Palette Editor

User Defined Palette Editor

Palettes are used in map projects, the sonar viewer and for track points within the track editor. ReefMaster comes with a number of predefined palettes, and further palettes can be created and edited in the palette editor.

Opening the Palette Editor

The palette editor is contained in the Palette Editor page of the Global Settings window.

Adding and editing a new Palette

A palette is simply an ordered collection of colours that provide colours for track points, map projects and the sonar viewer.

·ReefMaster palettes can be defined with up to twelve separate colours.

·AT5 palettes are used when targeting Lowrance or Simrad devices using the AT5 map file format, and offer a restricted range of colours compared to RGB.

·RGB palettes are preferred for any map exports that do not require AT5 colours, and are required for the sonar viewer and sidescan mosaic.

·Palettes for tracks and map projects can be variable or fixed depth.

·Variable depth palettes interpolate colours using the minimum and maximum depths available in the track or map layer. For example, if the minimum and maximum depth in a track are 5 and 20 metres, 5m points will use the minimum palette colour and 20m points the maximum, with colours for depths in between interpolated across the palette.

·Fixed depth palettes use a specified minimum and maximum depth, so that specific depths are always rendered in the same colour regardless of the minimum and maximum depths available in the track or project. Fixed depth palettes are useful when combining maps, to ensure that depth colouring remains consistent.

Existing user defined palettes are shown in the list on the left. Details of the selected palette are shown in the edit panel to the right.

To create a new palette

·Click one of the Add Palette buttons to add a new AT5 or RGB palette.

·A new, empty, palette is created and added to the palette list.

·To delete a palette, first select the palette in the palette list, then click delete.

Adding colours to the palette

Each colour slot for the palette contains a separate colour picker control; fill the slot with a colour by choosing a colour in the picker or, for AT5 colours, from the drop-down colour selector.

RGB Palettes

The full palette is interpolated from which ever colour slots a populated; if a single colour is populated, then the entire palette will be of that colour. To create a simple gradient from one colour to another, populate the top and bottom colour slots with the required colours.

AT5 Palettes

·AT5 palettes do not interpolate between specified colours. Instead, the last colour is repeated until the next colour is encountered.

·To clear a colour from the palette, use the clear button at the left of the colour list entry.

·Once the palette is complete, click the save button. Empty colour slots will be filled with interpolated colour values.

Cloning an existing palette

Existing palette colours can be cloned by selecting an existing palette from the drop-down list. This will populate the user-defined palette with the colours in the existing palette. This can be very useful when making a set of Fixed Depth palettes using the same colour scheme.

Fixed Depth Range Palettes

Fixed depth palettes use a specified minimum and maximum depth, so that specific depths are always rendered in the same colour regardless of the minimum and maximum depths available in the track or project. Fixed depth palettes are useful when combining maps, to ensure that depth colouring remains consistent.

Any user-defined palette can be set to fixed depth:

1. Fixed Depth Range

Check the Fixed Depth Range option to specify a depth range for the palette.

2. Units

Units can be specified for the palette if units other than the global default are required.

3. Min/Max Range

Set the minimum and maximum depth range for the palette here. In the example above, colours will be interpolated over a range of 0 - 10 metres.

4. Out of Range Colours

By default, any depths under the minimum or over the maximum fixed depths will be rendered in the minimum or maximum colour of the palette.

This behaviour can be overridden here by assigned specific colours to use for values that are either under or over the fixed depth values. Once common use for this would be to assign a "land" colour to any values under zero depth.

Exporting and Importing Palettes

User defined palettes can be saved to file, so that they can be moved between different ReefMaster installations or shared with other users.

·To export all user palettes, click Export Palettes and specify a filename in the file save dialog. All user palettes will be saved.

·To import palettes, click Import Palettes and locate the required palette file, which will have the file extension .rmpxml. All palettes within the file will be imported.