online chart viewer

[Mark Prouty]

online chart viewer

[Catigale]

Great - now I have a justification to buy that 30x 40 inch format inkjet printer for the office I was contemplating...

Catigale almost home, on Manhattan....

[Scott]

Im ticked because NOAA chose to overlook the small lake that I sail on.

I dont need a Raster chart to nav it but it would be sweet for practice. Stockton or smithville, you have to buy the c-map midwest lakes chart pack to get them. Am I cheap or what!!?

[Jeff Ritsema]

Thanks for the post Mark

[Frank C]

... you have to buy the c-map midwest lakes chart pack to get them. Am I cheap or what!!?

Not at all ... it gripes me too that these chart cartridges are all based on public domain info - yet they are tweaked to work only for proprietary devices, and then sold for "hundreds" when their manufacturing cost is pennies.

That's why I like Lowrance's NauticPath USA offer - full USA coastlines, Gt.Lakes, and Bahamas, including depth contours for $99 (no interior lakes, sorry!). It's unfortunate that the maps for Canadian PNW were exclusively licensed to private publishers rather than published into the public domain like NOAA. Hoping that Congress refuses recent similar proposals to exclusively license the USA maps.

Mapping is in midst of an aerial-GPS revolution. My adult son works in this new industiry, in which a light plane is used to create stereoscopic photographs. In conjunction with a few surveyed land-markers, they can create a map that's accurate to 1-foot in the X & Y (area) dimensions, and even closer accuracy in the Z-axis, elevation (I haven't any idea how!). His small company is presently under contract to re-map some 70-miles of the Pacific Coast highway for Caltrans - it is simply amazing technology. Next steps, they'll find a way to create accurate depth contours using infrared cameras, or some such!

Lowrance knows that they're competing to sell GPS computers, features and functions, not maps. The entire GPS industry is moving AWAY from proprietary maps. Bear this in mind when purchasing new GPS gear.

[Catigale]

"and even closer accuracy in the Z-axis, elevation (I haven't any idea how!). "

SImple time of flight measurement with a Diode pumped Q-Switched NdYAG laser....how did I know about that????

Turns out we sell these devices to guys who build these instruments....small world....

[Scott]

Frank wrote

Scott wrote:

... you have to buy the c-map midwest lakes chart pack to get them. Am I cheap or what!!?

Not at all ... it gripes me too that these chart cartridges are all based on public domain info - yet they are tweaked to work only for proprietary devices, and then sold for "hundreds" when their manufacturing cost is pennies.

I dont really have a complaint about that, I think. I can get maps for the "Midwest Mac-o-rama" and for an ICW /(gulf coast) trip we are planning, even for a bareboat BVI trip. I just have to wait till we go to these locale to put it into practice. I want a raster chart for our lake and it is under Corp of engineers and the other are NOAA and coast guard or "Navigable Waterways"
Hence the lack of public availability. They do exist, just not public domain. So I guess I do have a problem with that.

Cat wrote

SImple time of flight measurement with a Diode pumped Q-Switched NdYAG laser....how did I know about that????

Huh?? What?

[Harrison]

Anyone know if there's a way to print them out?

---Harrison

[Catigale]

Sorry Scott - Im in the laser business...we sell a short pulsed laser system that is used for aerial mapping and I was having some fun...

[Don T]

Hello:
So..........the cheaters way to print stuff out is to use the "windows bug." For some programs, like my gps software, which does not allow printing make sure you open a word processor program. Have it running when you are surfing or in my case looking at my gps charts from Magellan then hit print screen. Window over to your word processor and click paste. Viola' the no print allowed software is letting you print. I usually save it into paint so I can do notations and crop. Not perfectly to scale but the harbor zoom in's are sufficient to get me in. I assemble a notebook of "sheet protector" pages before departing.

Disclamer:
Not intended to take the place of up todate large paper charts.

[Scott]

Cat wrote

Sorry Scott - Im in the laser business

Is that the large lasers like the photon laser on the starship whackyprise or the little handhelds as in "Laser beam ray gun"

[Catigale]

We are right in between these two....we can cut cars in half, but dont sell laser pointers either...cool business...

[Grimo]

... Next steps, they'll find a way to create accurate depth contours using infrared cameras, or some such!
.

This can be done now and the technology has been available for some time (in Australia anyway ). It works on the same principal as terrestrial laser scanning but uses a system similar to sonar, and can be mounted in small aircraft.

[aya16]

You can see where this Mapping is going... real time sat images for any place sat cover. 20 years maybe but it would be nice to up link to a sat and get real time snap shots of areas you move into. Make our new mapping units look like the first flasher fish finders that came out way back then.
All that money our gov. spent on spy sats should be put to some good use for the private sector. We dont need to see what brand cigs the guy in the next boat is smoking but would be nice to see real time a new harbor we start to enter or look at the wheather ahead. Or for us see if the ramp is full before we go dock to pull our boat out. Or how many babes in bikinis
are hanging around the beach. wow I dont even need the boat anymore ill just stay at home and check all that stuff out. Good thing to because Ill be seventy five then.