Where Can I Download Opencpn Charts
Poppy Yentsch
o-charts was created as part of OpenCPN with the goal to provide the OpenCPN user community with up-to-date quality charts at a reasonable price point. The map above shows our actual coverage. For details please refer to our web shop.
[o-charts web shop]
Today, Hydrographical Offices all over the world are producing their official vector charts in S-57 format. NOAA provides free vector charts for the US in plain S-57 format but in most countries they are licensed under not free encrypted formats derived from S-57 like S-63 or oeSENC.
Nevertheless we shall not forget raster charts as alternative and sometimes the only reliable or available format for some interesting sailing regions. We know very well that there are quite some users of OpenCPN who prefer raster over vector and want to give an answer to those requests. Licensed raster charts in the oeRNC format are enabling the access to the raster portfolio.
"OpenCPN Encrypted System Electronical Nautical Charts" (oeSENC) are the most economical quality vector charts available. We receive S-57 data directly from Hydrographical Offices, encrypt them in the oeSENC format and deliver chart sets for their individual use in OpenCPN. If your navigation zone is available this can be a very good choice to get up-to-date quality charts at a reasonable cost.
OpenCPN Encrypted Raster Nautical Charts (oeRNC) are licensed from well known editors or directly from Hydrographic Offices, packaged and encrypted for OpenCPN. Same as in the case of oeSENC vector charts, these cannot be considered "Official Charts" in any case even if they look identical to their "Official" twins.
S-63 charts are official vector charts with worldwide coverage. However, many popular cruising areas are very poorly covered as the main focus are the requirements of commercial shipping. They have a relatively high price as well. We sell S-63 UserPermits, a key that entitles the OpenCPN user to license S-63 charts from a distributor. o-charts has entered into agreements with S-63 Valued Added Resellers (VAR) like "ChartWorld" that are offering direct distribution channels.
[ChartWorld]
For first time users we suggest you use the Chart Downloader Tab which helps to find and download free charts and is included with the installation of OpenCPN 4.2. If you choose to manually load charts please pay close attention to the following:
OpenCPN itself does not come with charts.
Charts are a complex subject. Having accurate and current charts is important for safe navigation.
There are a number of resources on this website and others to obtain charts.
However the USA provides free NOAA Charts and many other countries do as well. See Chart Sources below.
The Chart Downloader Plugin is now included in your OpenCPN installation. It lets you download, install and keep up to date the navigational charts provided by various free governmental sources worldwide directly from within OpenCPN's Toolbox.The Chart Downloader plugin is an Internal Plugin, always distributed with OpenCPN, no separate download is required.
The supported charts include both the raster and vector charts for the US waters provided by the NOAA, official raster navigational charts published by Argentina, Brasil and New Zealand (covering also huge areas of the Pacific ocean) as well as electronic charts of the inland waterways of the USA and more than a dozen European Union countries.
The Chart Downloader relies on catalogs of charts. A catalog is an XML file containing the names of charts along with the most recent chart update date and time together with the Internet address of the actual chart data. Before being able to download any charts we have to configure and download one or more chart catalogs.
The catalogs are provided by the agencies publishing the charts (NOAA and the Army Corps of Engineers in the USA) and by the ChartCatalogs project created by the author of this plugin. When a catalog is loaded the Chart Downloader automatically scans the existing charts on your computer looking for updated or new charts listed in the catalog.
Some chart sources provide many different catalogs for the same set of charts. For example, in the USA, NOAA provides chart catalogs for each state, region and Coast Guard district as well as the huge complete set. There are also separate catalogs for raster (RNC) and vector (ENC) NOAA charts. The first step in getting new charts is to select the appropriate Chart Catalog, make sure you think first though - having everything is not always the best option to organize your charts, so especially in the US, consider using more smaller catalogs over the one with the complete set of thousands of charts.
