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Let me put a bit a of context. In the forum we talk a lot about boats and electronics which are used to sail, but even if I starting to learn how people use "that specfic feature" in their boat, and some of you have even shared your whole setup, there are still some key points that I don't understand how you do. Specially from software perspective.

Most of the boat owners I know enjoy their boat in a similar way: 1-day (or weekend) coastal trips for most of the year, and then a longer voyage on summer, wether is coastal navigation or not. I'm gonna assume most of you do the same, or something similar. So I think we could summarise the needs for those kind of usages in something like:

Weekend trip
· Generic route planning
· Log the track so you can check later
· Display basic information for the navigation (wind speed/angle, SOG, COG, etc)

Summer voyage
· Detailed route planning
· Weather forecast
· Weather routing
· Up to date charts for the region to sail in
· AIS/Radar display
· Everything from weekend trip

All year round
· Monitor of basic aspects like battery charge, tank levels, etc
· Logbook for repairs, things to buy, things to change, etc


Before discovering the existance of OpenPlotter (for the first year of having my sailboat), i used commercial software Navionics and SquidX. I had both of them in a 7" tablet. With Navionics I planned the routes, saved tracks, and displayed the useful information on screen (SOG, COG, ETA) using the tablet's GPS. With SquidX i got the weather forescating solved, as well as weather routing. First issue was that i had to code a conversion from the exported weather routing to navionics format, and that was very annoying, specially taking into account that most software use VERY similar xml formats for they routes/tracks. There must be a open source solution for this, I thought!

And here I am 2 years later. Bought a Raspberry 4, installed OP2, bought a Moitessier HAT 2, got a couple serial to usb converters, bought VE SmartShunt, got f***g amazed with the power and simplicity of SignalK, read a lot, tested AvNav, Freeboard, OpenCPN, read a lot more, tested a lot more... and yeah, I can display a bunch of useful information on screen, but still i feel like I have the same issues.

OpenCPN is great, it really is, and has all the features of most of the comercial software, and would be wonderful if I could use it for sailing, but I'm afraid i can't. It just can't be used from touchscreen, even less through VNC. Even less when sailing in rough weather from the cockpit. Also the display was cool 5 years ago, but now, is hard to sacrifice the readability of KIP dashboards (just an example).

AvNav proved to be an excellent "1-day" plotter, specially embedded in a KIP dashboard too, but it doesn't have waypoint/POI storage, route management. Aside from that, IMO is better than Navionics. But for a longer trip, it's hard to plan several legs, i don't know how to import weather routing exported from OpenCPN, etc... 

And the major pain in the ass, IMO, is to be unable to share grib/weather routing/routes/waypoints/tracks, between the different software. 

Anyway, sorry for the long post and thanks for reading!

As for the question. I'm sure most of the issues are cause by my lack of knowledge, so people, how do you actually sail with OpenPlotter?
You cant use it without touchscreen? There is an option for touchscreen in UI of OpenCPN settings. This is mostly for OpenCPN android but probably works on other systems. I do not use touchscreen and they dont work if they get wet. So this is the only problem with opencpn to check the checkbox??

As for your concept of using the boat only a few times a year, this is by no means the only use case. A lot of users live on their boat full time and do many ocean passages. I am living on board since 2009

The opencpn weather routing can export as a route which can be saved in the gpx format.. As for avnav.. it is still quite new but interesting. It leverages a lot of existing software for map displays that is not specific to boats that had to all be written from scratch specifically for opencpn. I did not do much comparison, but until opencpn can break up into modular components it will always be a weak point that it is not flexible, however it has far more time put into development.

So I suggest just enabling the touchscreen UI option of opencpn, or stop using stupid touch screen since they are not very useful.
(2021-07-03, 04:45 PM)MigGat Wrote: [ -> ]Let me put a bit a of context. In the forum we talk a lot about boats and electronics which are used to sail, but even if I starting to learn how people use "that specfic feature" in their boat, and some of you have even shared your whole setup, there are still some key points that I don't understand how you do. Specially from software perspective.

