In Hydromagic, most of the screen space is taken up by the map display. This display shows, among other things, the background map, the hydrographic data collected and the location of your vessel. Extra information can also be added such as waypoints, comments, boundaries and planned lines. In this document we will go into more detail about how this display can be further adapted to our wishes.
The map display in Hydromagic showing the vessel position with distance rings and course line.
To select the items shown, open the global preferences dialog by selecting the "Preferences..." option from the "Tools" menu. In the dialog that appears, open the map display options by clicking the "Map" tab.
Customize the map display using the "Map" tab in the preferences dialog.
With the "Ring Count" option set to any value higher then zero, a set of rings will be drawn around the ship at fixed intervals. Use this function, for example, to see at a glance how far away the objects are from the boat. Another useful option is to set the interval to the distance between survey lines to get some sort of guidance. In addition to setting the distance between the rings and the number of rings, it is also possible to choose a drawing color for the rings, which is clearly visible against the background.
Distance rings around your GNSS position at a specified interval.
The course line can be used to see where the vessel is going. Please note that the course line is indicating the correct heading only when the NMEA0183 output of your GPS or RTK receiver outputs this information and the vessel is moving. Alternatively, a compass or RTK heading sensor can be used to determine the correct course.
To display the course line, simply enable the "Show course line" option. In addition, you can set the line color and width to improve visibility.
By checking the "Show map scale" check box, the scale indicator can be included at the bottom left of the screen. This scale indicator gives an idea of the zoom factor that is currently being used. This setting also applies when printing the map display content. The distance shown in the scale indicator is in the horizontal units associated with the selected map coordinate system.
The map scale will be drawn in the lower-left corner of the display.
The "north indicator" shows the true north of the map display. By default, the map view is always to the north (rotated zero degrees), but changes when you rotate the map view using one of the tool bar buttons below. To include this indicator in the map view, check the "Show north indicator" check box. This setting also applies when printing the map display content.
The map rotation buttons in the tool bar.
In Hydromagic software versions earlier than 9.0, only the high frequency depth of the raw data or processed sounding was shown on the map. Now it is possible to display the low frequency measured depths instead (when a dual frequency echo sounder is used). Please note that this setting does not affect generated matrices as they are generated statically with only one frequency.
It is important to ensure that you disable this feature when loading a project that has been recorded with a single frequency echo sounder, as otherwise no depths will be visible
With the background color setting, the color that can be seen behind objects, such as waypoints, depths, maps and other map attributes, can be chosen. However, this color cannot be seen behind raster maps that consist of image files such as maps downloaded with the map download tool.
However, when a vector map is used, such as an AutoCAD DXF file, it may sometimes be necessary to choose a different background color to make the map more clearly visible. To adjust the color, click on the downward pointing arrow next to the colored area.
Map display background color set to yellow.
When the GPS antenna and the echo sounder transducer are not directly above each other, it is very important to indicate the locations of these sensors relative to the boat. This can be done with the help of the "vessel designer" tool, which is described in more detail on the "Vessel shape and offsets" page.
When this does not apply to your vessel, and you are happy with the default vessel shape, you can always change the vessel shape color by clicking on the downward pointing arrow next to the colored area
Since it is possible in Hydromagic to set the presentation of raw data files, soundings and matrices separately, these settings cannot be found under the general map display settings. To set how these are displayed, right-click on the relevant folder and select the "Display Settings ..." option.
