"Matt O'Toole" wrote in message
...
snip
Actually, the biggest obstacle I could see to
developing navigation software is that the file formats for charts are
proprietary, so you have to pay royalties to use them. (A pox on whomever
in
government made that deal.)

It depends what detail you need. Coastal vector outline data is available
for free at very high resolution, and can be converted to formats that are
easy to edit using simple interactive graphical editors. It can be combined
with object data, such as buoys and lights, to provide a simple
representation that is perfectly adequate for racing analysis. Although I
also use scanned chart images, I actually find the outline data provides a
more useful display, especially as I always use the chart as the primary
navigation tool. For an example of what can be done with this public-domain
data, see
http://www.users.bigpond.com/msn/jrichard/Sample.htm (third image down).
--
Jeff Richards