Most of the boat owners I know enjoy their boat in a similar way: 1-day (or weekend) coastal trips for most of the year, and then a longer voyage on summer, wether is coastal navigation or not. I'm gonna assume most of you do the same, or something similar. So I think we could summarise the needs for those kind of usages in something like:

Weekend trip
· Generic route planning
· Log the track so you can check later
· Display basic information for the navigation (wind speed/angle, SOG, COG, etc)

Summer voyage
· Detailed route planning
· Weather forecast
· Weather routing
· Up to date charts for the region to sail in
· AIS/Radar display
· Everything from weekend trip

All year round
· Monitor of basic aspects like battery charge, tank levels, etc
· Logbook for repairs, things to buy, things to change, etc


Before discovering the existance of OpenPlotter (for the first year of having my sailboat), i used commercial software Navionics and SquidX. I had both of them in a 7" tablet. With Navionics I planned the routes, saved tracks, and displayed the useful information on screen (SOG, COG, ETA) using the tablet's GPS. With SquidX i got the weather forescating solved, as well as weather routing. First issue was that i had to code a conversion from the exported weather routing to navionics format, and that was very annoying, specially taking into account that most software use VERY similar xml formats for they routes/tracks. There must be a open source solution for this, I thought!

And here I am 2 years later. Bought a Raspberry 4, installed OP2, bought a Moitessier HAT 2, got a couple serial to usb converters, bought VE SmartShunt, got f***g amazed with the power and simplicity of SignalK, read a lot, tested AvNav, Freeboard, OpenCPN, read a lot more, tested a lot more... and yeah, I can display a bunch of useful information on screen, but still i feel like I have the same issues.

OpenCPN is great, it really is, and has all the features of most of the comercial software, and would be wonderful if I could use it for sailing, but I'm afraid i can't. It just can't be used from touchscreen, even less through VNC. Even less when sailing in rough weather from the cockpit. Also the display was cool 5 years ago, but now, is hard to sacrifice the readability of KIP dashboards (just an example).

AvNav proved to be an excellent "1-day" plotter, specially embedded in a KIP dashboard too, but it doesn't have waypoint/POI storage, route management. Aside from that, IMO is better than Navionics. But for a longer trip, it's hard to plan several legs, i don't know how to import weather routing exported from OpenCPN, etc... 

And the major pain in the ass, IMO, is to be unable to share grib/weather routing/routes/waypoints/tracks, between the different software. 

Anyway, sorry for the long post and thanks for reading!

As for the question. I'm sure most of the issues are cause by my lack of knowledge, so people, how do you actually sail with OpenPlotter?

Have you tried installing BBN OS image on pi4? It has better support of touchscreen and you might find it more user friendly than OP.
https://bareboat-necessities.github.io/m...at-os.html

I've done 2 week cruise with that set up via Long Island Sound and used it as primary navigation software
on a cockpit touchscreen. Pi was below deck wired to OpenWrt LTE router. So I had internet on board almost all the time.
Chartplotting, AIS, Tides/Currents in OpenCPN, Wind/SOG/COG Display, Music players (Mopidy), pi as a local boat hotspot,
web browser (Windy), Dockwa, route tracking were the most used features.

My boat didn't have any autopilot though and I didn't have a low light camera,
but that would be really useful as we did some night sailing and landings too.

Thanks,
--MG
Quote:AvNav proved to be an excellent "1-day" plotter, specially embedded in a KIP dashboard too, but it doesn't have waypoint/POI storage, route management. Aside from that, IMO is better than Navionics. But for a longer trip, it's hard to plan several legs, i don't know how to import weather routing exported from OpenCPN, etc... 
Small remark:
There is a complete route editing and management part in AvNav.
You can easily import and export routes in gpx format or convert tracks to routes.
So planning several legs should be no issue.
Not sure but maybe some of the video tutorials could help ( although in german).
Videos : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...XK-TANk6q3
Routes in doc: https://www.wellenvogel.net/software/avn...#h2:Routes
Multiple Waypoints can be imported as overlays, editing is on the wishlist: https://github.com/wellenvogel/avnav/issues/136
Thanks for your comments. I think I should have posted this in general discussion, since I really intended to exchange ideas and experiences on how to use this hardware/software confortably, more than trying to figure out a specific technical issue.


@seandepagnier
I know many people live on board, and it's interesting to know about those setups too. But obviously, the requirements (and possiblities) are quite different for weekend sailors like me. My scenario is that I don't have any screen on board, just an android 7" tables that i use in the cockpit, cabin, or that i take home with me. That's the only display device I have available, and I have no option to install another one, because of space and money. In addition I have a cheap wireless keyboard with touchpad that is really helpful on the "planning activities" but annoying to use during sailing. I'm sorry if this seems a stupid solution, but it's the best i've been able to do with what I can afford Sad


As for weather routing export. I didnt' know, so thanks! I tested it and is quite useful. Export => Convert track to route => Export route to AvNave routes folder, and done. Great. Would be awesome to do all of that from command line so i can automate it, but i will dig in the code when I have time.


