't cover, like Greenland or Bora Bora.

Or the Bristol Channel eastern end!