OpenCPN is a chart navigation program for vessels of any type and magnitude.
The program allows creating routes and tracking them if GPS is available. It creates routes by inserting way-points; way-points are editable and can be added or removed from the routes already created. The program reads GPS data; if GPS is connected to the computer, your positions will be shown on the program's interface. If GPS is not available, this program may be used as a simple planning tool.
The application accepts both Electronic Navigational Charts (ENC) and Raster Navigational charts (RNC), which can be downloaded for free from the Internet. Tides and currents can be showed on the chart by enabling any or both of them on the toolbar.
OpenCPN is a light-weight program that doesn’t require too much space and memory on your hard drive. There is help documentation included into the program, but if it is not enough, you can find a lot of helpful information in different languages on the program's and other various websites. The application runs on Windows, Linux and MacOS platforms.
v5.0 [Mar 28, 2019]
- The Main Toolbar: The Main Toolbar to the left is similar to the old 4.8 version, with a different look. The idea is that all the settings that changes infrequently are gathered here. Quite a few buttons are gone, and you can now mostly find them in the chart-panels setting options. Gone are the buttons for Zooming, Auto Follow, Vector chart Text, AIS and the tidal buttons. The Zoom in/out buttons and the autofollow buttons and the AIS button are now in the Chart Panel Bar in the lower right corner. The “Shift to Larger/Smaller Scale Charts” buttons are gone for good. Buttons for plugins ends up in the Main Toolbar, that expands to two columns, as necessary. Right clicking on the Main Toolbar enables selection of what icons to show, same as in 4.8 There is no option to revert to the old style Toolbar.
- Chart Panel Bar: The Chart Panel Bar contains zoom in/out button the chart scale, the Autofollow button and the icon to expand the Chart Panel Options sidebar. The Autofollow button looks and works differently. There are three different versions of this button, depending on what features that are active. This is the standard no-follow mode that you will see if Autofollow is not activated. OpenCPN will revert to this mode if Autofollowing is active but you move the chart in such way that Own Ship ends up outside the Chart Panel. In other words, Autofollowing will then be turned off.
This is what you see if Chart Panel Options ? Look Ahead Mode is active. This corresponds to the 4.8 Look Ahead Mode. One difference is that Autofollow will not be turned off if you move the chart with the cursor, as long as Own Ship is still visible. In this case the Own Ship Icon will auto revert to it's original position on the screen. This mode is a more general version of the old Look Ahead mode. Just Left Click and grab the canvas and move the boat to were you want it on the screen, and it will stay there.
- Chart Panel Options: The Chart Panel Options contains well known options, that earlier were found in the different tabs in “Options” or in the Toolbar itself. Note that the former vector chart text button has moved here as an option. See Vector charts ? Show Text. The “Mariner's Standard” vector charts display category has changed name to “User Standard”.
- Options: The wrench (spanner) icon is gone and replaced by the standard cogwheel.
Many settings in Options are now moved to the “Chart Panel Options” side bar, with the same function as in the 4.8 releases. There are also a number of new options available.
The Options-Display-General Tab: The “Preserve scale when switching charts” option does not exist in O5 as it is now default behavior.
- There is a new section called Canvas Layout. This is where you can split the screen in two panels, or canvases. To change to a view where you can see two charts at the same time, just click the split view icon and press “OK”. The chart you were viewing earlier will be in the left panel. The right panel will, to start with, contain a small scale view of the same area using your first chart group, if possible; otherwise the background map. Choose charts for the individual panels the same way as you did in 4.8.
- Each Chart Panel has it's own Canvas Bar and all the Chart Panel Options can be set individually for each displayed chart. The size of the two panels can easily be adjusted by just grabbing the black vertical bar between the panels with the cursor - left Click, and move left or right. There is always an “Active Panel” where, for example, keyboard input works. It is marked by a narrow horizontal blue bar at the top of the panel that is active. To make a panel active, left- or right-click somewhere on the panels canvas. Hitting the “Tab” key will change which panel is active as well.
In multi-canvas mode, the first left-click on an inactive canvas will just change the focus. After that, left-clicks will center the canvas on the click point as usual.
The easiest practical way to change between single and dual panel in an organized way is to use “Templates”. Read on!
- The Options-Display-Advanced Tab: Four options are canceled: Disable Full Screen Quilting, Suppress blur/fog effects on overzoom, Suppress scaled vector charts on overzoom, Enable Transparent Toolbar is removed. This option is not relevant for V5.0. Use the toolbar AutoHide option instead.
- The Options-Display-Templates Tab: Templates is a new and powerful concept in OpenCPN. There are a lot of options and settings in OpenCPN. Some of these may need changing as your navigation area and conditions change. Imagine that you have proceeded along the US Intracoastal Waterway – ICW for a few days using vector charts, with adjusted settings for shallow depth, course up display and AIS alarms, just as examples.
Get port distance information from a list of 12,000 ports with weather forecast
