Free Noaa charts+Nice chart plotter free++

[Garffin]

I now have every Noaa chart on my new free chart plotter.I now have every NOAA Vector Chart on a simple but effect chart plotter program and it’s all free. I used OpenCPN down loaded every Vector Chart and now I have an awesome chart plotter. It’s all free. Man this is really nice. You have to check out OpenCPN it’s a great little program. Oh if you do decide to use it make sure that when you are downloading the charts; download the charts in bulk by state. I have charts from TX to Nova Scotia.


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[Garffin]

That’s a hiding hole in Atlantic City. Free and good anchorage.

[Tempest]

Garffin...does it communicate with a garmin GPS ?...USB port?

[wind_magic]

And it works on Linux.

[Garffin]

Yeah Tempest it does! I have had the opencpn now for about a week and I was able to get all of the NOAA charts easy enough. I just got this GPS this morning. I pluged up the usb and turned on the OpenCPN program and clicked a few tabs and bam it worked just like that. I had to screw around with it for a minute or two but yeah I showed up right on the map on the south river. It’s cool as heck. I guess from doing a little bit of reading so far you can plot, keep track logs ect… Really cool program. The help files are really good. I am using windows vista with my new Garmin 76CSx and this OpenCPN program. I think that you can even upload stuff to the garmin but I have yet to go that far. IF I can help just shoot me a line. I still don’t need a gps but using it to keep a log as to where I go and have gone is sort of cool. Laters Dan

I didn't touch the map at all other than to zoom in and this is what it looked liked... right on the money



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[Garffin]

Here are what the map overlays sort of look like. It takes a little bit to get use to but well worth it! This will give you just a little idea how many charts I have now. All the little squares are charts.


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[Garffin]

OpenCpn supports:
Tides and Currents
AIS GPS/GPSD CM93_2 ENC ECDIS GPX input/output Auto Pilot Routes and Waypoints Vector Charts Raster Charts Mac Version€ Linux XP Vista And More


OpenCPN Home

[wind_magic]

Originally Posted by Garffin

OpenCpn supports:

AIS GPS/GPSD

Speaking of which, someone needs to write an aisd like gpsd so that ais data can be shared between multiple applications.

[wind_magic]

Originally Posted by wind_magic

Speaking of which, someone needs to write an aisd like gpsd so that ais data can be shared between multiple applications.

Looks like support for AIS was added to GPSD two weeks ago.

* 05 Dec 2009 06:43
* Major feature enhancements

Changes: GPSD-NG, the new JSON-based command protocol, is now deployed. As a consequence, AIS is now fully supported in both the daemon and client. Detection of the end of a fix-reporting cycle is now reliable. [...]

[kwaltersmi]

I've also been playing around with OpenCPN on my laptop with my Garmin GPSMAP 76CS+. Great program!

I've been trying to compare the vector charts to the raster charts. So far, I much prefer the rasters, though a lot of online places say vectors are more versatile. I just don't like the look of the vector charts.