Has anybody compared The CAPN by Nautical Technologies and Nobeltec's VNS
version 8 or 9? Any recommendations? Has anybody tested both Electronic
Charting systems?

Practical Sailor did a review of electronic charting programs in Sep
2006 issue. First of all, a comparison between Cap'n, and Nobeltec is
somewhat moot since Cap'n, was bought out by Maptch and is no longer
marketed. However, neither program was highly rated. Cap'n, one of
the first programs on the market, is somewhat dated, even in the latest
version. Nobeltec VNS is slow to adapt to new devices and only accepts
proprietary vector charts (but does accept most formats of raster
charts). Nobeltec does not support 3D viewing. Cap'n does not support
weather GRIB. Cap',--poor useability, poor stability, good tech
support (Maptech will continue to support the product). Nobeltec good
usability, excellent stability and excellent tech support. Also, the
review noted that Nobeltec seemed geared to the powerboat crowd. All
this said, I have an older version of Cap'n and it seems pretty good to
me, but then, I have little to compare it to. Practical Sailor
Recommended GPS NAVX/MACENC and Maxsea. They said that Fugawi Marine
was a best buy and Chart Navigator Pro/Coastal Explorer was the best
choice (this is a Maptech program). I also have a lite version of
Maptech's program--it seems pretty good, but it won't support my older
model eTrex handheld (Cap'n does).
Don Bouchard wrote:
Has anybody compared The CAPN by Nautical Technologies and Nobeltec's VNS
version 8 or 9? Any recommendations? Has anybody tested both Electronic
Charting systems?

Thanks for the informative review of choices.

Don

***
"Peter" wrote in message
oups.com...
Practical Sailor did a review of electronic charting programs in Sep
2006 issue. First of all, a comparison between Cap'n, and Nobeltec is
somewhat moot since Cap'n, was bought out by Maptch and is no longer
marketed. However, neither program was highly rated. Cap'n, one of
the first programs on the market, is somewhat dated, even in the latest
version. Nobeltec VNS is slow to adapt to new devices and only accepts
proprietary vector charts (but does accept most formats of raster
charts). Nobeltec does not support 3D viewing. Cap'n does not support
weather GRIB. Cap',--poor useability, poor stability, good tech
support (Maptech will continue to support the product). Nobeltec good
usability, excellent stability and excellent tech support. Also, the
review noted that Nobeltec seemed geared to the powerboat crowd. All
this said, I have an older version of Cap'n and it seems pretty good to
me, but then, I have little to compare it to. Practical Sailor
Recommended GPS NAVX/MACENC and Maxsea. They said that Fugawi Marine
was a best buy and Chart Navigator Pro/Coastal Explorer was the best
choice (this is a Maptech program). I also have a lite version of
Maptech's program--it seems pretty good, but it won't support my older
model eTrex handheld (Cap'n does).
Don Bouchard wrote:
Has anybody compared The CAPN by Nautical Technologies and Nobeltec's VNS
version 8 or 9? Any recommendations? Has anybody tested both Electronic
Charting systems?

Don Bouchard wrote:
Has anybody compared The CAPN by Nautical Technologies and Nobeltec's VNS
version 8 or 9? Any recommendations? Has anybody tested both Electronic
Charting systems?


Personnaly i prefer Nobeltec, i got Admiral v7, can take Raster, Vector
and 3D charts. I tried Maptech and Fugawi, not better than Nobeltec.

Yes Nobeltec is slower, but at the speed i'm cruising, it's ok

Andre

"I also have a lite version of Maptech's program--it seems pretty good,
but it won't support my older model eTrex handheld (Cap'n does)."

Huh? Surely it must be able to interface to the etrex when the etrex is
in NMEA mode as opposed to Garmin mode.

I have hooked up my eTrex to just about everything that takes a GPS
input without any problems.

Thanks for the info on the reviews.

Tom

Chart Navigator Pro/Coastal Explorer was the best
choice (this is a Maptech program).

Technically, Chart Navigator Pro is a relabelled copy of Coastal Explorer
(made by Rosepoint) but bundled with quite a few of (all?) Maptech's US
chart DVDs. That said, it's a GREAT program regardless of which version.

On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 02:25:30 +0000, Don Bouchard wrote:

Has anybody compared The CAPN by Nautical Technologies and Nobeltec's
VNS version 8 or 9? Any recommendations? Has anybody tested both
Electronic Charting systems?

My favorite is Pocket Navigator running on a PDA, but I reach for The
Cap'n when I need a backup. We have others aboard too --
all versions of Maptech back to 1.0 for DOS, plus a couple of older
versions of Nobletec (6?). They all have their problems, either bugs or
poor usability, or being cluttered with useless crud while
important things go missing. The Cap'n is at least simple and uncluttered,
but plotting courses is a pain because the screen/cursor movement is
cumbersome.

Pocket Navigator, nee Memory Map Navigator (stupid name), works like a
charm. The only problem is that it takes both a PC and a PDA.

I'm convinced this stuff is not designed by boaters anymo we're
a side business now compared to the land-based products.

All this stuff should be better than it is. With all the
engineer/tinkerer/technical types in the yachting world, I'm amazed we
don't have better software.

I haven't tried Fugawi, but I'd like to. I'm convinced vector charts are
the way to go.

Matt O.

"Matt O'Toole" wrote in message
news

I haven't tried Fugawi, but I'd like to. I'm convinced vector charts are
the way to go.

