Openplotter

G

GHA

Well-Known Member
Joined
26 Jun 2013
Messages
12,552
Location
Hopefully somewhere warm
Visit site
Anyone had a play around with openplotter yet?
Looks interesting... http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f13/openplotter-project-152754.html
http://www.sailoog.com/en/openplotter

I fired it up on a Pi 2 last night, seems to work ok though i had to do some display tweaking but that's more to do with a hdmi vga converter.
Sadly the Pi 2 hasn't quite shown it's full power yet with opencpn, still a bit slow and clunky display but people are working on that.
I might compile the bits from openplotter separately from git onto my cubietruck.

Al this stuff is very very slowly coming of age.

Laika, is that kplex in there doing the multiplexing?
 
GHA said:
Laika, is that kplex in there doing the multiplexing?
Click to expand...

I believe so. sailoog posted about it on the kplex discussion group, but I haven't tried it yet. I understand the GUI only deals with basic options but generally that's all most people need.

On that note, if anyone's looked at kplex in the past but been perplexed by the length of the configuration guide, I wrote a cut down quick start version:
http://www.stripydog.com/kplex/quickstart.html
 
GHA said:
Anyone had a play around with openplotter yet?
Looks interesting... http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f13/openplotter-project-152754.html
http://www.sailoog.com/en/openplotter

I fired it up on a Pi 2 last night, seems to work ok though i had to do some display tweaking but that's more to do with a hdmi vga converter.
Sadly the Pi 2 hasn't quite shown it's full power yet with opencpn, still a bit slow and clunky display but people are working on that.
I might compile the bits from openplotter separately from git onto my cubietruck.

Al this stuff is very very slowly coming of age.

Laika, is that kplex in there doing the multiplexing?
Click to expand...


After spending a bit more time with openplotter, it really is worth checking out. If you have a Pi 2 onboard, of course. :)

The image runs straight away, within minutes I had it working as an access point with a sony xperia running pocket cloud acting as a repeater screen in the cockpit. Fantastic, I've been after AIS in the cockpit over wifi for ages!
Opencpn has some great plugins as well, the logbook konni has a multitude of options and watchdog has various alarms, an off course one is perfect for us single handers. With a cheapo active speaker plugged into the Pi play any sound file you like. All in all very useful for 400mA. Which should go down a bit, an FTDI double usb/serial is hogging about 100mA so there must be a better way of doing that.
And I get the chart table back , no more laptop. Very :cool:
 
New beta of openplotter just out..

http://www.sailoog.com/en/blog/download-openplotter-rpi-v060-beta3

Only just booted it up but it looks great :cool:

Options for engine thermometer, 4 x switches all configurable as alarms. Send alarms to twitter or gmail. Loads in there.
Looks like it can be used as a wifi router as well .
All for 30 odd quid and a few hundred mA.

Known issues
  • True wind calculation with GPS needs revision (speed log OK).
  • Humidity sensors not detected when IMU sensors is not present.
  • DS18B20 temp sensors alarms buggy.
  • OpenCPN does not work on Raspberry 1 (B+, A+) and Raspberry Zero due to performance issues. The rest of OpenPlotter features work right.
  • [SOLVED on next release] unicode characters allowed in text fields (ñ, ç, á...).
Changes since last release
  • Adapted to Raspbian Jessie.
  • Update required packages.
  • New Raspberry Zero compatible.
  • Added humidity sensors.
  • Added humidity to weather graphs.
  • Added DS18B20 temp sensors for engine coolant temp monitoring.
  • Added heel generation by IMU sensor.
  • Optimized sensors detection.
  • Added reset button to sensors detection.
  • Changed IMU calibration tool.
  • Added custom SSID to WiFi access point.
  • Share internet connection with devices connected to WiFi access point.
  • Masked WiFi access point password.
  • Created procedure to set WiFi access point and screen resolution when monitor is not present (headless).
  • Added 4 custom switches to be linked to multiple actions.
  • Allowed manual settings to NMEA multiplexer conf file.
  • Shipmodul devices compatibility fixed.
  • GPSD compatible.
  • Added ROT calculation.
  • Added accuracy setting to calculations.
  • Replaced obsolete MDA NMEA sentence by XDR sentence for pressure and temperature.
  • Rewritted SDR AIS fine calibration.
  • Rewrited and optimized NMEA inspector.
  • Added alarms system with multiple triggers and actions.
  • Added remote monitoring by Twitter or Gmail.
  • Optimized code and men usage.
Some tips to test new featuresFor normal switches (opened by default), you have to select "Pull down" in "Switches" tab an connect switch between selected GPIO pin and +3.3v pin (DANGER, NEVER TO +5v). For special switches (closed by default), you have to select "Pull up" in "Switches" tab an connect switch between selected GPIO pin and GND pin.
It is not a problem if you make a mistake connecting to GND or +3.3v but be careful and avoid +5v pin. Pins numbers are according to this diagram: http://raspi.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Raspberry-Pi-GPIO-pinouts.png, for example: pin GPIO22 is pin position number 15.To test headless boot feature, edit the options at the beginning of the file /boot/config.txtTo test remote monitoring by Twitter and Gmail feature, open new accounts, DO NOT use existing accounts or usual passwords because they can be exposed. Open a new Gmail account and enable: https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps. Using your new Gmail account, open a new Twitter account following this manual: http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Twitterbot/step2/Create-ema...
Click to expand...
 
