Josce wrote:
I am thinking of writing my own navigation software.
Not to save money, but just for the fun of it, and
because I would like it to be an "open system" so that
I can easily add features to it from time to time.
I have sorted out the hardware but I am having problems with
the electronic charts. The charts I would need right now
have to cover the Baltic sea.

When trying to find documentation about the "S-57" format
I only find very "strange" documentation which is not
very helpful. It is as if someone has made it obscure on
purpose?
It is very likely that I just haven't found the right
documentation for this, but the ones I have found like:

IHO TRANSFER STANDARD
for
DIGITAL HYDROGRAPHIC DATA
Edition 3.1 - November 2000
Special Publication No. 57

are not very intuitive, compared to nearly any Internet RFC, which
you just read and then start implementing it ...

Are there any commercially available charts that can be used on a PC.
And to make it clear, I have no intention of cracking any codes and
I am more than happy to pay for these charts and "lock" them to the
computer that I install them on.

And how do you read these charts?

Josce

I imagine you're right about it being made deliberately difficult to
find information about the S-57 format. May I suggest looking at some
of the GIS packages though; at least a couple include translation utilities.

The BSB format (NOAA raster charts) is much easier and additionally a
library exists for it already (libbsb.sourceforge.net)

No matter what you do you're going to need C/C++ experience and a lot of
patience to deal with the marine industry roadblocks. It would be nice
to have a viable linux navigation package. And, have a look at my
project (pynavigate.googlecode.com), its a working cross-platform GPS
display written in python.

--
Travis