Welcome ActiveCaptain and eBoatCards Users!

We are pleased to be a part of eBoatCards contest & hope you will take a moment to try out our marine navigation apps.

They are free to download and include all features for 1-week evaluation period.  After that, you can still view charts and ActiveCaptain content for free, but we hope you'll upgrade for all the additional capabilities.

• SEAiq Free: For mariners in the USA: it downloads any/all of the thousands of vector and raster charts available from NOAA and the US Army Corps of Engineers.
• SEAiq Open: For international mariners: you install your own charts in any of these formats: S-57, S-63, CM93, iENC, BSB/KAP.  For the OpenCPN users out there, you can see we provide instructions on this site for transferring your charts from OpenCPN to SEAiq.

We are also pleased to pre-announce version 2.6.0 of our apps (available in the next several days).  New changes include:

• Without an upgrade, you will now be able to view all charts for free.  Previously, only charts with scale larger than 1:50,000 could be viewed without purchasing the upgrade.
• Numerous performance improvements.
• SEAiq Open now supports the free raster charts published by Brazil and Argentina.

SEAiq Pilot: Docking Aids Feature

Our newest app, SEAiq Pilot, is designed to support specialized features used by river and harbor pilots.  Among these features are capabilities to help in docking large vessels, which is described in this post.

Docking aids is intended to be used with a sensor that provides accurate Rate-of-Turn (ROT) sensor data, such as from a Portable Piloting Unit (PPU) or using the vessel's ROT sensor via a pilot plug.  This allows SEAiq Pilot to estimate the movement of various points on the vessel, accounting for the vessel's rotation and the position of the antenna on the vessel.  Note that SEAiq Pilot supports all major brands of WiFi based PPUs and pilot plugs.

In the screenshots below, the setting Setting / Truescale Vessel / Show True-scale Vessel at Tick-marks has been set to ON.  This causes an outline of the vessels predicted position of the vessel in 1, 2, and 3 minutes to be displayed using dotted lines.

Vessel predicted position and secondary course lines

When docking aids are enabled you get extra information about your vessel's movement.  Secondary course lines are provided for various points on the vessel.  In the image below then vessel is rotating about its bow.  You can see that in addition to the vessel's predicted position, secondary course lines (also dotted) are displayed for the vessels movement over the next 6 minutes.  With course lines and predicted position, the actual movement of the vessel is apparent.

Note that when ROT data is available, SEAiq uses the ROT and antenna position to correct the SOG/COG sensor data so that the data displayed applies to the center of the vessel.  In the image above, the antenna itself (shown as a solid dot toward the aft of the vessel) actually has a COG of 251 deg True and SOG of 1.2kts.  However, much of that speed is caused by its rotation about the center of the vessel.  Correcting for rotation of the antenna, the center of the vessel has a COG 259T and SOG 0.4kts, which are the values shown.

Additional docking aids when approaching wharf

As the vessel approaches the wharf it is coming alongside, additional information is provides.  First, note that the context-sensitive data in the statusbar on the right includes a section on docking.  It give the distance and relative speed to the wharf of the bow and the stern of the vessel.  It also gives the angle of the vessel relative to the wharf and the ROT.

Similar information is also displayed on the chart display, in addition to the predicted position of the vessel.  You can see the distance to the wharf of key parts of the vessel and the velocity relative to the wharf.  Also, the angle to the wharf is given (25.2 degrees).

Using the docking aids is simple and explained fully in the Help under Settings / Docking.  (1) Create a route with exactly two waypoints that defines the wharf you are coming along, (2) Set the name of the Wharf under Settings / Docking (see below), (3) Set Display Docking Aids to ON.  You will see the current status of the docking aids in the Status field.

HOWTO: Reading Supplemental Panels in Raster Charts

The SEAiq apps have traditionally been focussed on vector charts.  We recently added the ability to view raster charts as well.  This blog describes one of the important capabilities of SEAiq for raster charts: how to access off-chart data that is in supplemental panels.

