Creating SONAR charts

[jimh]

GARMIN recently announced a new feature for their SONAR-chart-plotter combination devices: the ability to create their own bathymetric charts immediately, just using the electronics and processing of the Garmin device. Garmin calls this feature Quickdraw Contours. With the appropriate Garmin SONAR-chart plotter device, you can add to existing charts new depth data with 1-foot contour lines. While other manufacturers offer similar capability, their devices cannot create the charts; you have to record new data, send the data to a central processing hub via the internet, and get back a new chart segment some time later. With Garmin Quickdraw Contours you can immediately update a chart and see the new depth data.

I suspect this feature was aimed at anglers. I am not an angler, but this feature is very appealing to me. I can envision its use in a completely different situation--exploring back water and uncharted sections of the the North Channel of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. The Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) has done a great job surveying that area, but there are still some sections far from main routes that are not surveyed at all. Using a Garmin SONAR-chart plotter with Quickdraw Contours, one could first explore some of these waterways in a small dinghy, collecting the data and creating a new chart as you go. After exploration, one could return to the main vessel, move the Garmin device onboard, and them proceed up the newly charted waters with the just-created chart as a guide.

Garmin also says that a self-created chart can be shared with others, so I presume one could have two Garmin devices, one in the dinghy and one in the main vessel, and just transfer the data between them. Garmin says you can transfer the data on a SD memory card.

Garmin Quickdraw Contours is included on their echoMAP™ CHIRP combo series devices. The software can also be downloaded for free and installed on their other devices:

--echoMAP series
--GPSMAP® 7400/7600 chart plotter series, and
--GPSMAP 8000/5x7/7x1/8x0/10x0 series.

I believe the Garmin Quickdraw Contours feature truly differentiates the Garmin units from other manufacturers by the ability to immediate create new chart data using processing on the device itself; the other manufacturers can only do this by having data sent to them for processing at a centralized point. The Quickdraw Contours feature is a real advantage for Garmin in this aspect.

For more from Garmin about Quickdraw Contours, see

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/on-the- ... 43340.html

[rnvinc]

Not to take away from Garmin's great new feature offering, but I do want to make mention that Humminbird has had instant live mapping in the ONIX AutoChart Live since 2014. See

http://youtu.be/-IhpgZG3cHg

AutoChart Live is also offered in the new HELIX 9, 10, and 12; see:

http://www.humminbird.com/Category/Tech ... hart-Live/

There is one distinct difference in the new Garmin QuickDraw: the live mapping can be created on a regular SD Card. With the Humminbird AutoChart Live can only be created in the unit memory or onto the proprietary Humminbird Zero Lines card.

--

And an additional note: the Garmin QuickDraw can be captured with the Garmin proprietary Panoptix transducer, which has an array of piezo-electric elements in the same housing. It can render depth data more efficiently than a "single-piezo" transducer.

Rickie

[jimh]

Rickie--many thanks for that most interesting information on the Humminbird ONIX AutoChart Live feature. I was not aware of it. There are so many excellent recreational SONAR devices on the market today that keeping up to date on all of them is difficult. Your added knowledge is much appreciated.

[rnvinc]

It is my understanding that the Humminbird AutoChart products (AutoChart Live, AutoChart PC, AutoChart Pro pc) are direct product derivatives from the acquisition of Dr. Depth by Johnson Outdoors in 2013.

http://www.johnsonoutdoors.com/uploaded ... rDepth.pdf

Self-mapping products (live, personal PC software, and web-sharing) seem to be taking an upswing in user desirability. I feel this may be because users are realizing that the big mapping companies "interpolate" way more data on their mapping products than previously realized.

Rickie

[jimh]

It appears my memory is going. I wrote about Humminbird AutoChart features in an earlier thread related to the acquisition of DrDepth. See

http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/003416.html

[rnvinc]

It appears my memory is going. I wrote about Humminbird AutoChart features in an earlier thread related to the acquisition of DrDepth. See

http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/003416.html

Funny Jim ... My wife says I have slipping memory problems also ...

Rickie