• Welcome to MacSailing.net!
  • Dedicated to sailing!
  • Be Jolly!
Hello There, Guest! Login Register


Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Title: Ideas for GPSNAVX
#1
Hello,

Sorry for the long post...

Some of the following ideas I did already send to the prgrammer(s) of GPSNAVX. But i think elaborating ideas in forii (or is that forums?) gives greater results, as every idea is great until you have to explain it to somebody else ;-)

May I introduce myself or better my ideas about computers and sailing.
I am a new owner of an iBook 12" which did replace my old iMAC DV. But the main idea I bought this portable MAC was GPSNAVX.
Until now I always used paper charts (and still do) and my trusty old PSION 5MX pro PDA connected to my Garmin 12, which does have some great software for drawing routes on maps and playing them back afterwards (Realmaps), programming (PsiGar) waypoints to GPS (Garmin), automatically take track of the logbook (SeaPad), calculating tides for nearly any port (Ocean 5) and some others.
I know all these kind of software is available for other computers (MAC, PC) and especially PDAs (Palm, WinCE) too. But Psion 5 PDAs do have a real nice keyboard (can be used to type long texts), a complete office package (DB, Word, Excel, FAX, Email, Webbrowser, WAPbrowser) and one can go online via GSM and print logbooks, routes and maps on a portable printer via IrDA (infrared). BTW all progs can run at the same time.
Yes I know this is a MAC Forum, but this Psion PDA did never crash and can run up to 25 hours on just 2 AA batteries. Unfortunately PSION doesn`t do any consumer PDAs anymore :-(
I tried all solutions:
PDAs (Palm, WinCE, Linux) though all have great progs for navigation, none was as usable as the progs mentioned above.
And none of these devices do run any longer than 4-5 hours when a GPS is connected. And on a sailing boat as we all know, recharging accumulators isn`t easy on tour :-)
Friends did have several different laptops all running Windows (95,98,2000, NT, XP) on our trips.
Though there is really some good navigationsoftware available for Windows, all these laptops went down after 2 hours or earlier. No way to use them during a longer trip.

We used transformers to give us 220 V from 12V but when most laptoips did access the BSB maps from CDROM (it was not possible to copy the maps to the HD) the laptop needed so much power that the transformer didn`t stop its alarm.

As i do use Macs at home and work I`m used to them and when I found GPSNAVX I did right out of my mind order my iBook 12", for the same postive and negative experiences mentioned above.

I really like GPSNAVX for it`s intuitive GUI. Though I haven`t had the time to test it yet on sea, but will do si in 10 days, during our saling trip in Netherlands seas.

Last but not least here are my ideas on how to improve GPSNAVX:

1) ENC maps (S-57 specifications )but also those used by private companies for leisure sailing. Those charts can have some more features: see point 2 C-MAX maps)

2) C-MAX maps which can display 3D views, infos about ports, arial photographs, blinking lights in real color and accuracy.

3) LandSat satellite photographs of the sea regions
available here ( https://zulu.ssc.nasa.gov/mrsid/ ) for free.
Though the landsat data file are huge (60 MB and more) the picture of a region aren`t. They do just need the middle coordinates to calibrate. As they are in wrong colors (landscapes, houses = magenta, seas are blue to black) they are very detailed.

4) I would like to have them (or other satellite or arial pictures) in GPSNAVX in a second window, where the same coordinates are used as on the map, so I can see where my boat is on the map in viewed from above.

5) The GRIB function is a great idea, which costs often extra money on other progs: but it can be improved by having the possibility to type in the URL of the desired region in weather preferences or better that GPSNAVX can download the weather GRIB infos automatically for the given region by accessing the coordinates of the GPS.
(Of course this always does mean that one has access to the internet either via WiFi (many ports do allow this already in Europe, don`t know for USA?), GSM (near coast up to 15 NM, if an external GSM antenna is put on the Ok it`s more expensive but using a prepaid SIM card in the country (EuRope) you`re sailing) or using your VHF by connecting it to a special VHF Modem connected to your USB port (GRIB files are only some KB big so no problem downloading them via VHF)

7) Having the possibilty to display the weather arrows in transparent colors so that one can still see the planned and actual route/waypoints.

8) Another function like GRIB would be to have tides info and tidal streams drawn on the MAP as Seamax and the C-MAP can do.
(I don`t know if tidal streams info is available for free like weather GRIB files, but this would do trip planning a lot easier.)

