Update: October 29, 2020
I’m not sure how relevant the following tutorials are anymore. Navico (Simrad, B&G and Lowrance) made a change in their chartplotter software that reduces the color resolution of AT5 files almost to the point of being useless. Gone are the rich details that hide in subtle colors. I filed a support ticket over this and the result was a message that told me to revert to an older software version.
Also, it seems that the program to create AT5 files, Insight Map Creator, is no longer supported and very hard to find. I’m pretty furious over this situation and I think I will no longer buy Navico equipment.
Instead, I’m considering putting a high brightness, waterproof monitor in the cockpit with a small, dedicated computer running openCPN. Recently, openCPN began supporting mbtiles. These very easy to create satellite charts have great color resolution and detail. They have much greater detail than KAP files on openCPN. When I get into this a little more, I’ll post a tutorial. In the mean time, I’ll leave the tutorials below for anyone who might find them useful.
August 2018
We bought Simrad evo3 chartplotters for Legacy, in part, because they can display satellite images. Figuring out how to create those satellite charts hasn’t been easy but now I’ve got it down to a reliable, pretty fast method. I’ll try to pass that along to anyone who’s interested.
Here are the sources I am currently using. In Fiji, it’s been hard to find good images without cloud cover or water reflections so I’ve used all of these and there are still some areas where the images aren’t very good, but by using all of these sources, I can usually find useful images.
| Source | Download Tool | Viewer | Notes |
| Google Earth | Google Earth Image Downloader ($) | Google Earth | 1 |
| Google Earth History | Google Earth Image Downloader ($) | Google Earth (Main Menu/View/Historical Imagery) | 1, 4 |
| MapQuest | Universal Image Downloader ($) | www.mapquest.com and click on little globe | 3 |
| Here Maps | Universal Image Downloader ($) | wego.here.com | |
| Yahoo Satellite | Universal Image Downloader ($) | maps.yahoo.com | |
| ESRI ArcGis.Imagery | SAS Planet (Free) | SAS Planet | 2 |
| Bing | SAS Planet (Free) | SAS Planet |
Notes:
1. Can also be downloaded with SAS Planet but I haven’t had any luck doing this.
2. This is my favorite. They often have the best images and this is my first stop.
3. This is my second favorite source.
4. Often where there are no other image sources, you can find something workable in Google Earth historical images
($) = Paid Program.
(Free) is, well, free.
Tools that I use:
Google Earth Pro
SAS Planet
Universal Maps Downloader
Google Earth Image Downloader
Insight Map Creator
mapc2mapc (version 576g or later for dither)
ge2kap
Stitch Method of Making AT5 Files Using SAS Planet.
I call this the stitch method because, after downloading all the small satellite image map tiles, you “stitch” them together into a big JPEG image. From there, Insight Map Creator turns the JPEG into an AT5 file that Navico chartplotters can display.
You can use any of the map sources you can view in SAS Planet. I usually use ESRI ArcGIS.imagery and Bing. For Google Earth and Google Earth Historical Imagery, see the next PDF and video.
Here’s a pdf with instructions:
at5 chart creation stitch method sas planet.pdf
And for your visual learners, here’s a video of the process…
Making AT5 Files from Google Earth Images
If you’d like to use Google Earth satellite images, current or historical, to make .at5 files, here’s how I do it in pdf form:
at5 chart creation using Google Earth history.pdf
And here’s a video…
Using Your AT5 Source Files to Make KAPs
And now, to turn those .at5 files into .kap files that you can display on openCPN, here’s what I do (pdf version): making kaps from at5 working files.pdf
A video of the process…
Making AT5 Files from KAPs
And lastly (maybe), here’s a video, the fourth in this three part series, about converting KAP files to AT5 files that you can use on Navico Chartplotters. The disadvantage of this method is that KAPs, having only 127 colors, don’t have the detail that you can get by starting from scratch. The advantage is that there are a lot of KAPs available (some of them even good) and this method can save a lot of time.
Note that there are some details I’ve omitted in this video about displaying the AT5 charts on a chartplotter that can be found in the previous videos or the PDFs.
Here’s the PDF tutorial: kap to at5.pdf
And here’s a video…
I hope this is helpful. -Rich
Additional Notes:
Chart Size…
I think it’s best to make several smaller charts rather than one big one. If I had my choice, I’d make one chart for each area I cruise: Fiji, New Caledonia, Tonga… But that’s just not practical. A chart I made of Ne Caledonia took three days to render in Insight Map Creator, and that was just the south west cruising grounds.
If you want a big, overview satellite chart, try a lower zoom level for the source files – 14 maybe, and then render it from 4 t0 64 perhaps.
If you do end up with a huge jpeg that you want to make a kap file from, both GE2KAP and mapc2mapc will fail. To get either to work, you can try reducing the resolution of the source file by half (but you will lose details). To reduce the resolution, you can use a program like Photoshop. In image size, change the resolution from 72 to 36 and set the Resample mode to Bicubic Sharper (reduction). That’ll work well. You can also use a program like GDAL or ImageMagick or any number of other photo editing programs. Hit Google for instructions. Make sure you don’t change the image dimensions. Test your resulting chart carefully against another, known chart.
Atlas Version:
If 13 doesn’t work for you, try 12 or even older. I don’t really know the differences in the versions. For a very large chart, Thirteen didn’t work. Twelve did. (Though there could have been other causes for this.)