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Board » General Discussion » Useful FREE Tool

Posted by
AGage


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2008-12-27 10:31:57
2010-12-07 11:47:45 - Useful FREE Tool
After reading about brainaid's awesome NMEA proxy and connecting it to SP (or whatever routing software), I came across this awesome free program that displays all (most of?) the information contained in brainaid's NMEA communications. It is called NavMonPC and not only reads the data from brainaid's proxy but also forwards the data via many different protocols so is also useful to connect to any other software you may be using that reads NMEA data (more below).

It is available, free, here: http://www.navmonpc.com

It has some very cool and useful features:
Boat Data: Position, Time (Local & GPS) and 'Dial' displays of COG, SOG, TWD, TWS, TWA and calculates AWA and AWS to! Displays Waypoint information, either from the NMEA data stream (next mark) or user defined. The dials can optionally display min and max values for their data to.

Data Connections:
- Input: Actual COM ports or Network
- Output: Virtual COM ports (3) and Network (localhost) on a port you specify.

AIS: Display AIS data (like tracks in SOL client) for selected (filtered) boats, and those within user specified radius of own boat. The AIS display has many options. Keep a closer eye on that close competitor you are chasing or trying to stay ahead of! ;-)

Wind/Speed Charts: Plots 'standard' wind data and boat speed/hdg charts (x-axis being direction/speed & y-axis is time) with adjustable ranges and timescale.

Logging Facility: Records your race! Log data including Distance Run, HDG, SPD, True Wind, a user comment and more at a specified time interval in csv format, and the raw NMEA sentences.
Another nifty little program called GPSView allows you to view the (saved) NMEA log data in table, graph and track views.

As this tool is intended for use IRL, there is even an 'intant' Man Over Board alarm!

Only complaint is that it only displays headings (boat and wind) in whole degrees only...

Enjoy, and I hope this tools helps you SOL faster :-)
I help develop the client interface for the best online ocean racing sim there is... __/)/)_/)__
Posted by
DeBilbaoPues


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2008-12-23 07:04:46
2011-01-03 12:16:44 - Re: Useful FREE Tool
Thank you for introducing this tool! I'm taking a look at it and have to dig in the manual, but it seems to be very useful.
Posted by
Blake


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2011-05-12 13:22:08
2011-05-27 13:53:40 - Re: Useful FREE Tool
I checked this out and it's actually quite handy - the wind change direction alarm is proving useful and also the alarm that you can have a sound when you get within x NMs of a mark. And it looks good. The AIS feature means you can look at other peoples heading and speed :-)

I have written a step by step for windows users which also includes some explanations as you go on what it does and how to get it working...

http://sealorn.drupalgardens.com/content/sailonlineorg-using-navmonpc-get-instrument-read-out
Posted by
A2


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2009-10-26 00:39:42
2011-05-27 22:34:16 - Re: Useful FREE Tool
The tools and resources for this simulation seems to be developing by leaps & bounds of late, especially thanks to the efforts by AGage with the cooperation of the SOL powers that be.

To the extent that some of the capabilities of tools referenced here and elsewhere, which reside outside of the client interface and are Operating System specific, I would like to suggest a possible route that might maintain a level playing field eventually for the greatest number of skippers here who devote the time it takes to have fun and be successful in these races.

This is only a suggestion and it may or may not be the most viable approach so consider it a starting point for further discussion.

Can any of these desired functions be adapted as FireFox addons ?

By making tools available at the browser level they would be independent of the OS and not require client updates necessarily to be included for a richer game environment.
None so blind

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