PegelTiefgang

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PegelTiefgang Inland ECDIS

Free inland ECDIS for commercial inland shipping with support for and included bIENC depth charts, as an alternative and a supplement to CoVadem or Tresco, based on OpenCPN. Depth layers included at the moment: Rhine, Danube, Waal, IJssel, Nederrijn and Lek. Would you rather have depth charts on paper as PDF (Tiefenatlas)? Then see depth charts

PegelTiefgang Inland ECDIS is a free inland ECDIS chart program for Windows, based on OpenCPN. It has been adapted so that, unlike the original OpenCPN, it supports the IENC 2.4 standard with bIENC depth layers. It puts the surveyed depth of the waterway on the chart, and with live water levels you see exactly how much water is where, the way the Austrian Danube and CoVadem on the Rhine do it. With the right settings it takes AIS and position from the navigation system that is on board anyway. At the moment there are depth layers made by me for the German and Dutch Rhine, Bavarian Danube, Waal, IJssel, Nederrijn and Lek as far as Krimpen available, with an extension expected for the Meuse, the Moselle and hopefully many more rivers. The depth layers produced by the authorities on the Danube below Passau are available as well, though still without real time water level correction.

Coming soon

The program is sailing on board a number of vessels at the moment while it is being tested. As soon as it is ready for everyone, the download button appears here. Would you like to be the first to know, or to test it along with us? Then join the WhatsApp group.

Join the WhatsApp group

Windows speaks up the first time you start it

That is normal, the program is new and Windows does not know the publisher yet. In the blue window click More info and then Run anyway. Later updates do not do this.

What it can do

High resolution depth layers in the chart image

Depth data (bathymetry), not only in the channel where the traffic goes but outside it as well, for the Rhine, Waal, Nederrijn, Lek, IJssel and the Danube. The Meuse, the Moselle and the rest of the German Danube are expected.

Current water levels

Depths are converted continuously to the current water level, for the rivers that have real time gauge data. You see the depth that is there right now, not the depth at the low water reference level, so there is nothing left to work out by hand. Set the safety contour at the bottom of the screen (SC … m) to your current draught plus 30 to 40 cm of margin to see where you can go and where you cannot. White is safe, light blue is safe but less than 50 cm above the unsafe depth, dark blue with a black contour is too shallow to cross.

AIS from the onboard system

Takes AIS targets and your own position from the existing navigation system over the onboard network. Follow the setup wizard, after that it should work. It also comes with handy predictors that show where you will be in an adjustable number of minutes at the current course, speed and rate of turn. Adjust the prediction time with the “PRED” option above or next to the safety contour setting.

Keeps itself up to date

Charts and program update themselves as soon as there is internet. Nothing has to be downloaded or installed by hand, you get a notice on your own or it is installed on its own when the ship is not moving.

With the included bIENC depth layer and the current water levelWithout, the way the charts are made by Rijkswaterstaat
An example of the hard layer at Nijmegen. As you can see, the inner bend with the yacht channel is deeper than the outer bend, the opposite of what you would expect from a natural river.
With the included bIENC depth layer and the current water levelWithout, the way the charts are made by Rijkswaterstaat
See how misleading the charted fairway is. The shoal under the De Oversteek bridge currently sets the least sounded depth, because it supposedly “lies in the fairway”, but in practice everybody goes round it, through the channel that actually carries the water, which runs along the left bank instead of the right. That is why the MGD is so widely ignored as well, because it is not representative of where the ships go. See also the FAQ

Installation

  1. As soon as the download button appears above: click it and save the file.
  2. Double click the downloaded file.
  3. In the blue Windows window click More info and then Run anyway.
  4. Click Yes when Windows asks once more.
  5. In the setup wizard keep clicking Next, or adjust the defaults.
  6. On the first start the Windows firewall asks for permission: be sure to tick Private networks and allow access, otherwise no AIS comes in.

