Importing Object into Coastal Explorer

[JDCAVE]

There are numerous "Closed Areas" for Fisheries in British Columbia. These include "Rockfish Conservation Areas" and "Sponge Reef" and "Bottom Contact" Fishery Closed Areas. Putting these areas into Coastal Explorer using "New", "Boundary Circle Line/Area" is an incredibly tedious procedure. It would be useful to import something. I have used a CSV to KML converter, first by imputing the coordinates into a spreadsheet and then copying and pasting into a converter. I use this one:

CSV To KML Converter

I then can import these into Google Maps or Google Earth. However Coastal Explorer does not support the import of KML objects--or am I missing something?

Quite Frankly, I don't really care what converter or file format to use, but it must allow for data input from CSV.

There must be a way. Anyone?

On another note. It would be incredibly useful for the people at Rosepoint to obtain all of this information from the Fisheries Agencies, in Canada that would be the Canadian Hydrographic Service. I raised this with both the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as well as the Canadian Hydrographic Service. One group of fisheries officers told me they had to input these data into their own navigation programs themselves. I find that "incredible" and astoundingly inefficient and told them so.

Jim

 

[AlaskaProf]

There are numerous "Closed Areas" for Fisheries in British Columbia. These include "Rockfish Conservation Areas" and "Sponge Reef" and "Bottom Contact" Fishery Closed Areas. Putting these areas into Coastal Explorer using "New", "Boundary Circle Line/Area" is an incredibly tedious procedure. It would be useful to import something. I have used a CSV to KML converter, first by imputing the coordinates into a spreadsheet and then copying and pasting into a converter. I use this one:

CSV To KML Converter

I then can import these into Google Maps or Google Earth. However Coastal Explorer does not support the import of KML objects--or am I missing something?

Quite Frankly, I don't really care what converter or file format to use, but it must allow for data input from CSV.

There must be a way. Anyone?

On another note. It would be incredibly useful for the people at Rosepoint to obtain all of this information from the Fisheries Agencies, in Canada that would be the Canadian Hydrographic Service. I raised this with both the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as well as the Canadian Hydrographic Service. One group of fisheries officers told me they had to input these data into their own navigation programs themselves. I find that "incredible" and astoundingly inefficient and told them so.

Jim

As an avid user of Coastal Explorer, I need to point out that while they process raw data from the US NOAA and offer it free, their Canadian charts are purchased and re-sold whole from the Canadian Hydrographic Svc. I think that is where you need to place your ire.


Bill ( who didn't buy the Canadian package this year. )

 

[Portage_Bay]

JDCAVE,

Try converting from CSV to GPX. I haven't used the most recent version of Coastal Explorer. But the older version would import GPX. I think there are online converters.

For a very powerful utility that handles most nav software file formats have a look at GPSUtility. The learning curve is steep but when I had to be able to work with numerous different formats I found it worth the effort. The author was very responsive to requests to incorporate new formats.

As far as I know it only runs on Windows

 

[twistedtree]

Are you sure CE can't import a CSV file?

 

[JDCAVE]

Are you sure CE can't import a CSV file?

I just tried it and Get "This is not a supported type of file". It sounds like I should explore the GPX file type. I shall look into Portage Bay's advice.

I have a post on the CE forum.

Jim

 

[JDCAVE]

I got a bit further ahead with this. First, I have put together some "Text Arithmetic" in MS Excel to convert Coordinates in the format "Lat Degrees Lat Minutes" to Lat Decimal Degrees and "Long Degrees Long Minutes" to Long Decimal Degrees. Note that Longitude coordinates "West" are treated as "minus" values.

Second, I upload the CSV file here:

https://mygeodata.cloud/converter/csv-to-gpx

Upon generating and downloading the GPX file, I import it into CE and then use the "New" and "Line/Area" to connect the coordinates and then right click and "fill" to shade the area of concern. The "Line/Area" object can then be named.

Jim

 

[twistedtree]

Nice job.

 

[JDCAVE]

Thanks TT. A small update: The Mygeodata.cloud website only allows 3 free attempts. After that they want to sign you up for a fee, a minimum of $7/month, which only allows 30 downloads, so the next on at $19 would be a preferable option. This website seems to work as well:

https://anyconv.com/csv-to-gpx-converter/

But be careful to not click on any other links. I'm not sure about its integrity as there are other Googled Ads for downloads that might be malware. I'm not certain, but the converter with the red button seems ok.

Ultimately, I think it would be a good idea to have a downloadable EXE, which enable me to do this without having to be online, which is an issue on the boat, with no cell service.

This would really be useful for putting in other closures, such as rockfish conservation areas, and so forth, at least until DFO gets their act together and comes up with a download. I'm going to work on that.

Jim

 

[Portage_Bay]

Ultimately, I think it would be a good idea to have a downloadable EXE, which enable me to do this without having to be online, which is an issue on the boat, with no cell service.

This would really be useful for putting in other closures, such as rockfish conservation areas, and so forth, at least until DFO gets their act together and comes up with a download. I'm going to work on that.

Jim

Circling back to my post #3 and the suggestion to use GPSUtility. It's been quite a while since I've had to covert among nav software file formats so I had to review what I used to do. With emphasis on getting data in text format into Coastal Explorer's .NOB format.

I had to be able to do this while away from internet connectivity so needed stand alone .EXE software.

I used utilities from this web site GPS Utility - Home There are other utilities named GPSUtility. I used two of the authors utilities. GPSUtility and GPSU Import File Converter.


A quick and dirty overview of the process:

1. Get the lat / long data into a CSV format. I preferred DD.ddd over DD MM SS or DD MM.mmm because it was in the end less trouble. But the utilities will work with any of the 3 formats. You've got this worked out to your satisfaction.
2. Run the CSV file through GPSU Import File Converter. This will take some setup first time for you. But because you are creating the CSV files and only heading to CE's .NOB format your setup will be one time. Note the output will be a .GPS format. This format is usable only by GPSUtility.
3. Open the .GPS file in GPSUtility. This just works, no setup needed.
4. Save the file as .NOB and you've created a file CE will understand.

There are numerous fine points to this and if you're like me you'll bang your head against it till you have it all just the way you want it. A huge advantage to this author's software is that if you have purchased the software rather than using the shareware version and need it tweaked he will usually make the requested changes. For example I needed to be able to load waypoints and routes into an older Furuno NavNet 2 system. He was able to assist with that. Another time I needed to be able to incorporate depth data, he helped with that as well.