9) Another feature I would like to see is an included logbook, where one can type in all the necessary infos (water, fuel tanks half full empty etc) for a given trip. This function should automatically do a list of all waypoint or for a given time like every 30 minutes, evey hour etc.). This way one could print out a logbook page or more for every trip with the calculated miles done. (This was a great feature of the free SeaPad prog http://p.pellot.free.fr/seapad/seapadgb.htm on my Psion PDA)
The other idea behind this automatic logbook is to have after a longer trip with first and second time passengers a ready certificate which the skipper just needs to sign and handle tem over after the trip.
(Our sailing club, needs this feature very often :-))

10) A MOB icon or button with the feature to automatically recalculating the route back to the man/woman in water, with the possibility to include tidal streams data (see point 8) and wind force so that the program can calculate the offset from the initial MOB position.

11) Being able to open third party documents (HTML, PDF, doc, pictures scanned..) for a given region. Like one can select other maps from a given map it should be possible to have another mousepointer to open previously saved documents of a given region, port etc. based on coordinates from the map. This way I could pop up a window with scanned pages from books or pages I previously saved from internet or typed in infos for a harbor, port or given region I`m interested.

12) Localisation of the program to other languages. (I would be willing to do the French and German translations :-)

OK I know this is a very long post, and the features I want are probably too much and some are impossible to do right now. But I want to know what other do think about these ideas.

My idea is to have an ituitive program which can act as navigation prog and logbook without the need to start other progs. (I know I can use any word processor to do a logbook and import the exported routes/coordinates from GHPSNAVX)

I would be willing to pay 100-200 dollars for such a program.


Thx a lot.

Good wind,

Manou
 
Reply
#2
Wow! Long post indeed ;-) ;-)

I'm a big fan of GPSNavX, so I'll add my two pennies worth...

1. S57 support (which I believe the developers are working on.) Only thing that worries me about this is the availability and price of UK / European S57 cartography.. it's out there, but is often encrypted, so there could be issues running it with GPSNavX...

2. C-MAP support. I think all all non-US users are crying out for this. However, I think that the real limiting factor hear is C-Map themselves, and their Windows-only SDK. I may be wrong, though... <b>CMAP, please help!</b>

3. Touchscreen interface. OS X is an incredibly sexy UI, and very intuitive. However, when you're being tossed around on deck, and your trying to select menu items on your 8" touchscreen, with Musto sailing gloves on, it can be a tad tricky! A full-screen finger-friendly interface a la MapTech Offshore Navigator would be so useful. Also, slightly larger icons would be useful

4. A zoom / chart select toolbar where you can either increase / decrease zoom, or select larger scale / smaller scale charts of the current location.

.............Chart +
.............../\
Zoom - <.....> Zoom +
...............\/
.............Chart -

5. Tidal data. I agree that on-screen tidal flows would be nice. However, I think this would probably require vector cartography. Current, I use the free Mr Tides X software which is excellent. I'll have to add a link.

As regards to price, I never thought I'd actually say this, but I'd definitely pay more.. GPSNavX at it's current price is an absolute bargain. If there were a "professional" version that included greater functionality, I'd happily pay $99 for it.

GPSNavX.. keep up the good work!
 
Reply
#3
Well, it is good to have a forum for this kind of thing.

I am quite fond of GPSNavX and eternally grateful that I don't have to have [insert favorite epithet] Windoze on board.

That said, I find it quite frustrating to only have one chart window to work with. I have pestered the developer a few times on this, but I thought it might be a good topic for broader discussion.

I do both coastal cruising and costal and offshore racing and in both cases would be very useful to have a window that displays the current situation and one or more additional windows for working navigation issues further up the course/route.

This becomes more important when multiple displays are involved such as the desirable situation where one display on deck shows the current situation while the naviguesser, warm and cozy below, has a display with multiple windows so they can keep an eye on the current situation while also reviewing the big picture, planning weather routings, fantasizing about possibly finishing in time to make it to dinner at that favorite restaurant, looking for that safe harbor, etc.

The developer has sighted difficulty in keeping the UI simple as a major obstacle to implementing this capability. It seems to me that either per-window tool/status bars (with hide/unhide) such as used in many OSX apps (e.g. Safari) or the combination of per window toolbars and separate, context-sensitive inspector panel(s) such as used in OmniGraffle could be made to work quite nicely. Personally, I prefer the latter with an emphasis on the tool and status bars for common tasks and with the inspector for showing and controlling more arcane details.

