FURUNOMaxSea has a stunning display. Here a split window shows off excellent screen rendering of a satellite photo (left) and NOAA raster chart (right).
With the 2D/3D Module, MaxSea can also display contour and bathymetric charts, which are purchased separately from MaxSea.
Like all upper-end navigation applications, MaxSea displays charts seamlessly and with split windows. Charts are panned with a "hand" grabber and zoomed with the mouse scroll wheel. Panning has a bit of a different look: new charts beyond the "seam" are not dragged along, but are left as black, only appearing when the panning click is released. This behavior is disconcerting at first, because it suggests a missing chart region. But the idea makes sense: rather than dragging along all those pixels the display waits until you have stopped panning, then displays a fully-rendered chart.
Most notably, MaxSea has stunning image quality. The display is incredibly vivid and sharp, with excellent line quality for raster, vector and satellite images (see photo). While most charts typically use 256 colors, charts produced by MaxSea's cartographic company MapMedia use 16-bit color (that's 65,536 colors). MaxMedia claims to be the only company to produce 16-bit color charts.
Although MaxSea originated as a Mac program, it is now firmly in the Windows camp. In fact, MaxSea's display architecture uses the same Windows technology that drives a Microsoft Xbox for interactive gaming. The technology is DirectX, a graphics acceleration add-in to the Windows operating system that is used by game and CAD programs. In the MaxSea setting, DirectX lets you quickly render high-quality 3D graphics that can be rotated in perspective. Note that since MaxSea relies on an integral Windows technology, it does not run on an Intel Mac that is being used to emulate a PC using software such as Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion.
FURUNOCrossing Lake Okeechobee, a Go To Waypoint can be set to monitor cross track error (XTE). MaxSea adds many nice touches, such as red (port) and green (starboard) dotted lines to visually indicate user-chosen XTE boundaries (in this case 0.10 NM).
Waypoints, routes, and marks are easy to create in MaxSea. The Insert Waypoint tool creates a waypoint on the chart location, which can be dragged and dropped to adjust its position. Unfortunately, mark names are limited to an eight-character field. You can circumvent this restriction by choosing Text instead of Point to set a mark, then choosing an icon to associate with the text. When the mark is entered on the chart it will have a long text field for a more complete name.
Charts can be annotated with a palette full of options, including marks, lines, areas, circles, text, color and/or shading patterns. All objects can be saved on a layer or multiple layers to be displayed or hidden, letting you customize and organize your charts with fishing areas, danger zones or anchorage notes.
The Go To tool quickly creates one-stop routes, a commonly-used navigation trick to monitor one's cross track error (XTE). Selecting the Go To tool and clicking on a point on the chart drops a waypoint, creates and activates that route, and opens a Steering Data window with information such as your estimated arrival time. It automatically transmits that information to your autopilot, if it is connected. Any active route also displays cross track error boundaries with dotted lines (red for port and green for starboard). You can customize this from the default setting of 0.2 NM (see photo).
Longer routes with multiple waypoints are also easy to create. Drawing and clicking across a chart image creates a temporary route with QuickWaypoints. These points are linked to the route and won't be saved in the waypoint database unless instructed.
MaxSea's routes include many nice features and details. For example, routes can show distance and bearing (if turned on in Route>Catalog). You can calculate departure or arrive times or estimate fuel use. Routes can be activated at any leg along the route by selecting the Go To tool and clicking on a route leg. An active route can be quickly cancelled by double-clicking on the Go To tool.
Routes are also very flexible in MaxSea. For example, you can customize routes to exclude certain areas when planning a route, automatically avoiding areas such as exclusion or danger zones. You can be running an active route while displaying a planning route, allowing you to plan and create a route for future use while actively navigating a previously-created route.
Waypoints and routes are managed through the Waypoint Center and Route Center, windows that appear across the bottom of the chart, or as tabs for easier access. The Waypoint Center includes detailed information such as waypoint names, comments and creation dates. You can customize these data columns. The Route Center is similar, summarizing information about each route. The Routing Center (different from the Route Center) shows the information for the active route, such as leg number, course, speed and direction.
These windows are linked to the actual chart image, letting you bring up charts from waypoints or routes. By highlighting a waypoint in the Waypoint Center and clicking on the Center icon, a chart opens with that waypoint in the center of the display. Any waypoint you touch on the chart is highlighted in the Waypoint Center; and selecting a waypoint in the Waypoint Center highlights that mark on the chart.
All waypoints, marks, objects and tracks are created on layers. Every object you create – points, lines, text or anything else – is assigned to a layer. Each layer can be displayed and edited separately, or they can be combined. The concept is much like creating a drawing using layers of stacked tracing paper. But you must plan your layer construction so you can hide or display each layer intelligently. Obviously you don't want everything on one layer, nor do you want every single object on its own layer. If you think about how to layer your personal navigation information you can create data-rich charts without cluttering your display.
Fortunately, it's easy to change an object's layer. For example, a waypoint can be assigned to another layer simply by pulling down the new layer's name in the Waypoint Center. The buttons in the Chart Palette let you toggle between displayed layers. Once you have created your information in layers, you can turn on and off individual layers to only show those within your chosen groupings.
MaxSea also records tracks, customized to record either all your instrument data or only your position by points at a specified time or distance. Tracks can be saved to a file, deleted, or copied onto a CD or USB drive. If your display becomes cluttered with too many tracks or layers, they can be made inactive, which temporarily removes them from the menu of pull-down choices. These files can even be encrypted, accessible only with a password – a useful feature for fisherman who hide their hot spots or philanderers hiding something else.
Because it supports GPX technology, MaxSea's ability to import and export is excellent. GPX constrains the format of the data, guaranteeing a direct and accurate transfer. Comma- or tab-delimited data transfers typically require some massaging. For example, should the "N'" in the latitude be placed before or after the numerals? Should the format have a degree symbol, or should there be a space? Becauuse these files do not dictate the specific format – only that each field is separated by a comma or a tab – we've often noticed errors in data transfer. By contrast, we instantly and accurately transferred more than 2,000 waypoints from a Mac running MacENC (which also supports GPX) to a PC running MaxSea.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES
Although MaxSea supplements its features with add-on modules, many important features – such as tides, currents, and weather – are integrated into all packages. This extends from Navigator+ at the lower end all the way up to Professional at the high end.
