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Print BSB Raster Charts the Easy Way: NOAA Charts for Free
For kayakers, buying multiple full-sized charts is not only expensive (at $25 a chart), but the full-sized charts are impractical for folding and carrying in a map case. I much prefer to use free NOAA bsb charts and print them on my own. I’ve written an article about how to Print Your Own NOAA Charts using a command line bsb converter, and I’ve also used an graphical interface for NOAA Marine Chart converting. If you have a lot of charts to convert, you can set up a script using the command line bsb converter to make quick work of it. If you have just a few, you can use the graphical interface…
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NOAA Marine Chart Converter
NOAA makes its marine charts available for free to the public, but those charts come in a BSB format. If you want to manipulate the marine charts on your computer, unless you hack the file, you have to use a computer program designed to read the BSB format. To make the charts usable in any graphics program or to print your own NOAA charts, you need to convert them from the native BSB format to a graphics format like PNG, JPEG or TIFF. In the past, you had to use NOAA’s somewhat confusing tool or a command-line hack. Bob Webster, feeling our pain, programed an open-source BSB converter. It converts…
Lightweight canoe and kayak travel