Anyway, I bring this up for discussion.

Thanks for (hopefully) reading.
 
Reply
#4
I just checked around what Windows progs can do I discovered "NavPAK" http://www.globenav.com/ .

On this page http://www.globenav.com/chart.html you can see all the raster and vector charts usable in this program and one can switch with a keystroke between them.

I really would like to have vector maps like S57 (ENC) and C-MAP supported.

Could the GPSNavX Team please comment on the S57 (ENC) support for our beloved Mac program? Approximately which version of GPSNavX will have ENC support? Will the S57 implementation also support European ENC maps? The ENC maps here aren't free as opposed the USA.
 
Reply
#5
Does anyone know a good source of S57 charts for Europe?

I know that the UKHO sell S57 format charts.. however they're $24 per chart.. a little more than I'm willing to pay! At the moment I don't believe that they sell a discounted "pack"

It's worth mentioning that Euronav, authors of SeaPro on the PC, have UKHO S57-derived charts in their "Livecharts" format. They have charts for UK, Eire, Germany and the Netherlands.

I actually stumped out for Seapro Lite at the London Boat Show, as they're doing a deal whereby you get Livecharts for the whole of the UK for only £99.. useful for passage planning under Virtual PC

Brian from Euronav is pretty active on Yahoo's GPS-Navigator forum, and is aware of GPSNavX and the growing number of Mac-based sailors. If we can drum up enough interest, they could be interested in helping...
 
Reply
#6
Quote:Does anyone know a good source of S57 charts for Europe?

Try this adresses, some are in German but I think one can change the language:


http://www.bsh.de/de/Produkte/Karten/Ele...en/354.jsp

http://www.ic-enc.org/

https://www.chartworld.com/

http://www.primar-stavanger.org/
 
Reply
#7
I'd like to be able to add custom icons in the waypoint window dropdown list. Looked to see if I could do it with the applescript library but it doesn't appear so. Have I missed a how-to on this somewhere?
 
Reply
#8
Maybe I'm missing something but ...

1. I'd like to see a little transparent window that always showed the full view of the chart with a little red square around the area shown in the main view. If I clicked on a spot in the little window, the view of the main window would center where I click. I envision this functioning as the "Navigator" window in Photoshop.

2. Another Photoshop-esque feature I would like to see is being able to option click while using the zoom tool and have it zoom out one step from 50 to 33 for example.

If these are already built in then I would appreciate someone telling me where to find them.
 
Reply
#9
The [+] and [-] key will increase an decrease zoom..

Option click centers to the selected point.

http://www.gpsnavx.com/help/shortcuts.htm
Scott Dillon
Sydney Australia
North Shore 38
CYCA
 
Reply
#10
+ and - who would have thought of that? Jeeze.

But is there a way to have a little transparent window that shows the whole chart with a square around the part currently in the main window?

Thanks for the speedy response!
 
Reply
#11
I know I've mentioned it before, but I was using GPSNavX last weekend and this would be so so so... useful!!!!

1. Autoswitching of charts based on the zoom level. (like MapTech Offshore Navigator et al)

2. keyboard shortcuts / buttons to open the next chart "up" or "down" for the selected location

I'll shut up now






:roll:
 
Reply
#12
Would it be of interest to have the output from this kind of sea buoy accessible in/via GPSNavX eventually, as GRIB files are now?

http://www.gomoos.org/oceanobsvnatl/

http://www.gomoos.org/

http://www.gomoos.org/graphing/

and a display of buoy data can be seen here:

http://www.gomoos.org/buoy/buoy_data.shtml
 
Reply
#13
Quote:http://www.gomoos.org/

Are there sites like gomoos for Europe available?
 
Reply
#14
http://www.openioos.org/

The funny thing is my girlfriend works in the NOAA office that manages all the scientific research and she never tells me about any of this cool stuff...
 
Reply
#15
GPSNavX Wrote:The [+] and [-] key will increase an decrease zoom..

Option click centers to the selected point.

http://www.gpsnavx.com/help/shortcuts.htm

Maybe it's just me. I use graphics programs all day long (Photoshop, InDesign, etc.) They have a standard UI of com-space-click (on center of area) to zoom in and opt-com-space-click to zoom out. This is the same for many programs.

I find myself doing this in GPSNavX about 20 times a day!

