Category : Charting

iSailor : Transas maps on iPhone and iPad

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iSailorIn France, mariners know little, or not at all, about Transas company of Russian origin. The Transas Group is nevertheless one of the world's leading professional of navigation software . Founded in 1990 in St Petersburgh, it opens its first office in England in Southampton (UK). Application developer for maritime and aeronautical training simulators, leading ECDIS certified designer, AIS network installer, the company has provided its electronic charting systems to prestigious customers, as the Russian space station MIR in 1996. There are countless marine simulator and flight simulators equipped with Transas technology in training centers worldwide. Several major commercial harbours are also equipped with VTS (*) and VTM (*) from Transas.
With 200 million turnover, the now international group, majority run by Russians, has its headquarters in Cork, Ireland.

All this to tell you that, when the very serious Transas company decides to launch a marine charting application on the iPhone and iPad, does not hesitate to rely on a communication, let’s say… particularly impactful. See instead… Read more …

About Marine Charting

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Christmas is coming and, whether the celebration is religious or pagan, so traditional gifts.

You've no doubt guessed my passion for marine charting, but before electronic charts, I hold a special attachment to paper charts. I started sailing with SHOM charts in black and white, accompanied by pretty calligraphy engravings representing remarkable capes, alignments. Then appeared the colored charts, flat, difficult to store in a sailboat of 8 meters high. I bought charts from the British Admiralty, even more colourful, impossible formats, with complicated folding and cutting in the form of cartridges. Finally I discovered the West Indies charts Imray, of a reduced format, laminated and folded in protective plastic envelopes, a revolution on chart tables. Then SHOM also produces folded charts, "P" for Piacenza, that I sold for several years.

But this generally only represents the 35 Later years of marine charting.

I was therefore particularly fascinated by the two books that follow, maybe you already know because not recent, but which are really worth taking advantage of this festive period to be offered them, if you did not yet got. Read more …

Crossing the Atlantic with an iPad

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I cannot resist the urge to show you some pics (*) to iNavX on iPad which has just crossed the Atlantic, from Mediterranean to Martinique. The sailor has abandoned his MacBook Air, on which he uses MacENC for several years with S-57 ENC charts. It switched to an iPad 3G, featured iNavX, Navionics Gold charts and the Apple app Numbers to write his log book.

iPad

iNavX in action

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View the currents on electronic charts ?

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I deliberately title this article in the form of a question. Many users, all countries included, want the visualization of currents in Richard Ray's applications. Indeed, there is no display function of the currents in GPSNavX, MacENC and iNavX. It is a deliberate choice by the developer because there are many data sources and all hydrographic services are unwilling to provide their files in digital format. In addition, Users are likely to take data displayed on their cards as safe and certain, With consequences that could engage the liability of the publisher and legal risks, especially in the USA, too big for the developer. Read more …

Navionics Mobile and Community Sharing

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Once will not hurt, I relayed the information in French from Blog Panbo which have interest for Apple mobile devices users.

Community Sharing

  • User Generated Content (User-generated content)
  • Social Mapping or Social Charting (Social Mapping)
  • Crowd Sourcing (Crowd sourcing)

All these english words mean the same principle : sharing to the community all maritime information collected by each charting software user. In other words, each boater can use its navigation application to share all information on any changes observed over charts. This can concern the markup, the erection of a new quay or the appearance of new catways in a harbour, practical information on new harbourt services, incorrect positioning of a rock or the appearance of an uncharted shoal, etc,. Read more …

The stakeholders of electronic charting

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Navionics charts, C-Map charts, BlueChart, MapMedia… You will admit that we have difficulty finding our way in all these brands of electronic cartography. Who belongs to whom ? What works with what ?

To help you see things more clearly, I took a little time to locate the main actors who, au final, provide us these wonderful charts that avoid storing pounds of paper. place free, and ecological in addition ! Once again, follow the leader… Read more …

Print charts with GPSNavX / MacENC

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These two applications offer direct printing of screen content. It is very convenient to print a chart, regardless of the scale used on the screen. Indeed, Print this concerns only the chart content visible on screen, excluding pop-up windows. As a general rule, you should first choose a landscape print format, and then use the menu File > Print.

imprimer avec gpsnavx

Direct printing with GPSNavX

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ENC User Permit, what is ?

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The "user permit" of ENC charts is a unique identifying number attached to a device, or to an application, able to read encrypted ENC chart data (format S-63). This “User Permit” is required to register a system (chartplotter, MFD, software) and thus make it possible to generate, for charts purchased, a single authentication code to use these charts to the referenced system. User Permit (User Permit) consists of a chain of 28 digits hexadecimal code.

Let's take the example of a purchase on the site Chartworld. Read more …

Navionics does not know the crisis…

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Many users wonder about the redundancy of Navionics charts. Examples :
“I bought an SD-Card (or a CF-Card) with a Navionics region for my chartplotter, but I can't use it with my Mac. Why should I pay again to use these charts with MacENC ? ”.
Or even :
“I already have Navionics mapping for my software on Mac, why do I have to pay for mapping for iNavX on my iPhone again ? ”
So I asked these questions to person concerned. First of all, regarding iNavX, the answer can already be found in the Navionics FAQ which I translated and which is available on my site :
Q : Can I purchase Navionics charts from a source other than X-Traverse.com for use with iNavX ?
R : No. Only genuine Navionics charts, subscribed with www.x-traverse.com are iNavX consistent. Navionics charts on physical Plug-and-Play media are not compatible, not more than those purchased from the iTunes AppStore Navionics Mobile.
It has the merit of being clear.
Regarding software on Mac, the answer is already more nuanced :
Fugawi, the host of Navionics maps on its site x-traverse.com, tells us :
“Navionics charts supplied with Plug-and-Play support (Navionics SD ou CF card) cannot work with MacENC 7 because the Navionics multicard reader is not currently supported by Mac OS. ”
What Richard Ray, the MacENC editor, retorts : “We plan to support the Navionics chart reader, but I cannot give a date because it is up to Navionics to provide a specific driver for support of its reader by OS.
And what says the main concerned ? Navionics tells us : »Products for direct download (the cards) work exclusively with MacENC 7.xx on the Mac on which they were activated. These charts can not be copied to an SD or CF card for use on the plotters supported. To do this you must purchase Navionics maps on official Navionics Plug-and-Play media ».
We can therefore deduce, not to be spiteful, that Navionics has great interest to not rushing to provide an OS X driver for its Multi-Card Reader. This allows them to sell several times the same charting to same users, provided they have a chartplotter, a Mac and an iPhone !
My Little Business, It Knows no Crisis…

Many users wonder about the redundancy of Navionics charts.

“I bought an SD-Card (or a CF-Card) with a Navionics chart folder for my plotter, but I can't use it with my Mac. Why should I pay again to use these charts with MacENC ? ”.

Or even :

“I already have Navionics mapping for my software on Mac, why do I have to pay for mapping for iNavX on my iPhone or iPad again ? ”

So I asked these questions to person concerned. Read more …