Map Program

flrockytop · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 5:46 pm Post subject: Map Program

What in your opinion is the best mapping program? Money is no object but must have world wide maps that are able to be zoomed.

Roger

JamesTXSD · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:53 pm Post subject:

Tell us a little more about what you are looking for... are you wanting marine charts? Raster or vector? City streets? Are you actually wanting world wide or North America?

flrockytop · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:38 pm Post subject:

Hi Jim,

Marine charts. Raster or vector? Either one. I have to admit that I get them confused, but for some reason, I was thinking that the vector were better when available. Must be world wide.

Roger

JamesTXSD · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:02 pm Post subject:

Raster charts are like a digital photo of regular paper charts; when you zoom in, the writing gets larger and it may not be as crisp. Vector charts are data bases of instructions for how to draw the map; zooming in doesn't deteriorate the image. Having said that, I used NOAAs ENC charts, which cover most of the US coasts and waterways, but not the world. Maptech covers the world on small scale, and has closer scale available for most other areas (I think). I've used the Maptech charts for some areas and found them to be decent. Navionics (designed to work with compatible chartplotters) has coastal US (that I've used and really like), and most other coastal waters world wide... your "cost is no option" consideration will come into play with these.

I'm sure there are others... guessing Dr. Bob will chime in with some fine insight.

flrockytop · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:49 pm Post subject:

Thanks Jim,

I've used The Capn for a while myself. I use the free NOAA download charts. They are raster but work just fine. I also run the Garmin blue charts at the same time and switch back and forth between the two. I've looked at the Maptech site and although they have some international charts it is not as complete as I need. That being said, Maptech may have the most that are available. I also neglected to say the charts need to be PC based rather than chartplotter. Like you said I'm sure that Bob will be the person that will know.

Roger

JamesTXSD · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:31 pm Post subject:

flrockytop · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:33 pm Post subject:

What do you use as a viewer? I have downloaded the ENC charts before but could not get them to work with "The Capn" program.

JamesTXSD · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:48 pm Post subject:

thataway · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:49 am Post subject:

I have stayed out of this until I was a bit more sure what Roger was looking for. I use Offshore Navigator and EIC for the US, where I have all of the charts on my computer hard drive.

The problem is getting down load charts for the world--not just the US. There are a number of programs, and they all have some features which are good, but none which will do it all.

The NOAA charts (and some of the DMA) are free and distributed at low cost (such as the DVD from MapTech) or on the net free as EIN.

The British Admirality charts cover the world well, but there are very expensive if purchased on CD or DVD (Fugawi will read the Admirality charts) C Maps probably have the best chart ploter based series--but again very expensive. Navionics also has chart chips for the world--also expensive. Plus none of these are really accurate--there are too many discrepencies which have not been fixed.

"The Digital Nautical Charts: The Digital Nautical Chart® is produced by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and is an unclassified, vector-based, digital database containing maritime significant features essential for safe marine navigation:

http://www.nga.mil/portal/site/dnc/index.jsp?front_door=true"

These files are read in Vector Product Format (VPF). ArcView 3.X is the current preferable VPF.
http://www.chersoft.co.uk/Resources/CherSoft_RasterVector.pdf Gives a good description of Vector vs Raster charts.

Chersoft and Eagleglobalsoft (coastal Navigator):
http://www.eagleglobesoftware.com/formatsrd/DNC.htm

Both make chart reading programs which will read the above, plus the DNC.

Fugawi program information is available at:
http://www.fugawi.com/web/products/products.htm Fugawi makes distributes US, Canadian, European and International charts on DVD. They also allow you to use Navionics chart chips, with a reader. This may be one of the better ways to go for world wide navigation--especially with RayMarine or Furuno chartplotter and a computer on the boat. It gets very expensive for the Navionics chips just to look at charts.

Finally Jeppesen now owns Nobeltec and with the latest edition of Admiral or Visual Navigation the ultra rich can buy the entire world portfolio of Passport charts:
http://www.nobeltec.com/products/pdf/WF37_Region_Summary_Report.pdf
I suspect that this will set you back a few grand--maybe more!

Frankly, you can get a lot of information from Google Earth, unless you have to have depths and nav aids. The coastal photographs are quite good in many parts of the world--some are better resolution than others, But in clear waters you are able to give a fairly good estimate of the depth and the path into harbors. I just ran thru some harbors which I know well, and unless there happen to be clouds, and if the resolution is good, the resolution is almost unbelieverable--for example look at Cabo San Lucas--better than the chart!

If I wanted detail, I would spend some time with the NGA web site and down load these charts and play with them. It will probably take some time to get it all working, but that is what your military is using (the web version I suspect is "dumbed down a bit".

saltspring · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:46 pm Post subject:

I would also suggest checking out Coastal Explorer from Rose Point. It is the program that Maptech re-brands. You can download and use the free NOAA vector maps and load digital weather as well. It has currents, tides and advanced route planning.

http://www.rosepointnav.com/CoastalExplorer/default.htm

You can download a free trial and determine if it meets your needs.

I found the interface easy to use and every feature you might want to have. The Captn program was acquired by Maptech and is essentially in an end of life maintenance mode--don't expect any major enhancements.

thataway · Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 10:47 pm Post subject:

Saltspring thanks for bringing the Maptech products to the discussion--I glossed over them--when I noted that I used offshore navigator. In-advertently I edited out Rosepoint and the Maptech products when I was organizing my post. They are very much in the running. Unfortunately Maptech's charts are not world wide, but the ones which they publish are good.

Pat Anderson · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:11 pm Post subject:

I have Coastal Explorer and love it - it uses the free NOAA electronic charts, both raster and vector. It has the most features and the most user-friendly interface of anything I have used. I use it for planning. The one thing it doesn't do easily is let me transfer my Coastal Explorer waypoints and routes to my C80. I think there is some way with some complicated wiring up of a custom serial cable and magic incantations - too hard for me. RayMarine's RayTech Planner, which is a free download, is also very powerful, and you can save waypoints and routes to a file on a Compact Flash card for easy transfer to the C80, but the user interface suffers from RayMarine's overall corporate failure to understand human factors. Everything is a trade-off I guess. But Coastal Explorer on your laptop with GPS input, either a USB puck or serial input from your handheld GPS, makes Coastal Explorer a great addition on-board.