Matt O

And I am convinced that raster charts are the way to go and that, perhaps, I
am not in the mainstream and have made it to the position of 'old-fart'. I
am in the process of looking at some current generation chart plotters to go
on a new boat. I haven't paid much attention to marine electronics in the
past 6 or 7 years since I outfitted my last boat. It has surprised my that
every non-pc based chart plotter out there is vector based --- no one has
done one to support raster.

I have been using paper charts for nearly 55 years. My last 2 boats had PC
based systems (Maptech and/or Cap'n). I found that having chart images on
my screen that looked exactly like the charts on my nav table was a BIG
plus.

It has been my experience that vector charts have less information on them
than raster charts. While some see this as an advantage I do not: one mans
clutter is another mans important data. Most of the vector charts that I
have looked at do not show light characteristics: you need to point to it
to get a pop up. That makes absolutely no sense to me. Having to manage my
vessel and putz around with a pointing device trying to find the light with
a 6 second flash is somewhere between dumb and dangerous. Raster charts
have all the information right there with no screwing around. Vector
technology salesmen take great pride in their products' ability to remove
layers of information to 'unclutter' the screen. When they demo this
feature, all I see being removed is information I deem important. My
understanding of the vector chart manufacturing process is that they all
start out with the raster charts. So they do not have any more accurate or
timely information. In fact the process of going from one format to the
other has been known to introduce errors.

Let me say at this point that I am a retired geek. I have spent most of my
life playing around with the then current technologies. I still consider my
self to be pretty much of a geek. So I am not afraid of something new. I
had great hope for vector charting. but IMHO, that promise has yet to be
fulfilled. The biggest failure of this technology is in not being able to
provide timely updates. With digital, it should be a simple matter to push
out weekly (daily ??) NTM updates via the internet. This is something I had
been able to do with the MapTech Pro service . Each week I would get NTM
updates to 100% of my charts. Now, you can download them yourself for free.
Not with vector charts.

So, less information, less accurate information, less usable information,
what am I missing? Am I really getting that far out of touch?

On Mon, 18 Sep 2006 07:45:00 -0400, "Gerald"
wrote:

I am convinced that raster charts are the way to go and that, perhaps, I
am not in the mainstream and have made it to the position of 'old-fart'.

I hear you, vector charts definitely takes some getting used to, and
for some things raster is clearly superior.

For the last two years I've had both side by side, raster on
PC/Maptech, and CMAP/vector on a Furuno chart plotter. I agree with
much of what you say, but have come to appreciate some of the benefits
of vector as well.

One thing that vector does much better is "zoom in" and "zoom out".
When you zoom a raster chart the text fonts and pixel details get
larger and smaller also, which renders them illegible very quickly.
Vector on the other hand automatically compensates for zoom level so
that font sizes are constant, and detail pixels are adjusted to an
appropriate size. The net result is that fewer vector charts are
required for any given area since detail improves as you zoom in,
unlike raster which requires an entirely new chart to show greater
detail.

The other area where vector is clearly superior, is "course up" mode.
Course-up is a much more intuitve way to view chart data, particularly
in close quarters. However, if you display raster charts "course up"
on anything other than a north bound heading, chart text and symbols
appear rotated out of the normal vertical orientation, and are
actually upside down in south bound directions. With raster charts,
the text and symbols are automatically rotated to stay in normal
orientation, making course-up much more useful.

On our boat I generally do all of my route planning on the PC using
raster charts since Maptech is very good at that, and I can do
everything off-line in the comfort of the main cabin the night before.
While running I keep the PC zoomed out to show the big picture and the
route information such as range/bearing to next waypoint, total miles,
time-to-go, etc. On longer legs I will transfer the next waypoint
details to the Furuno chart plotter as well. The chart plotter is
usually left in course-up mode and zoomed in to a fairly high level of
detail where chart symbols are resonably uncluttered and easily
readable.

Another superior feature of the chart plotter, unrelated to
vector/raster, is screen brightness and clarity. The brightness level
is fully adjustable for comfortable viewing all the way from direct
sunlight to complete darkness. No PC or flat panel display that I
have used has a comparable level of brightness or adjustability.

With the right selection of features and options, the chart plotter
has some other worthwhile attributes. For example our Furuno system
has the ability to super impose radar data on top of the chart display
which is very useful for identifying unkown radar blips and determinig
whether or not it is a navaid or probable boat. Since this feature
requires rotating and zooming the chart data to match the radar
display, vector charts are clearly the right choice.

Since this feature
requires rotating and zooming the chart data to match the radar
display, vector charts are clearly the right choice.

Hmmm, no it doesn't. At least not on a Raymarine E-80. I can overlay radar
on top of charts in any orientation. I tend to prefer North up orientation,
but the admiral likes it to rotate with the heading. It's a snap to change
between them.

When dealing with charts at the helm I find vector more useful. When
plotting courses on a laptop, however, raster seems better. For me the
difference is what I need to know RIGHT NOW versus planning what I where I
feel like going at some later time. The vector charts with the ability to
zoom in/out quickly and without losing detail (getting grainy like raster)
are of tremendous help when actually moving. Granted, I'm usually at 30kts
in a powerboat; those in sailboats might have a different sense of urgency.
But when I'm planning trips ahead of time I find the extra detail they've
got on raster charts to be rather handy. I generally use Coastal Explorer
(aka Maptech Chart Navigator Pro) with Maptech digital charts. On the
chartplotter I use a Navionics platinum chip.

If faced with having to choose one over the other I'd probably go with
vector because of it's benefits (for me anyway) while underway and just use
other sources for trip planning extras.