Nigel Calder update, charts & HyMar
Nigel Calder and I talked non-stop for about six hours on Friday (and probably could have kept going if we were younger men). He visited because he’s working on a new edition of How to Read a Nautical Chart
Category: Charts
MIBS # 5: C-Map, EarthNC, & MapMedia news
It’s a lousy photo, for sure, but Jeppesen C-Map has not yet announced its iPad charting app, let alone released screen shots, though I found it one of the nicest surprises of the Miami show. It seems that C-Map not only intends to match Navionics’ much appreciated efforts to offer inexpensive but detailed marine cartography on multiple apps platforms, but to do it even better. Note, for instance, the “CWeather” button on the menu bar above, and that C-Map has been working to overlay weather data on plotters since at least 2004 (though the then available mechanisms — a complicated cellular connection, or a data card transfer — were awkward). I’m not sure what CWeather offers today (the Jeppesen site says only European data), but we know that a connected tablet or phone can make the download process very easy.
MIBS #3: Fugawi, Rose Point, MapTech, & Nobeltec Trident
I sense that PC-based navigation is about to enjoy a renaissance after a long period during which rapidly-advancing MFDs stole its thunder. I can think of several reasons (and you may have more): Decent performance PCs have gotten less expensive and tougher; NMEA 2000 can feed them more data, more easily (thanks in large part to Actisense); the various mobile platforms so many of us want to fool with on board usually relate well to the less mobile platforms that can also work well on many boats; and, finally, MaxSea and Furuno are showing everyone how powerfully a PC can fit into high-end marine electronics systems. One company that will participate in this renaissance, I’m pretty sure, is Fugawi…
NV Charts: vector/raster paper & digital, US too
I’ve known of NV Charts for years as a German supplier of cartography for Europe and the Caribbean, but I’d never met founders Cornelia and Hasko Scheidt until this Miami show, and I had no...
PolarView, ready for prime time?
I took a peek at PolarView NS charting software about a year ago, but didn’t write about it because I wasn’t especially impressed (and there’s a certain randomness to what I cover anyway). But times change and software develops, and I’m here to tell you that PolarView 1.5 (video introduction here) is pretty darn impressive. Given its app-like $40 price tag, it’s a remarkably powerful program that runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux operating systems. The screen above shows PV running on my little ASUS Eee PC 1000HE 10-Inch netbook
with live NMEA 0183 data coming from the lab’s N2K network via a Maretron USB 100. PolarView is quite unusual in that it uses a sister program, called PolarCOM, to do all its data interfacing and instrument displays…
NOAA shoreline doubts, or how NE Pt became an island
Yet another blizzard is descending on Panbo HQ, and that’s excuse enough to further indulge my obsession with local charting, specifically the issue mentioned on Monday about how Northeast Point became an island. It...
C-Map’s hyper harbor detail, & more charting/POI news
Testing Nobeltec Admiral 11 is going pretty well, and I’ll write about it soon, but what really got me grinning is the latest C-Map Max Pro chart of Camden Harbor that came along with the trial software. I’m a long time fan of C-Map’s C-Marina concept — in which cooperating marinas are charted in super high resolution — but in actuality C-Map’s earlier attempts at Wayfarer Marine detail were seriously flawed. Well, not only is Wayfarer now exceptionally well depicted (with one major exception), but other improvements make C-Map’s the best visual guide to my harbor’s complexities yet created, I think. Please click on the image above for a full screen window as I explain…
iPads at METS: Navionics, Maretron, & more
Wasn’t it telling that three DAME awards went to iPad apps yesterday (even though only two were entered)? I can’t find the full award text online yet, but the judges explained their Marine Related...
Jonesport breakwater aid, with ChartAid
An interesting solution for the Jonesport uncharted breakwater problem came all the way from the S/V True Love in La Paz, Mexico. Skipper Bill Stockton has written a program called ChartAid which can turn Google Earth photo maps into BSB format so you can navigate on them in programs like CE, Nobeltec, and Chart View. I did get an “Invalid BSB” warning when I installed the chart Bill sent into CE, but it works fine. As you can see above, the registration with the official chart looks spot on, and my vessel, track, and route, plus data sets like GuideBook, overlay properly. Even the “properties” make sense, with the possible exception of the Source date. And apparently it’s easy to make such photo maps with ChartAid…
Why we need crowd sourcing, Downeast #2
Yup, the first time you cruise into Sawyer Cove in often foggy Jonesport, Maine, you may be surprised to discover that there is a substantial steel and concrete breakwater extending from the fixed light almost all the way to the Eastern shore. That’s because the structure still hasn’t made it onto the official charts, or any chart I’ve seen, even though it was built over 20 years ago, and even though the NOAA ENC inset above was updated on 9/17/2010. I mentioned this when I first wrote about Sawyer Cove in August, but that entry was largely about how poorly any of the guides — digital or paper, professionally written or crowd sourced — covered the facilities available. Since then I’ve learned more about the breakwater situation, and it’s depressing…
