droidAIS

droidAIS is a Android AIS map application. It'll display yours and other ships position on a map.

IMPORTANT:
You'll need to connect your Android device to an AIS transmitter by BlueTooth or WiFi, to be able to receive AIS sentences.

In case you don't get AIS sentences about your own boat, droidAIS will use information received as NMEA0183 sentences or using the internal GPS of the Android device.

FEATURES:

• Tap on ships will show additional information.
  
• Pinch to zoom.
  
• Tap and drag to move the map.
  
• Tap the icon in the lower right corner to center (your vessel is the blue dot).
  
• Use the Android menu button to get to the settings.
  
• Use the Android menu button to get to the ship list.
  
• Toggle online/offline by the button on the right. By setting it to offline, you'll ensure that droidAIS doesn't download map tiles, but only uses offline maps ore cached maps.
  

Each ship is displayed as a green dot. A line from the dot displays the heading of the vessel, and the length of the line indicates it's speed.

droidAIS is using OpenSeaMaps as an underlay to the ships. These maps are free, and the big advantage is that you can create maps to store on your SD card for offline usage.

CREATION OF OFFLINE MAPS:
I suggest you use "Mobil Atlas Creator" to create your offline maps. It's a Java program that runs on Mac, Windows and Linux. It can be downloaded here: http://mobac.sourceforge.net/

Once you have installed Mobile Atlas Creator, here's a short guide on how to create your maps:

1. After startup, name your Atlas, choose to create an Atlas in "OSMdroid ZIP" format and press OK.

2. Choose "OpenSeaMap" as map source. This is very important, choosing another source won't work.

3. Navigate to the map section you want, and select the part of the map that you want.

4. Name your selection and click "Add selection".

5. Enter your destination folder in the settings.

6. Click the "Create atlas" button, and let Mobil Atlas Creator do it's magic. The result will be a ZIP file located in the folder you choose before. Rename it to something that makes sense.

Once you have your offline map ZIP file, you must copy it onto your SD-card of your Android device. The file needs to be placed in the folder called "osmdroid" in the root of the SD-card. If you have had started droidAIS while online, this folder already exists.

That's it.