Regarding OpenCPN, again is think is the most complete tool I could find, but I find more issues than just the touchscreen support. But being an open source software, I will inspect the code and see how I can help improving before criticizing.


@mgrouch
I wanted to try my best with OP2 before testing other options as it mainly satifies my needs (maybe that wasn't clear in the original post), but I will certainly try BBN out. Worst case, I'm sure I'll get new ideas. I like how it looks too, that "imitate a commercial plotter look" seems to add usability. Will try to get a new SD card this week and check it out.

Thanks for sharing your setup too Smile


@wellenvogel
Thanks for the tips. I had already read the documentation but still I have issues managing routes. I think that might be related to some misundertanding (on my side) of what overlays are in AvNav, so that's certainly my bad. So I'll read the docs again and watch the videos (let's see how youtube handles german translation).

Thanks for the software too, btw!
Quote: I think that might be related to some misundertanding (on my side) of what overlays are in AvNav

You have both routes and overlays  Smile ...
I guess creating a route is fairly simple - just click on the route button when displaying a map. Add your points, click on the left "route display widget" to change the name or edit a different one.
On the download page you have all your routes and can export/import them.
Once you have a route you can activate it (again via the route button, route display widget click), start routing button.
Overlays can be charts, gpx,kml,geojson,... files - or tracks or routes. Basically they are displayed on top of a chart (routes displayed as an overlay are normally not active...). You will get some actions when clicking on such an overlay (e.g. start routing if the overlay is a route).

If you have further questions - just ask...
(2021-07-03, 04:45 PM)MigGat Wrote: [ -> ] how do you actually sail with OpenPlotter?

As a full time cruiser probably different to many but very important for me is *assume all the toys will break!*  Big Grin
So anything other than a really easy coastal hop in good weather a quick passage plan is done beforehand, opencpn makes this simple. Then nothing is needed in the cockpit other than the compass  to stay safe if something goes wrong.
Saying that, usually it's tablet running opencpn on android on a stand under the sprayhood, opencpn must have as good an ais display as there is, plus using satellite images as charts can be extremely  useful. Planning often done on a laptop, sasplanet is very useful addition on windows for this as it's simple to jump between sat images & navionic/cmap. Some areas I've marine traffic density images as charts in opencpn to see where the quieter parts of the ocean are. Then the navobj.xml file can b copied over to the pi & tablet using filezilla so all machines are in sync. 
Also massively powerful is recording everything 24/7 to influxdb and viewed in grafana, so batteries especially can be watched carefully to check they're actually getting charged , wind is fascinating seeing the sea breeze building and veering most days. Even the fridge thermostat is an esp32 talking signalk these days  Cool

All in all a raspberry pi with openplotter/signalk provides things which just a few years ago could only have been dreamed about for so little power and so little cost.
@wellenvogel
Awesome, I didn't quite understood the usage of overlays indeed. Thanks for the support too; i'm re-reading the docs and finding out new stuff, playing with overlays, etc Smile

@PaddyB
Thanks for your input too! Definetly agree on planning bneforehand, that part I already do, and will certainly improve after this chat with you guys. For this august's 3-week trip, I'll take my laptop with OpenCPN for the planning. Now that I found out about the export functions and the import ones in AvNav, should be little to no problem to get everything working together.

While on cockpit, I already built a support for the tablet under the sprayhood, but I think i'd rather use AvNav/KIP display during the navigation. Those are apps designed to use with your fingers, unlike OpenCPN.

InfluxDB+Grafana are definetly a powerful combo; I also have full battery monitoring, temperature+pressure, and basically any other input that I can care about it's evolution.

---

So far it's quite clear to me that what I need to do is to sail more, try different configurations, and see what works best for me in different situations. But it's very interesting to read your inputs.

Before august though, I will work in a software to synchronize information between OpenCPN and AvNav. Should be reasonable easy to listen for changes in OpenCPN's navobj.xml and AvNav's route/track/overalay folders and automatically convert the format and send to a specific folder/computer in the network.
The idea to have some syncing sounds great...
Unfortunately I'm afraid that there could be some pitfalls that at least have to be considered.
We had an interesting discussion about syncing 2 OpenCPN instances: https://www.segeln-forum.de/board194-boo...ost2165989
It's in german but maybe google could help.
One of the issues was that OpenCPN will only merge into navobject.xml when closing (not sure if still true).
Also AvNav would maybe not immediately pick up a  new route (but it should do so after some time).
Anyway if you are going to implement something and you need some support at the AvNav side - just let us get in contact. There is also some python plugin api at AvNav - maybe some import/export support could be added....