AnglingCharts


Using your DrDepth data with Lowrance HDS

There are plenty of ways to skin a cat, as they say. This is the way I make isobaths from DrDepth data in GM for use in Navicomapcreator. Others will doubtless have a million other ways. DrDepth Isolines are great for general bathymetry and deep water, but be very wary if you want to use them for anything else.
Import your DrDepth maps directly into your HDS

 

 
With a little basic instruction you can export your hard earned DrDepth maps directly into your HDS as background charts. Bottom Hardness or Bathymetry - they can be setup as charts on your HDS unit with only a few simple steps.
 
You can of course simply make normal contour charts and overlay these as well.

Basically, whatever you could produce in DrDepth, you can now display on your Lowrance unit.

 

Reefmaster is now using the huge field of knowledge and experience that has been gained to maximum advantage. As well as already being able to produce HDS bathymetric charts using data either collected in the application, or imported from other applications, it is well on the way to being able to produce stunning fishing charts that run on the range of compatible Lowrance equipment.

 

The colour background chart running on the HDS on the right was created using only Reefmaster and Insight Mapcreator. No other applications

Globalmapper


1. First prepare the ground by making a new line object called Navico Isobath. GM does some weird things with attributes, so we need to do some weird things to overcome them. If you put a number into a new attribute it will assume that it is a number attribute, not a text attribute. So if you have a set of buoy names, or in our case depths as text, life can get complicated.


Pay attention.....


Configure - Line styles - new type. I call mine Navico Isobaths. - OK


Attributes

COLOR  = 8

FONT = 10B

L_LIMIT = 0

U_LIMIT =19

RTP_COLOR = 8

RTP_LIMIT = 15

VALUE = a

MODE = T

LAYER = 80

 

OK - now you are ready to import some stuff from DrDepth.

 

Dr Depth

 

Make your map, and create iso/contour lines. Save them as ESRI Shapefiles (.shp)

 

In Globalmapper  File - open - select your shapefile. Hopefully you haven't used some weird datum, so its in Geographic / wgs84 - OK. If its not in WGS84 you'll need to reproject it.

 

It should now appear on your work area. Hit the little binoculars and you'll see that it contains depths in Feet and depths in Meters. Great.

Close the search window, and hit Edit - select all features with digitizer tool - now right click on any one of them and select "edit".

In the "feature type" dropdown box select your newly made "Navico Isobath" line type and hit OK.

 

Now hit your little binoculars again and observe all the new attributes which have been attached to the isobaths. Close the search window .

 

File - export vector format - shapefile. Export lines - give it a name and somewhere to live. Do not split export - UNCHECK "add feature type "LAYER".  -OK

Our data is nearly how we need it, but some of those attributes must now be changed. Open the Overlay control centre and right click on the overlay you are working on.

Select "Calc attribute". Select attribute "VALUE" in the top dropdown box.

For the Source attribute select either depth in feet or depth in meters depending on which part of the colonies you live in.

 

This is the weird bit. ADD - used fixed value - 0 (zero). This will remove the decimal point and copy the depth into the VALUE field. (This is formatted as Text

because we saved it with the letter "a" in it remember ?). Set one of the contour labels BACK to a letter (use S instead of 5 for example)

 

If you want the decimal point to remain then use the "copy source attribute to new attribute" operation instead of adding zero.

Now we need to fix the Font, which is also a number in a text field. So simply open the search box, select all, edit selected, and change the FONT attribute from 10B (which will give you BOLD text) to 10.

 Leave one of them as 10B (or make a dummy one) to keep the attribute type as text, export the shapefile again.

The attribute type problem may be fixed in V15.

 

Now open up Insight mapcreator