DJM Questor Software

Host: Club Cruceros, La Paz, B.C.S., Mexico
Base: DJM Questor Software

MarinePlotter Version-2 Release History

Released program versions:

To determine the version of your installed copy, select the program "Help" menu "About" command. The About Dialog will display the version number.

WARNING: The tile cache directory format and file names of MarinePlotter version-1 must be converted to the new format of version-2. MarinePlotter version-2 will automatically create the new tile cache and will leave the old tile cache unchanged. The MarinePlotter version-2 will start a separate program to convert the tile cache. The converter program is called MarinePlotterTileCacheConverter.exe. You will be able to use the MarinePlotter and view the tile images as the data for each zoom level becomes available. You can also download new tiles as the conversion occurs.

Version 2,1,2

This update fixes errors related mainly to the creation of RNC tiles from MCGs.

Fixed the waypoint list save failure. If you created a wayploint and then closed the program, the program failed to prompt to save the waypoint list.
Changed the RNC tile generation png-file format from 32-bits per pixel to 8-bits per pixel with a color palette of up to 256 colors. The color palette uses the IHO S57 Standard chart colors (0 to 33 with 0 a transparent color.) The palette uses 8-bit indexes to 32-bit ARGB colors. The change is to reduce the disk space needed for RNC tiles and to enable palette color changes for Day, Dusk, and Night RNC tile color palettes. The MarinePlotter assigns each IHO color a unique index number from 0 to 255. Each tile will have the same pixel palette index value for a given color. The palette colors are listed in the RNC tile Help topics.
Added Day, Dusk, and Night brightness controls to the display of RNC tiles. Basically, for Dusk, the white areas become gray; and, for Night, black areas become white and white areas become black.
Fixed some memory leaks due to un-released Brush, Font, and Pen objects used to draw the charts.
Experimental: Added the ability to extract named locations from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Country files. Unfortunately, the data for Mexico appears to to be incomplete and contains some errors: For example, Cabo San Lucas is located north of Bahia Concepcion. The feature applies to the Named Locations form File menu Extract command. The program optionally marks the locations on the plot with red rectangles.
Split the CM93 to MCG form Commands menu into Table, Select, and MCG menus
Fixed some errors in the File menu Extract command of the Named Locations form.

Version 2,1,1

This update fixes mainly those problems encountered when you create RNC tiles from multiple and overlapping charts. When the chart drawing transparency is 1.0 (opaque), these changes hide duplicate offset buoys, lights, depth contours, etc. that can occur when a small (more accurate) chart is drawn over a large (less accurate) chart.

The Display menu Chart sequence command now opens the Chart Display Sequence Type form. In this form you can re-order the ENC, MCG, RNC, IMG type display sequence. Also, you can re-order the individual chart display sequence for a selected chart type. To change the chart display sequence, click the desired chart type table entry. If the selected type has more than one chart open, the program will open the Chart Sequence form where you can change the drawing sequence of the charts. For example, if a large RNC covers a small RNC, you can reverse the drawing sequence so the small chart will appear on top of the large chart.
Changed the ENC chart drawing sequence: ENCs are now drawn in the sequence you open the files. You should open large ENCs before you open small ENCs so small ENCs are not hidden under large ENCs. This change is made to so small ENCs will cover (hide) overlapped areas of large ENCs. You can change the open chart drawing sequence with the Chart Display Sequence form mention above.
Fixed the MCG drawing sequence so it works the same as the ENC drawing sequence.
The optional drawing of ENC and MCG depth soundings, meta-data, and text now occurs during the drawing of each chart instead of after all charts have been drawn.
Fixed an MCG drawing error of the DOCARE (dock area) object.
Add the Rasterize command to the RNC menu. The program can process larger RNCs on some 64-bit machines than it can process on 32-bit machines because the 64-bit machines do not use as much of the 4-gigabytes of 32-bit program memory limit. On a 64-bit machine, leave the Rasterize option unchecked unless you get an "out of memory" error when plotting large RNCs.
Added the Merge option to the RNC tile cache form.

Version 2,1,0

The Tiles menu is changed: Nearly all tile based commands are now under the Tiles menu. RNCs now fall into two categories: Charts and Tiles. You can now convert any ENC, MCG, RNC and IMG chart to RNC tiles.

This version contains changes to the RNC tile creation methodology.

