PolarView NS Update

Electrical and electronic topics for small boats
jimh
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PolarView NS Update

Postby jimh » Fri Jan 01, 2016 10:23 am

Polary Navy has updated PolarView NS, their excellent computer-based chart plotting program, to revision 2.0.6, released December 1, 2015. The updater and installer can be obtained from

http://www.polarnavy.com/main/download?s=i

Polar Navy describes the update to v.2.0.6 as implementing these features:

--better handling of Windows upgrade licensing for new installations, and

--bug fixes and general housekeeping.

PolarView NS is a cross-platform application that can run on MacOS, Linux, and many Windows versions. The developer has been very consistent in support for the application. He released three updates this year. The application is modestly priced at $40 and allows for installation on five CPUs.

An outstanding feature of PolarView NS is the excellent integration in the application of electronic chart downloading and updating. The application can retrieve and install the latest versions of NOAA and USACE digital charts using a geographic-based selection process. The application can use charts in both vector and raster formats.

I have been using PolarView NS for several years. I find it to be an extremely fast and extremely capable computer-based chart plotter. For more information see:

http://www.polarnavy.com/

A fully-functional trial version is available for testing.

jimh
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Re: PolarView NS Update v.2.0.7

Postby jimh » Mon Mar 28, 2016 12:18 pm

PolarView was updated to v.2.0.7 in January 2016. The new version can be obtained from

http://www.polarnavy.com//main/download

The new version improves the reliability of chart downloads.

jimh
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Re: PolarView NS Update

Postby jimh » Sun Aug 07, 2016 7:43 am

PolarView NS has been updated to version 3.0.1 as of June 2016. The new version introduces a substantial change in the application's licensing provisions. Previous versions of PolarView NS provided a user license that sold for about $40 to $50 and allowed installation of the software on up to five CPU's. With the release of v.3.0.1, PolarView NS now requires a subscription fee. Users must establish an account with PolarView and purchase an annual subscription for the application. At this time the annual subscription fee is $19.99.

The developer explains that this change in licensing model was necessary due to obligations required by the licensor of data that PolarView NS accesses. The application can download three types of data: nautical charts, GRIB weather data, and ActiveCaptain point-of-interest data. Apparently one of those data providers required that PolarView must charge users for access to the data under the terms of the licensing agreement between the data provider and PolarNavy, the publisher of PolarView. The developer explains this in a blog posting. See

https://polarnavy.wordpress.com/2016/06 ... ng-update/

Current users of PolarView NS who have already paid for an application license have been granted an automatic subscription that is good until three years from the date of initial licensing or until August 2017, whichever comes last. Under the new licensing, PolarView NS can be installed on any CPU owned by the subscriber; there is no limit to the number of CPU's.

The developer explains that because his application uses data that is owned by someone else, that licensor has control over how an application like PolarView can use that data. This appears to be the cause of the change in licensing fee for PolarView NS.

Other than the change in licensing, v.3.0.1 does not appear to provide any new features or other changes.

jimh
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Re: PolarView NS Update

Postby jimh » Sun Dec 03, 2017 11:32 am

Most users of PolarView NS who previously purchased the application AND upgraded to a version 3.n release have discovered that their user-license has expired as of August 17, 2017. The effect of passage of this date is that v.3.n copies of PolarView NS will no longer run, and the user is prompted to visit the PolarNavy.com website to purchase a new license.

There are presently two forms of license available:

--a user can purchase for $69 a license that permits lifetime use of PolarView NS and also includes one-year of access to NOAA chart downloads; or,

--a user can purchase for about $16 a license that permits one year of use of PolarView NS and also includes one-year of access to NOAA chart downloads.

The difference in the two options seems to involve having access from the very nice downloading client embedded in the PolarView application to the NOAA digital chart downloads.

The digital charts published by NOAA are available for free download, but you have to download them yourself, manually, from the NOAA website. This involves figuring out what charts you want to download, initiating the downloads, unpacking all the .ZIP files, and moving the new charts into the chart directory on your host computer. This can be a lot of work to perform regularly, which you would need to do if you wanted to get the latest charts. On the other hand, the downloading process can be done very easily from within the PolarView application, and dozens of new charts can be downloaded in a minute or two, moved into the chart directories, and made instantly available.

This seems like a reasonably valuable adjunct to the PolarView application itself, and since buying the chart download feature also buys use of the application, for about a $1.33 per month you get both. In the total cost of boat ownership, this added monthly cost is not particularly burdensome.

If you are still running a v.2.n copy of PolarView NS, it seems to work as it always did, including being able to access NOAA charts.

jimh
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Re: PolarView NS Update

Postby jimh » Fri Sep 13, 2019 10:09 am

On September 3, 2019, the developer of PolarView NS software posted the following announcement on SUPPORT.POLARNAVY.COM:

This is to, regretfully, inform you that Polar Navy will cease operations on Dec. 31, 2019.
All services will be discontinued at that time.

New account registrations, and subscription purchases and renewals have been discontinued.

--
Polar Navy Support


The developer offered some elaboration for the reasons for the cessation of operation in a reply to a support forum inquiry:

Unfortunately, Polar Navy cannot continue as a going concern. Due to variety of licensing problems it is not possible to opensource the product.

Aside from that, the product is using a number of online services which, in turn, need both investment and labor to maintain and ongoing development to stay current.


About six years ago I tested a trial version of PolarView NS and found it to be wonderful. Subsequently I purchased the software, and used it with several MacOS computers. Last year I also purchased a one-year license when the software switched to a subscription model cost basis.

To learn that the software is not going forward is saddening. It was a very good computer-based navigation application, and it ran on three platforms, Mac, Unix, and Windows. From what I can tell, the application will continue to work in the future, but features like automatic NOAA chart downloading and GRIB weather model downloading will not work; actually, they have already stopped working.

The developer never made clear who he was, and was always a bit shy about revealing his own identity. He was a marvelous software developer. Apparently going forward with his PolarView NS product is no longer possible, as he stated above.