Connection to GPS and AIS

To get AIS and position in, and so to see where your ship is in the channel, the navigation system, Tresco or another one, has to put the data on the onboard network or send it some other way. Nothing has to be set in PegelTiefgang Inland ECDIS itself. If there is no chart system on board, this program can also talk to the GPS and the AIS directly, but note that this is not approved navigation software. For people who are not commercial skippers and have no alternative it can still be useful. In principle all OpenCPN plugins are supported, but that is not something I work on. As an alternative a phone can be used, with an app that sends the GPS signal to the computer over bluetooth, and there are tutorials online for that.

See also the OpenCPN documentation.

Do this in Tresco or Periskal first

  1. Open Instellingen → Systeem… The password is usually 0000.
  2. Go to Kanalen.
    Steps 1 and 2: Instellingen → Systeem, then Kanalen.
  3. Switch on Transmit NMEA via UDP port, in the bottom half of the page.
    Step 3: Transmit NMEA via UDP port is in the bottom half of the page.
  4. Enter port 10110 in the first box.
  5. In the Broadcast-adres box, enter the address the program shows under Help → Receiving position and AIS from Tresco, where the picture below has 255.255.255.255. That address is different on every vessel, so it cannot be printed here.
  6. Leave Gebruik communicatieserver op adres: switched off. That option sends the data to a remote server instead of onto the local network, which is not what is needed here.
    Steps 4, 5 and 6: the port, the address, and the communication server that has to stay off.

The menu names are in Dutch on purpose. That is how they read on the Tresco screen, and that is where they have to be found.

What has to be set

Output type
UDP (broadcast)
Destination
The address the program shows under Help → Receiving position and AIS from Tresco
Port
10110
Format
NMEA 0183

If nothing appears

  1. Are both devices on the same network, so the same router and the same subnet?
  2. Is the output on the onboard system really switched on and not only configured?
  3. Windows firewall: access to private networks has to be allowed on the first start. Clicked away? Add it under Windows Security → Firewall → Allow an app through firewall.
  4. If the onboard system uses a different port, change it in PegelTiefgang Inland ECDIS under Options → Connections.
  5. If settings were changed by accident, Help → Restore recommended settings puts them back the way they were after installation.

Important notice

This program is an inland electronic chart display, built to the CCNR Inland ECDIS Standard for information mode. It does not provide a radar overlay and is not intended for navigation mode. It applies while the program runs in Inland ECDIS mode, with current inland ENC charts, on a screen readable from the steering position.

What it does: it shows the official inland ENC charts, your own position and the AIS targets your onboard system sends it, and our depth layer converted to the water level of the moment.

What it does not do: it is not type approved equipment, it has no radar overlay, and it does not replace an installation that is prescribed on board.

Depth data is a snapshot and can be out of date. The Netherlands survey regularly, Germany unfortunately does not. CoVadem has a measuring network of its own ships that record the fairway depth in real time where the traffic actually goes. Its coverage is therefore thinner and often absent outside the channel, unlike this program, but shoals that have just formed, from turning manoeuvres for instance, will be current in CoVadem sooner than here.

A warning about the German Rhine data: these are fairly old soundings. The Rhine does not change much thanks to its many groynes, but in the Gebirge the depths sometimes seem to be tens of centimetres out (in the Geisenrückenfahrwasser for instance) compared with the Tiefenatlas and with my own experience as well (even though comparing echo sounder readings with charted depth is always hard because of squat). Better soundings are being looked for, but for now this is the best we have and in any case more than nothing. Do you have better data, or data for other rivers? I would be glad to hear from you

Responsibility for the safe conduct of the vessel rests solely with the boatmaster. No liability is accepted for damage arising from use of this program.

Help

Is something not working that you cannot fix with the help of Google or AI programs like ChatGPT either (please try those first), an unexpected crash for instance? Then click Help → Report a problem in the program. A six character code appears, pass that on. With it we can look up remotely what went wrong on your computer.

Join the WhatsApp group

Based on OpenCPN (opencpn.org), GPL v2. Chart data: EuRIS and the national waterway authorities. Depth data: various sources, but reworked here to get it into the right format. Live water levels from the PegelTiefgang water level API with several extra fallback sources to guarantee the best reliability.