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Rich internet clients are all the rages these days - iTunes, iChat for example.
MacENC will also be. The next release of MacENC supports TCP/IP for NMEA data. What does this mean?
- MacENC can be a client to any NMEA stream. For example a public AIS data stream like this one..
telnet://66.235.48.168:3047
Allows AIS targets out of the range of a conventional AIS receiver to be plotted right on the MacENC chart.
OR
Another MacENC NMEA stream.
- MacENC can be a server of its received NMEA stream from traditional NMEA serial devices like GPS, AIS, instruments. Any Mac or PC can listen to the NMEA stream. For example Coastal Explorer on Windows supports NMEA from TCP/IP as does MacENC. So could an iPhone or Pocket PC.
So one could have a Mini down below running MacENC that is the NMEA server and any number of clients can see the NMEA data wirelessly.
This opens up many possibilities.
Stay tuned.
Scott Dillon
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I cannot speak to those adapters as I have never tried or seen one. I am optimistic we will start to see IP enabled mutliplexers. The advantage of an IP multiplexer over a Bluetooth multiplexer is the former allows a many to one connection. This means any number of clients could be running MacENC or other IP enabled applications. As long as they are in range of wifi or have a wired connection they could use that same NMEA data.
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Is the plan to consolidate all NMEA data received by MacENC into the TCP/IP stream without modification? It would be of benefit (IMHO) to have some control over which NMEA sentences gets consolidated into the TCP/IP stream. There are at least two possible approaches.
A. Provide for preference selection of which sentence from an NMEA input stream gets consolidated into the TCP/IP stream.
B. Only consolidate the “good” (cause a “green dot” display) sentences from an input stream into the TCP/IP stream.
Either would be required to make TCP/IP workable in a Raymarine systems configuration. This is because the information in the NMEA sentences vary (so does the sentences generated) depends on which RM device is used to convert the Seatalk to NMEA. Usually this means getting NMEA data from two or more streams – one for GPS, Route, Waypoint etc, related data and one for instrument data but the instrument stream can contain GPS sentences with incomplete data. Two copies of sentences with different data in the same stream would confuse the receiving systems.
Ray
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Yes the NMEA data is unfiltered that is sent over the TCP/IP port. Check boxes enable the NMEA data server itself, and then the GPS, Instruments, and AIS/Radar ports received NMEA data.
The reason for this is because the NMEA server can be used by any client. Those clients whether they MacENC, Coastal Explorer or any other TCP/IP ready client will want to see the NMEA data unfiltered.
Even MacENC does not filter duplicate NMEA messages that have conflicting information except when "Autopilot Only" is checked and in that case the incoming $GPAPB, $GPBOD, $GPBWC, $GPRMB, $GPXTE and $GPWPL NMEA messages are filtered and replaced with MacENC generated ones for the active waypoint. If there is no active waypoint then this NMEA data filtering does not occur.
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OK – this will make the TCP/IP data stream useless in some instrument configurations where the GPS and Instrument NMEA data streams are from two different sources within the instrument network with some GPS related sentences appear in both streams but with different data – e.g. waypoint names.
In the TCP/IP application MacEnc is acting as a big NMEA consolidator and IMHO should have the ability to manage what sentences from the incoming NMEA streams are consolidated. Some of the more expensive NMEA consolidation boxes already have this feature.
Ray
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Yes I now understand your concern where you have GPS NMEA data coming from one serial port into the GPS panel and Instrument NMEA data coming from another serial port into the Instruments panel. Now the MacENC TCP/IP server combines these NMEA data into one stream you end up with duplicate. So I will add a check box that limits the NMEA being sent out to the TCP/IP to what each respective panel processes. This will resolve the duplicate NMEA data. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Thank you solve the concern - thank you
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One more comment - will you implement the same preference for the MacENC NMEA out feature. It would be of benefits to have preferences:
A. ONLY sent autopilot data generated from a MacENC waypoint on the NMEA out. None of the data received on any input is set out on NMEA out.
B. Only send the processed sentences recieved on the GPS, Instrument, and AIS NMEA (RS232) inputs. (I am using processed to mean sentences which are used by MacENC - those that cause a "green" display)
C. Only consolidate process sentances from selected input streams - e.g. only from the AIS stream - into the NMEA out.
With a multi drop network - Seatalk, NMEA 2000 - one appears needs more filter controls to stop conflicts and confusion in the either the TCP/IP or NMEA out streams.
Thank you
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Just to clarify the "Repeat" serial port works a bit differerent then the TCP/IP server. The "TCP/IP Server" takes the NMEA data input from the three serial ports (GPS, AIS/RADAR and Instruments) and consolidates them into one output NMEA data stream on a single TCP/IP port which is then sent to any connected client. On the other hand, the GPS Panel repeat serial port only repeats what comes in on the GPS Panel serial port. It does not repeat the AIS/RADAR nor Instruments NMEA data from their respective serial ports. So the GPS panel Settings could have the option to "only repeat processed" NMEA data, but then that would limit it to sending out only GPS NMEA data and all other would be filtered out.
"Autopilot Only" limits the "Repeat" serial port to only manufactured NMEA data when a waypoint is active.
