We have purchased monthly app for an iPad and want to download charts. How do we do so that charts can be used offline.
Yes, we saw video–thank you. The chart detail is very poor however–1:177,000 is about the best we can do and still see water, let alone get to sufficient depth detail to navigate some of the narrow channels in Alaska. We are in the “view downloaded vector charts.” Any advice?
You should be able to see the same detail in offline charts as you would when using online charts and that should include all of the detail that is provided by NOAA. Exactly how much detail that is depends on where you are looking.
It is possible that you are in an area that is simply not covered by NOAA in more detail, or it could be that the download did not complete. Where in Alaska are you? We can check the level of detail for you.
So I have two devices going right now in Juneau --one ipad, one windows based PC and planning for Sitka destination. Definitely not the same detail. ipad zoom blacks out the land as I zoom in–looking at Oliver cove for example–it disappears above 1:272,000, whereas the PC goes down to below 1:30,000.
While both charts are based on the same NOAA data, the PC charts and the iPad charts work slightly differently at scales far from the “native” scale of the chart so comparing those two doesn’t really narrow down the source of the problem. In the case of Oliver Inlet, for example, you can zoom in all the way to 1:1,000 with the PC charts, but clearly the data doesn’t really have that much detail and you’ll see the overscale indicator at around 1:100,000. On the iPad charts, that area should zoom in to about 1:150,000 and rather than “overscaling” the chart, it is removed from the display.
However, it sounds like that’s happening to you sooner than it should and the only explanation I can come up with is that the chart download might not have completed. If you have “enough” internet access, you might try using “Settings > Update Now” which should only download any data in your selected area that you don’t already have. (On the iPad, charts are downloaded in many small chunks, so it’s possible for the downloaded chart to be incomplete, though that usually results in a message indicating there was a problem.)