Binman said:
All mambo jumbo to me, what is an open plotter, what is Pi2, and Kplex,what does GPU mean,alsoFDTI.
Click to expand...

"Open" sours software is free software normally written by as projects by student or enthusiasts. Some very good like linux or open office, gimp.... some not so good, But don't right it off because it is free most work very well.

"Pi2" Pi is a very small cheap basic computer. Invented for African schools, but used by computer/electronic geeks for projects.

A graphics processing unit (GPU). speeds up the graphics on the screen.

I hope this helps the other two I will let someone with more info answer. (Please keep answer simple and in English not geek)
 
BlackPig said:
"Open" sours software is free software normally written by as projects by student or enthusiasts. Some very good like linux or open office, gimp.... some not so good, But don't right it off because it is free most work very well.
Click to expand...

A lot of the big open source projects (i.e. the underlying computer code is available for you to freely download, modify, use, sell etc. - provided you also allow access to any upgrades) are run by huge multinationals. Open Office is run by Oracle. They get code updates and peer review for free. Open source tends to be a lot more modular, why re-write something complicated when you can just borrow someone elses.

Open Plotter is an operating system and a collection of useful sailing programs like:
OpenCPN - a fully featured chart plotter
zyGrib - a Grib weather forecast viewer
NMEA Multiplexer - takes multiple GPS/AIS devices and generates one data stream
WIFI Access to NMEA Data stream - monitor boat on apps on your phone, tablet etc
Ability to plug in and view sensors - compass, wind, temp, humidity, etc.
AIS - ability to use a Freeview dongle to view AIS data


RaspberryPi is an small, £25 educational computer that runs Linux distributions like OpenPlotter from an SD card: https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-2-model-b/
 
If a picture is worth a thousand words...

Quick overview of the openplotter side of things and OpenCPN, including the excellent Logbook and watchdog plugins.

Very polished piece of software for something which isn't even a release yet :cool:

Seems to be locked at 360p in the window, if you open it up in youtube then HD should be available.

 
Am I right in thinking that OpenPlotter works off the back of OpenCPN with added plugins to work on Pi?

It works on ARM computers like the Raspberry Pi and is open-source, low-cost and low-consumption. Its design is modular, so you just have to implement what your boat needs. Do it yourself.

Features


Chartplotter. With OpenCPN, a navigation software with useful plugins.
Click to expand...
 
I've used OpenCPN on old Windows laptops for years and I think it is great.

I'm a little reticent about OpenPlotter because although the spec is fantastic I'm not sure I want to learn all the Operating System stuff required to get a system up and running on a Pi
ie Don't you need to be a Linux geek to get a OpenPlotter system running ?
 
Isn't there a drawback in that it won't work with the "Visit My Harbour" charts, which I understand to be only available on Windows machines, because of the security mechanisms? I don't suppose a Raspberry Pi is powerful enough to run OpenCPN under Wine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top