If one is feeding NMEA data from GPS, AIS, Instruments all into the GPS Panel serial port via a multiplexer then it is the job of the multiplexer to handle prioritizing the NMEA data. More advanced multiplexers like the Shipmodul 42 series offer filtering and all sorts of options to control the NMEA data input stream. Such devices can be used when connecting multiple NMEA sources.
We offer a Shipmodul Config tool that offers this interfacing flexibility.
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Thank you for the clarification on how GPS repeat works.
Here is the configuration that I am using:
GPS NMEA source ----->> AIS receiver ----->> Keyspan (1)----->> MAC
(RM SC520)
Instrument NEMA ------------------------------->> Keyspan (2)----->> MAC (RM Seatalk --> NMEA box)
The sentences on Keyspan(1) contain both GPS and AIS information. I assume "GPS repeat" filters out the AIS sentences and either re-transmits the GPS sentences received (when there is no Waypoint set in MacENC) or transmit MacENC generated sentences when a waypoint is set in MacENC. IMHO, GPS repeat mode should have a preference to filter out any non-GPS sentences recieved in the GPS panel.
The sentences on Keyspan (2) contains instruments + anything else that is flying around the Seatalk bus - GPS data, waypoint data, autopilot data, rubber angle etc. This is the reason filtering is need in the TCP/IP consolidation - to remove the non-instrument data.
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In the configuration you provide, only the NMEA data that is received on your Keyspan (1) serial port would be sent to a repeat serial port (if one is chosen). The reason MacENC does not filter out any NMEA data in the repeat NMEA data stream is MacENC has no idea what it is sending the NMEA data to. It could be an autopilot. It could be a RADAR. It could even be another Mac. Similar to how your AIS receiver passes through the GPS NMEA data. It would be possible to limit the repeat port data to only the GPS NMEA data MacENC processes, but I am not seeing the reason for doing so. Any instrument (autopilot, RADAR, etc.) that receives NMEA data only looks at the NMEA data it needs and ignores the rest. So the filtering you ask for occurs by default. "Autopilot Only" is provided as means to avoid a feedback loop. That is instead of repeating the NMEA data only the manufactured NMEA data is sent. This is because sometimes the repeat port is the same as the primary GPS port.
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Is the GPS data referred to in the above 2 posts generated by the same GPS RX?
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In my set up:
Serial Port 1: Navman 5600i with GPS (feeding lol, sog, cog etc.)
thru Nasa AIS engine
Serial Port 2: Raymarine Speed, Depth, Wind, Compass instruments via Raymarine Seatalk to NMEA convertor
So there is only one GPS, on port 1. Don't know whether this matches rirvine's setup.
I'm going to get one of those NMEA ShipModul multiplexers, I think. GPSNavX, you wrote the config utility for the USB one, didn't you?
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I believe rirvine's setup includes two GPS, one as part of a Raymarine system and another such as a Garmin, As such he had two streams of GPS NMEA data coming into MacENC. Since the Raymarine GPS NMEA data was coming into the instruments panel it is ignored. So there is no conflict.
A conflict would be created on the TCP/IP server because the NMEA data is combined. The option "Processed Only" resolves that by transmitting only the NMEA data that MacENC actually processed.
Yes the is an OS X Shipmodul Configuration tool. It works for the Miniplex 41 & 42 series. The Shipmodul Miniplex-Lite is a great unit, however requires no configuration. It supports two regular NMEA data input connections and one high speed AIS NMEA data connection.
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There is only one GPS in my system (RM GPS). Because RM does not do very good job of converting Seatalk to NMEA in their convert box (many fields in the sentances are null), I use the NMEA output (contains more data) from an SC520 chart plotter for the GPS panel in MacENC and the NMEA from the convert box for the instrument panel in MacENC.
Because Seatalk in a multi-drop buss, it (and hence the NMEA output from the convert box) contains a lot of sentances that has nothing to do with instrument data (including GPS related data) that needs to be removed for TCP/IP.
Hope this is clear,
Ray
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rirvine, yes your configuration makes sense. You have effectively created two GPS input into MacENC. That works fine because each panel only looks at the NMEA data it cares about, but as you note when combining the NMEA data back onto a TCP/IP port the filter "Only Processed" needs to apply.
On the otherhand there is no need for a "Only Processed" option for the GPS Repeat serial port as instruments nor AIS NMEA data is repeated to the serial port.
I believe MacENC offers many options for interfacing NMEA instrumentation. Compare with other OS X GPS applications that only support ONE serial port.
Scott Dillon
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Thank you. I was not knocking MacENC (I beleive it is a super product otherwise I would not bother attempting to make it better). I was just attempting to get across that there are complications in a multi-drop instrument network that need to be understood.
Is there a list of NMEA sentence that MacENC supports for GPS, Instruments, and AIS input and GPS output?
Ray
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http://www.gpsnavx.com/html/nmea.html
From the MacENC help:
To have the GPS Data repeated out to a port (i.e. one that is connected to an autopilot) select the "Repeat" check box and select the port and the rate. Any active waypoint will be created (once a second) in the repeated NMEA stream ($GPAPB, $GPBOD, $GPBWC, $GPRMB, $GPXTE and $GPWPL) sentences. This allows an autopilot to steer to the active waypoint (including those in a route).
Scott Dillon
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