Would suggest this as an addition to the + and -...? having it zoom in and out of a specific area is nice.

Jack
 
Reply
#16
YES! YES! Pleaaase. I complete agree with all statings bellow. I need desesperatly to introduce my own charts (Geo tiif images and coast profiles with its own coordinate systems). As I need to have the GPS readings and the sounder deepth indications simultaniosly, I can't use MacGPS Pro for this purpouse. That's why I decided to give GPSNAVX a try.

Make it work with Garmin Gps/Sounders and I'll be wiling to pay for that. The alternative is to buy a Wintel Sad

regards

ptgomes

cyberhusky Wrote:Hello,

2) C-MAX maps which can display 3D views, infos about ports, arial photographs, blinking lights in real color and accuracy.

3) LandSat satellite photographs of the sea regions
available here ( https://zulu.ssc.nasa.gov/mrsid/ ) for free.
Though the landsat data file are huge (60 MB and more) the picture of a region aren`t. They do just need the middle coordinates to calibrate. As they are in wrong colors (landscapes, houses = magenta, seas are blue to black) they are very detailed.

4) I would like to have them (or other satellite or arial pictures) in GPSNAVX in a second window, where the same coordinates are used as on the map, so I can see where my boat is on the map in viewed from above.

11) Being able to open third party documents (HTML, PDF, doc, pictures scanned..) for a given region. Like one can select other maps from a given map it should be possible to have another mousepointer to open previously saved documents of a given region, port etc. based on coordinates from the map. This way I could pop up a window with scanned pages from books or pages I previously saved from internet or typed in infos for a harbor, port or given region I`m interested.

I would be willing to pay 100-200 dollars for such a program.

Manou
Sad
 
Reply
#17
Just to re-iterate, seeing as this thread has revived!...
ReeferJon Wrote:2. C-MAP support. I think all all non-US users are crying out for this. However, I think that the real limiting factor hear is C-Map themselves, and their Windows-only SDK. I may be wrong, though... <b>CMAP, please help!</b>

3. Touchscreen interface. OS X is an incredibly sexy UI, and very intuitive. However, when you're being tossed around on deck, and your trying to select menu items on your 8" touchscreen, with Musto sailing gloves on, it can be a tad tricky! A full-screen finger-friendly interface a la MapTech Offshore Navigator would be so useful. Also, slightly larger icons would be useful

4. A zoom / chart select toolbar where you can either increase / decrease zoom, or select larger scale / smaller scale charts of the current location.

.............Chart +
.............../\
Zoom - <.....> Zoom +
...............\/
.............Chart -

GPSNavX has already included a lot of the features requested by users. These are the ones that I honestly think are missing.
 
Reply
#18
ReeferJon Wrote:Just to re-iterate, seeing as this thread has revived!...
ReeferJon Wrote:2. C-MAP support.

3. Touchscreen interface. OS X is an incredibly sexy UI, and very intuitive. However, when you're being tossed around on deck, and you're trying to select menu items on your 8" touchscreen, with Musto sailing gloves on, it can be a tad tricky! A full-screen finger-friendly interface a la MapTech Offshore Navigator would be so useful. Also, slightly larger icons would be useful

4. A zoom / chart select toolbar where you can either increase / decrease zoom, or select larger scale / smaller scale charts of the current location.

.............Chart +
.............../\
Zoom - <.....> Zoom +
...............\/
.............Chart -

GPSNavX has already included a lot of the features requested by users. These are the ones that I honestly think are missing.

C-MAP: could we hear from GPSNavX what's involved (technically: the SDK; financially:licensing from C-MAP, were they willing; etc.)?

Tossing around on deck: if it's that bad, and you're single-handing most of the time, then you need a seriously waterproof [sunlight-readable in a storm? :-)) ] larger screen, in other words, expensive, and you might as well go for a proprietary solution with a marinized unit from Furuno, etc. As we 've seen, the sunlight-readable, water-resistant screens come at a price that puts you in range of the proprietary units, touchscreen or no.

I do think mirroring a below-decks display to a usable cockpit screen is a fine solution (after all, you can replace parts of a setup like that rather than the whole unit if something fails) but we're still getting into major Euros/$$/££/CHFfor that.....
 
Reply
#19
Another item and sorry if this has been discussed before, but would it be possible to synchronize the Mac clock to the GPS clock?

JoeS.
 
Reply
  


Forum Jump:


Browsing: 1 Guest(s)