A brief review about vector and raster charts is in order.  One of the advantages of vector charts is that they server as a kind of database about the region covered by a chart.  In particular, they typically contain much more information than can be readily viewed at one time.  In SEAiq, you can access all this data by double-tapping on any point on a chart and selecting "Details for this Location".  SEAiq will return with a list of all point, lines, and area objects at or near where you selected.  Each object comes with a description as well as the image that is shown on the map, when appropriate.  You can then dig into each object by selecting it and pulling up all its attributes.  As an example, below is a sequence of screen shots where we access the information for the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Bay:

As you can see, when you select the bridge, there are actually all sorts of objects with additional information available.  By selecting the bridge, you then get the clearance and other details about the bridge.  We encourage users to do this to familiarize themselves with all the information that is available in vector charts.

Raster charts are different.  A raster chart is essentially a picture of a traditional paper chart and SEAiq is simply viewing that image.  Any data on the chart must appear somewhere in the image as text, icons, etc that must be read from the image.  In some cases, there is additional data available available "off chart" in a separate box in the image.  This can be awkward when viewing the chart in navigation program, because it can be difficult to find where that location is and view it.  For instance, consider the NOAA raster chart of the San Francisco Bay Bridge:

You can see running along the left side of the bridge is the text "GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE (see bridge note)."  The problem of course is how to find the bridge note on the raster chart.   SEAiq is unique in that (for raster charts that support it) it can pull up the off-chart data for you.  All you do is to find the information symbol, an 'i' in a box.  In this case the symbol appears in the middle of the word "bridge".  You double tap on the symbol and select "Details for this Location".  You then select "Nautical Publication Information" and then "Pictorial Representation."

As you can see, this will bring up the area of the chart that was referenced and you can read the information, in this case about the clearance and span for the bridge.

Additionally, you can also list all the "Supplemental Panels" associated with a chart by double-tapping on a chart, selecting "Details for this Location" and select "Chart Information".  You will be presented with lots of information about the chart, when it was made, who published it, etc.  If you scroll down, you will get to the section listing "Supplemental Panels."  By selecting any of the items, you will be able to pull up the given panel and read what it has to say.  For the supplemental panel about the Golden Gate Bridge, you would select the item "GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE (CHART)" and you would see the same image as give above.

Please note that this capability is only available for charts that have been appropriately indexed by the publisher.  All the USA NOAA raster charts have been indexed in this fashion.

US Army Corps of Engineers chart server is down...

If you are a SEAiq USA or SEAiq Free user, you may have noticed SEAiq is having trouble updating the chart catalog for the US Army Corp of Engineers inland ENC charts.  Apparently, their chart server is down.  They are aware of the issue and hopefully it will be back up soon.

This (unfortunately) mostly just affects new users since SEAiq wants to have copies of all chart catalogues before proceeding to download any charts.  We are sorry for the trouble & will post updates here as the situation is resolved.

UPDATE 1 (4/30/13): The US Army Corps of Engineers server is back up!

UPDATE 2 (5/1/13): The US Army Corps of Engineers server is back down again.

UPDATE 3 (5/7/13): The US Army Corps of Engineers server is back up now.

New app: SEAiq Pilot

We are pleased to announce our newest app, SEAiq Pilot.  SEAiq Pilot is the first and only full-featured navigation app intended for use by professional river and harbor pilots.

Its many features include the following:

• Support for official HO S-57/S-63 marine charts 
• Adheres to IHO S-52 chart display standards 
• Predicted vessel display (with ROT) 
• Docking aids displaying distance/velocity to wharf for key points on vessel
• Support for Bathymetric ENCs (bENC's) 
• Tested for use with many WiFi based AIS plugs and Portable Pilot Units
• Correction to COG/SOG data to account for GPS antenna rotation on large vessels

SEAiq Pilot is free to download and includes a free 7-day evaluation period.  After that period, an in-app purchase is required in order to use the premium features.

IMPORTANT: SEAiq Pilot is not considered appropriate for non-pilot users.  We recommend looking SEAiq Free (USA users) or SEAiq Open (international users).  In addition to adding features used by pilots, SEAiq Pilot also removes features not normally needed by pilots.