Atlas wrote:

snip
Yes Jack you're right, RosePoint did the dirty work and Maptech licenses the
product.

At this point, all my respect and Kudos go to to Rose Point!!! Absolutelly!
And I've digged around and read about enthusiastic reviews of Coastal
Explorer.... FANTASTIC!!!!

I'm thinking if Coastal Explorer has more map flavour options.... it could
be just beacuse they aren't......... Maptech!!!

Maptech has some sort of business relationship with the U.S. national
hydrographic agency, NOAA I think. For years, Maptech was about the
only source for electronic charting data that was based on images of the
NOAA paper charts. And the format on those was primarily the BSB that
Maptech developed. And they sold the charts too of course.

A few years ago, the NOAA made the electronic charts available to the
public as free downloads. The downloaded charts are exactly the same
Maptech's, I think Maptech has continued to do the electronic chart
making work for NOAA. The S-57 charts have come a long ways in recent
years and will eventually replace the raster charts I think.

The U.S. government policy on the free maps and charting (both marine
and topo) is that doing that is in the best interests of the health and
welfare of the general public. And also, the information is developed
with our tax Dollars so it just does not seem right to make us pay for
it again. But many other national agencies charge for the charting and
in some cases the prices are quite high.

If you study the help files for Ozi Explorer I think you can find a path
that will let you scan and calibrate paper charts or imported images
that are not already calibrated.

I used the Ozi Explorer trial version to prepare maps for use with Ozi
Explorer-CE (which I purchased). I was using Ozi-CE on a PDA with
marine and topo maps. Again, I had the luxury of starting with the good
(and free) NOAA and USGS downloaded maps.

Jack

--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA - jackerbes at adelphia dot net
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine.com)