WORKING WITH CHARTS

Countless times at boat shows, we've been asked, "What charts can I use with my Capn software?" There seems to be quite a bit of confusion about the compatibility of The Capn with non-Maptech raster and vector chart formats. As it turns out, the confusion is warranted: the answer is a bit complicated.

The Capn does work with a wide assortment of raster charts, including the free NOAA RNCs, SoftCharts in GEO/NOS format, and Maptech's BSB formats. In fact, The Capn is one of the few Maptech software offerings that reads Maptech's own encrypted BSB5 format, which are reproductions of Maptech's paper ChartKit pages and include route lines and waypoints. However, The Capn does not read the common International raster format, British Admiralty (ARCS).

The Capn version 8.0 added support for vector charts in S-57 and DNC format. Recall that DNCs are Digital Nautical Charts, vector format files produced by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and used by the military.

The confusion arises because users of The Capn are unable to download and use standard vector chart formats–such as standard NOAA ENCs, Army Corps IENCs, international S-57s or DNCs–straight from NOAA, the Army Corps or the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. In order for these files to be read by The Capn, they must be converted to a proprietary format that Capn reads. In other words, the ENCs and DNCs that are provided on the DVDs are actually "SENCSs" and "SDNCs," vector charts that have been converted to an "S" (for "system"), format. Unfortunately, without this Maptech conversion step, standard vector format charts cannot be read by The Capn.

Although this proprietary format forces Capn users to purchase vector charts through Maptech, there is a value-add. With traditional ENC and IENC naming conventions, such as those employed on downloaded NOAA chart files, it is difficult to identify a chart by its file name, because those file names do not reference the numbers on the equivalent paper chart. As part of Maptech's conversion, they re-name each vector chart to reference its paper chart counterpart. For example, the vector chart file for Mobile Bay (US4AL11M) can easily be found by searching for its paper chart number 11376. The Capn SENC file is labeled 11376-US4AL11M.

As we've noticed in other charting and navigation applications, there are some dated assets on the Maptech DVDs. Marketing departments like to shovel the maximum amount of assets onto the discs, even if the data is a bit stale. Maptech, with its front-line access to chart data, does better than most, but we found the Inland Waterway raster charts were dated back to 1998. To be fair, there may not be newer editions for that region, but consumers of bundled cartography should recognize that today's chart DVDs don't necessarily represent today's data.

By using some of The Capn's special features, charts display very crisply. For example, a "Use High Resolution Display" option is available to display charts with much better rendering. Although Capn warns you this option may sacrifice display speed, we didn't notice any negative impact. The new faster computers allow for regular use of this useful feature.MAPTECHSplit window showing an active route on a raster chart (left) and a 3D bathymetric view (right).

The Capn also has an option to "Use High Visibility Colors." This feature will be familiar to users of SoftCharts, because it is the SoftChart palette. The SoftChart look was always popular for its high visibility in bright light.

Like most advanced charting and navigation applications, Capn integrates intelligent chart display, which it calls "Smart Chart Logic Technology." Charts are seamlessly quilted–unless you choose to turn this option off in order to view the chart edges. Capn also automatically selects the best scale chart for the current zoom and location. Charts can be printed, with very nice printouts including customizable scale marks (graticules). Charts can be displayed in a split screen, such as a chart on one side of the screen and 3D bathymetric view on the other side (see photo).

Panning and scrolling a chart is a bit inconvenient in The Capn, largely because of the lack of a conventional grabber "hand." You must pan a chart by zooming out, left-clicking until the new area is reached, then zooming in. Most contemporary applications now use a grabber hand as the convention to pan and scroll.

However, Capn has a very nice "Go To" feature to move across charts. To Capn's credit, the program includes distinct commands for "Go To" (pick a waypoint and bring up that chart) versus "Steer To" (pick a waypoint and create a route to it). Many applications combine or confuse these two actions.