Added sample "World" RNC tiles for download here. Most of these tiles were created from MCG vector charts derived from the CM93 V2 vector charts. Some tiles were created from ENC and RNC charts. I will add additional RNC tiles as time and space allow. Also, with the MarinePlotter, you can create an RNC tile cache for your area of interest.

Other changes:

Fixed an IMG error that occurred for 8-bit indexed pixel formatted bitmaps. The MarinePlotter's Day, Dusk, and Night chart color options do not apply to geo-referenced pictures or RNC tiles.
In prior versions, the program would draw MCG data on top of ENC data. The program now draws the ENC data on top of the MCG data. This change was necessary in order to create RNC tiles with better ENC data on top of old CM93 drived MCG data. For more information, see the Drawing sequence Help topic.
Created three new Tiles sub-menus to separate the commands of the new tile groups.
Added the Tiles menu Base commands for the prior tile cache commands.
Added the Tiles menu RNC commands for RNC tiles.
Added to the Display menu the Chart sequence command. The command opens the Chart Display Sequence form. Use the form to change the default chart display sequence from IMG, RNC, MCG, and ENC. This feature is intended mainly for RNC tile creation. For example: To display an IMG on top of MCGs, change the display sequence to RNC, MCG, ENC, IMG.

Changed the ENC, MCG, RNC, and IMG menu Transparency command. The Transparency value selection box is now under the Transparency menu item.
Moved the RNC menu Display RNC tiles command to the Tiles menu RNC command as Display tiles.
Moved the Xtools menu RNC tile cache command to the Tiles menu RNC command as Tile cache.
Add a Named locations command to the Display menu. The command opens a list of named locations you use to plot a specific location. The feature is mainly to find RNC tile based image locations because there is no chart to Fit to view. Sample (*.locations) files are available for download here.
Added the RNC tile option to the program Configuration form.

Fixed the Tiles menu Scan all tiles command to include RNC tiles.
Fixed the Scan all tiles method so it uses the new tile cache format.
Fixed a Big Red X and Out of memory error caused when downloading tiles using the Tracer method.
Fixed and MCG drawing error. The program now draws the fill and pattern for DRGARE objects.
Downloaded tiles are now displayed when received instead of at the end of the download process.
Fixed additional program drawing errors of MCG objects as orange line.

Version 2,0,3

Fixed the error that occurred during the MarinePlotter 2.0.2 first time installation and program initialization. The program was looking for MarinePlotter data not yet created. The program now initializes without the data.

Version 2,0,2

Fixed the error where the program would fail to Download new or missing tiles. The program required that the RNC tile cache folder be defined. An undefined value caused the program to skip the download methods. The program now ignores an undefine RNC tile cache folder location.

Version 2,0,1

Changed the converter completion summary to display the totals of all tile cache conversions value. If you run the converter a second time after the program has completed, the program should display a summary of zero copied files and zero skipped files. The total existing files in TileCache2 should be the same as (but can be less than) the total TileCache1 files. The old tile cache folder format allowed a possible duplication of some tile files. The new tile cache folder format does not allow tile duplication. Consequently, you might see fewer tiles in the new tile cache because the converter will not copy the duplicate tiles.
Changed AutoSize to True for the Tile Cache Warning and the Tile Cache Converter forms. On some computers, the button controls did not display.

Fixed the following errors that prevented the MarinePlotter from running on some 64-bit machines.
- Fixed the CPA Alarm form alarm distance invalid value error.
- Fixed the SetPlotLevel undefined object reference error.
- Fixed the MarinePlotter Form_Closing undefined object error. This error prevented the program from closing.

Version 2,0,0

This release will convert your existing tiles to a new file format that uses less file space and helps the tiles load faster.

Added form: Tile Cache Warning ... This form opens the converter form. You can also open the converter form from the Start menu.
Added form: TileCache Converter ... This is the new application tool MarinePlotterTileCacheConverter.exe.

This release enables you to create and display RNC based tiles. To create the tiles, see the RNC tile cache form Help topics.

Added to the RNC menu the Display RNC tiles command.
Added to the Xtools menu the command RNC create tile cache.

Removed the Check for update - No connection! message box. You can leave the Help menu Auto-check for update checked. If you have Internet connection, the program will notify you if a new update is available.
Fixed the fit charts to view method so it centers rotated RNC charts.
Fixed the awaiting 1 tile downloads message that failed to clear when the download completed.

Update/Release history version-1.