Hello, sorry for the question, but i can not find the answer on your site or forum.

Could i please ask, will home made maps, made with Insight Map Creator .at5, work in reefmater?

I have a Lowrance HDS9 Gen3 sounder, and am trying to make my own maps, and want to know if i buy ReefMater Pro, could i make my maps with Insight Map Creator and then test them in ReefMater Pro before i copy to sd card and load into my Lowrance HDS9 Gen3 sounder. I can not find a PC based simulator to test my maps on before loading into my sounder.

Also please, what is the max size (MB or Gig) a map can be, to work in, ReefMater Pro?

Thank you.
Bluey.

To add, if this could also help, this link below is to the YouTube video on how I made the maps.

ReefMaster cannot show AT5 maps, it can only generate them (with the help of the IMC).

Take a look at this forum post for ideas on how to show AT5 maps on your PC. I believe that Insight Planner from Navico is your best option, but I haven't tried it recently and don't know how current the AT5 support is. Perhaps someone else can chime in?

Thank you for your reply Matt, Insight Planner can only be bought/downloaded by USA residents, and I live in Qld Australia, I have looked into that one, and can not find any thing else I ca nview .at5 maps on my pc.

If anyone else could please offer a program that would be a big help, thank you.

Interesting - thanks. I wasn't aware of that (I don't it used to be true). Does anyone else here know what the situation is with IP?

You can use Lowrance emulators - elite4hdi or elite7hdi, very buggy, but gives limited ability to view .AT5 maps. Don't ask me where to find - both removed from all official sites now :(
Not a problem to use it for checking raster, vector from RM1 also works, in case you use at5 palette. Doesn't work with .at5 maps generated by RM2 - CLRRGB and ZORDER attributes leads to crash.
And question - who can say how ZORDER works? Didn't find description in IMC docs.

This can't be correct. Each people can buy the insight planner. I'm e. g. an european and use the Planner since a long time. Please contact Lowrance.

CLRRGB is for RGB palettes (area features only). As far as I have tested, maps created with this attribute don't cause an issue on actual devices that don't support RGB (e.g. Elite 4, HDS 1), but I haven't tested on emulators. ZORDER is a ReefMaster attribute that maybe useful in some GIS applications but is not - as far as I am aware - used by the IMC in any way (however we do derive the LAYER value from it by using a calculated DB field).

CLRRGB may work or may not work in emulator, maybe depends on values. And yes, it works in earlier devices. If I create map with both COLOR and CLRRGB it works on Elite Chirp with AT5 colors and on Elite TI with RGB colors.
But to test on emulator (buggy emulator) I need to delete CLRRGB and ZORDER columns before IMC processing.

@Bluey

I'm in South Australia and have been using Insight Planner to test my Reefmaster Maps for a few years now. I rechecked the Lowrance site and you are correct (it does say it is unavailable outside the US). It took a bit of looking to find the page that says that.

Originally this software was really "clunky" but the latest version I have (1.3.0.4) seems to work OK. It would be interesting to find out why Navico have made it US only.

Image is from Insight Planner showing a part of the Outer Harbour shipping channel in Adelaide. Blue lines are hand drawn by me from sidescan mosaics and clearly show the dredge marks.

I think it would be worth firing off an email to Navico support. It does say US only for "delivery", and then talks about a DVD. Given that you can download it, and all you need is a key to activate it with, perhaps you can just forego the physical delivery? Alternatively, perhaps talk to an Australian Navico dealer and see if you can get it from them.

Thank you to all for your reply's, help and advice in this thread.
,
It looks like Insight Planner is the pc simulator i need to get to test my at5 maps. I want to get ReefMaster as well, and will soon as i get this "IP" software sorted out.

Again thank you very much to all for your help and advice.
Bluey.