Crowd-Sourced Charts

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ActiveCaptain

ActiveCaptain

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Nov 20, 2010
25
Florida Bay Coaster 65 Key Largo, FL
John Nantz said:
Question: what is the "crowd sourcing" on this? Is it the names and the white borders?
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That's a more general example. To see a specific boating example, check out the exact same geographic area here:
http://activecaptain.com/X.php?lat=38.666211&lon=-77.139472&t=n&z=12

Clicking on a marker will give more information. You need a free account to get all of the detail information. All of that information for that area was created by other boaters or marinas. As a legend:

Red = marinas
Green = anchorages
Blue = local knowledge (inlets, boat ramps, bridges, etc)
Orange/Yellow = hazards (there aren't any in that area)


For Block Island (which you also mentioned), here's the area with crowd-sourced info for boating use:
http://activecaptain.com/X.php?lat=41.186906&lon=-71.578180&t=n&z=14
 
Smithy

Smithy

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Dec 13, 2010
162
Macgregor 22 Alexandria, VA
John Nantz said:
The first link shows satellite imagery with white boarders that seem to approximate property lines (at least they outline things like golf courses, parks, and the like). Question: what is the "crowd sourcing" on this? Is it the names and the white borders? or?

Editorial comment: when looking at Block Island I see only one boat at the main dock! Yet the trees look green so this must have been taken durning the spring.

Second link: looking at our area the map only shows two marinas and there have been four marinas for at least a couple decades. Granted, this is a "road map" and marinas aren't roads but these are fairly good-sized marinas. If using the map for driving purposes it would be handy to have the marinas shown for getting one's bearings purposes. On the other hand, a road that is near us is shown as a major arterial where as until just recently - last year? - it was just a collector road. So in this case they are really current. What is "crowd-sourced" on this map? Do crowds put the streets in? if not, how do they get shown?

Comment: my Ford Escape has a navigation package with a bunch of CDs that I haven't upgraded. It would be great to find a way to update them without paying their expensive rates.
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Wikimapia uses an image service, which may be old, and would explain the lack of marinas in sight, as their base map. All the boundaries, names, and descriptions are user-entered. If you have a favorite gunk-hole, marina, know of a snag, etc, you would simply define the area you're indicating, and enter a name and description for it.

Same idea with Openstreetmap, and yes - these two examples are very terrestrial... I'm just offering them as technical solutions to the same problem - it would be nice if a service existed with similar rules and ease of use for the sailing community. The Activecaptain site looks promising, but I only see the ability to drop points, vs. creating more complex features, available on that service. It would be nice to be able to define polygons, or line features, to describe something bigger than "x marks the spot".
 
CalebD

CalebD

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Jun 27, 2006
1,479
Tartan 27' 1967 Nyack, NY
I must say that I am pretty impressed by the Active Captain website and the layers of data that can be accessed there by registering for a free account. I have even joined the 'crowd' of people have added my own perceptions about a few places I have been to.
Thanks for giving us the history of how you came to be where you are now.
 
Smithy

Smithy

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Dec 13, 2010
162
Macgregor 22 Alexandria, VA
I too will admit that after playing with AC for a couple hours, it's growing on me. Very easy-to-use interface. What would be lovely would be the choice to cache data locally, for a given stretch, so you could access it on your laptop while away, without a data connection, and without buying really expensive software. A similar capability is available with Google Earth; the user may adjust the cache size, unplug, and revisit those areas until memory is wiped. For a 20 or 40 mile stretch of inland river, that would be awesome with AC.
 
G

gettinthere

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Nov 26, 2008
1,970
Endeavour 42 Cruisin
There are two other interactive chart planners available. They do not have the user added data on the chart but they are excellent sources of info in the online charting format. And they are also free with no need to sign up. They both have other ways of getting cruising sailor input. Mostly from forum postings with regular updates on problem areas. Unfortunately, the Cruisers Net is only from the Carolinas south.

http://www.waterwayguide.com/waterway-planner

http://cruisersnet.net/north-carolina-map/
 
ActiveCaptain

ActiveCaptain

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Nov 20, 2010
25
Florida Bay Coaster 65 Key Largo, FL
Smithy said:
What would be lovely would be the choice to cache data locally, for a given stretch, so you could access it on your laptop while away, without a data connection, and without buying really expensive software.
Click to expand
Our intent is to provide the data and synchronization capability to any developer who wants the ActiveCaptain capability in their product. Right now there are two higher-end PC products (plus another high-end product announced and coming) along with Navimatics for iPhone and iPad. All of these products keep all of the data offline and synchronize back to the web site when an internet connection exists to get the very latest info. Furuno has announced support for their chartplotters too.

There's are very low cost, full vector/raster chart products coming out for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux that do the same thing. I've been testing them for a while and they're all working with our data offline. They'll be out pretty soon.

There are also 3 developers working on Android apps. One is very close with the full synchronization working today. Another iPhone app is on the way too. Yachting Magazine for next month is supposed to have an article all about this with some screen shots for these upcoming products. I was interviewed for it and assume it's coming out. The author of that article is also the author of the Cruising World article which I didn't know about and haven't seen myself - I'm out cruising in my own boat and my issue is probably back home in Maine.

We don't charge anything for the data or synchronization. The API's are free. There's simply no fees for any developer to add the capability to their product. If you have a product that you particularly like and use (PC, Mac, chartplotter, phone, etc), contact the company and tell them that you want this data inside their product. We'll make it happen.
 
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