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Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

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OpenCPN Chart Plotter - neat feature

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TakeFive
Master Marine Consultant

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2272 Posts

Initially Posted - 08/20/2011 : 20:28:00

We had a wonderful evening sail today. It was a spur of the moment thing - we've had storms all week and had planned to go out tomorrow, but they switched the forecast on us, with no storms this evening and yet more severe storms tomorrow. So we delayed dinner and headed off to the boat.

I've mentioned elsewhere here that I'm increasingly using OpenCPN with a netbook in the cockpit in place of my handheld GPS. It interfaces wirelessly with my AIS receiver to show all the surrounding commercial traffic, which is substantial in my area. However I found myself frequently zooming in to see nearby features, then zooming out to see AIS traffic approaching from ~2 nm away. I was doing more computer manipulation than I wanted to. Then I realized that I can actually launch OpenCPN twice and put the windows side by side. One window is zoomed in, and the other zoomed out. This gives me both simultaneousely, completely eliminating the need to touch the netbook. It also makes much better use of the screen space, because the wide geometry of the screen is not optimum for chart plotters - two taller windows is much better.

I did have to do a little fiddling with a software multiplexer to feed the GPS to both windows, but that was relatively straightforward.

I'm not sure I've seen any commercial chartplotter that can present two simultaneous views like this:

Rick S., Swarthmore, PA
PO of Take Five, 1998 Catalina 250WK #348 (relocated to Baltimore's Inner Harbor)
New owner of 2001 Catalina 34MkII #1535 Breakin' Away (at Rock Hall Landing Marina)

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britinusa
Web Editor

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USA
5404 Posts

Response Posted - 08/21/2011 : 03:26:04

Very cool Rick.

Paul

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zeil
Master Marine Consultant

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Canada
1314 Posts

Response Posted - 08/22/2011 : 15:21:33

Rick...
Downloaded the OpenCPN 2.5.0 on my Mac... looks very interesting and useful. Any idea where I obtain US Lake, East & West Coast and if available Canadian charts. Thanks in advance

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Dave5041
Former Mainsheet Editor

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USA
3758 Posts

Response Posted - 08/22/2011 : 15:57:16

I think it uses the same US charts as MacENC - NOAA for coastal and Great Lakes and a limited number of inland charts from Army Corps of Engineers for the waterways and possibly a few lakes that they maintain.

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Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.