You can select the charts to be downloaded by ticking the check boxes in the list of charts. In case you want to select multiple charts at once, right-click in Chart Window will show a context menu, allowing you to
To make it short, go to Options > Chart Files Tab and tick the Scan Charts and Update Database checkbox and when you close the Toolbox using the OK, your newly downloaded charts will be scanned and made available for viewing.
The Allow bulk update of all configured chart sources and charts checkbox adds a new button to the Chart Downloader Tab, allowing you to update and download all the charts you are managing using the plugin with a single click. The behavior of this function depends on the aforementioned check boxes - either it downloads only new or updated charts or both.
Do you do any consulting work for Open CPN? I think that I've downloaded various charts, and the red outlines are showing up, but I'm not seeing any actual charts or chart information (depth, etc.), and could use some help.
With Leap 15.2 and earlier I used opencpn often. I use it with charts from o-charts.org and the oesenc plugin.
Currently I have Leap 15.3. I forgot to upgrade the opencpn repository,which was still at Leap 15.2, but opencpn worked fine and the encrypted charts could be used.
Last week I bought new charts. After downloading unpacking and initialising, they did not load. As the o-charts.org website indicated to check that the latest oesenc plugin is installed, I updated opencpn by chnaging the repository to 15.3
I have decided to solve it differently, by installing via flatpak. That is a much moire recent version (5.6 instead of 5.2) and to be able to use recent charts from o-charts.org (which I have) I need a recent version for the encryption/decryption plugin of the charts. It works again and I have access to my charts.
OpenCPN is a free, open-source navigation program (CPN stands for Chart Plotter Navigator) that's been in active development for several years. You can freely download versions for Windows (all versions, including XP, Vista, and Win7/8), Macintosh, and even several flavors of Unix. It reads and displays several different chart formats, both vector and raster, including the CM93 chart database (v2, but not v3 as of 2015) that covers the whole world. You can annotate charts with new or additional information, lay tracks of where you go, import tracks from other cruisers, plan routes, display GRIB weather data, upload routes to your GPS and/or autopilot, etc. It does a wonderful job with AIS, as the alarms can be extensively programmed.
What we do on Ocelot
We've been using OpenCPN since 2010 (when they added Chart Quilting) and are very happy with it. It is constantly under development so new features are being added by a dedicated team, many of whom are also cruisers. Features can be requested and all such requests are seriously considered. There are several active discussions on Cruisers Forum where features and/or problems are discussed and solved (the developers respond personally). New releases come out once or twice a year and since the software is "open source" all new versions are also free. In fact, you are free to download the source code and add new features yourself if you want to.
Raster Charts vs. Vector Charts:Electronic charts usually come as either Raster charts or Vector charts, and most navigation programs can use both types. But there are some significant differences and limitations with each chart type.
How to use GE when you're offline:
When you go to new places with GE, it has to download the information it displays from the Google servers. These are fairly large graphical files, so it can take some time, even with a broadband internet connection. GE displays a little circle in the lower right corner of the GE window, to show download progress. When the circle completes (and turns color) then you know that the download for a given view has completed, and you can move on to your next view. But to save time (and internet bandwidth) GE caches (saves) this received information on your computer. So going back to somewhere you've already been to displays very quickly, because the information is coming directly from your own hard drive.
So the trick to using GE offline is to use GE to visit those places that you want to go beforehand, while you have an internet connection. Then you save the GE cache files somewhere. When you cruise to those places, copy the cache files back so that GE can use them again.
Saving Google Earth information:
You will want to do this for each place that you plan to cruise to where you'll want GE information. This looks complicated, but it really just breaks down to:
We have found that overlaying the GE window on top of charts doesn't work very well. Since the charts and GE are running at slightly different resolutions, they don't overlay exactly, which makes for a very confusing display. But feel free to play with it if you want. If you open the Toolbox and go to the PlugIns tab and select the GoogleEarth plugin, there's a Preferences button on the left. In there you can futz with the Floating Window Transparency slider until you can see both the GE info and the underlying chart depths. But since the 2 windows are not precisely aligned, this is of limited usefulness.
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