I'll post previews of upcoming functionality through this thread, as well.

Would it be possible to add some missing Minor Categories (Major Category Nautical) in the next release? For example Notice mark, Topmark, Waterway gauge, Berth, Terminal, Turning basin, Mooring/Warping facility, Anchor berth.

Thx

Yeah. If there's any missing categories, we can add those quite easily.

Thought about it and I'm thinking of doing away with the preset category structure. There's pros and cons to having a preset list:

Pros:
- It's easier to do hard coded settings when it is preset.
- It gives new users a good idea of what constitutes a major/minor category.
- It filters into preset values which makes maps more consistent from vendor to vendor
- It's a bit easier to serialize preset values

Cons:
- It is very poor for an internationalized category system (local users want to see categories in their own language)
- When changes need to occur, a review process is required to determine if we add it to the system and then the application requires the change.

In this case, I think the cons outweight the pros and we should move to a more dynamic system so I'll be switching it to more of a user dictionary. Some stuff will carry over like blank entries being done as Misc. and the geometric type being prepended to the major category.

Greg,
I think custom categories - if that is what you are talking about - would be a great addition.
I can think of a number of uses straight away. For example, you could create a map with a set of top-level isobaths, all coloured in a highlight colour. Each depth range could have corresponding category; 10-20m, 20-30m and so forth. The user can then switch the corresponding categories on or off for on-the-water depth highlighting functionality, with the normal map rendered underneath as normal. Of course, this wouldn't be limited to depth areas. I'm sure there would be plenty of other uses as well..

Would this change just be required within the IMC, or would units need new firmware also?

Matt

It's isolated to the IMC and it wouldn't really affect any shapefiles that are already set up (unless the application is auto correcting the categories). I've already implemented the change...testing to make sure it's working now.

OK, but the principal would be that we could call a (minor only?) category anything we like in the Shapefiles that we generate, and the IMC would propagate those to the finished AT5 map, and these would then show as switchable categories in the unit? Or have I misunderstood?

It's set up for both Major/Minor but besides for that, your understanding is correct.

Thanks Greg, I can see this being very useful.

Hello!
I've tried to mark out buoys and rocks on my maps, I have succeeded so far that it looks good in the Insight Planner, but in my HDS 7 Touch is just stones (black cross) and plates (black / white squares) are visible, no other marks are visible.
I am using QGIS and IMC. Does anyone know what I have done wrong?








Here are some pictures from both my HDS and Insight Planner you will see the difference.

Looks as though you may have some categories switched off in your HDS ?

T

checked all the categories, all were on. Updated to 3.0 and did a "Hard Reset", then it worked :)