Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having been a yacht captain turned programmer: We would have something purpose made from raymarine/garmin/whoever hard-mounted to the steering station networked into the various sensors onboard. There would be at least one redundant display elsewhere (out of the weather in the case of boats steered from deck). We would never go for something on a raspi. Some boats will have the sensor canbus hooked into a computer to…
1. Never in a million years would I suggest this Raspberry Pi project being the answer to the ugly that is nautical software. 2. Even the big fancy screens in fancy yachts have god awful UI. 3. I am not talking about meaningless fad designs. Google Maps decades ago made road maps intuitive and beautiful at the same time. By comparison, the vast majority of those chart plotters look like ancient Windows95 graphics. It…
Those chart graphics (colors, symbology, everything) are an industry and legal standard, even if you don’t think they are aesthetically pleasing or intuitive. Any trained mariner can get onboard and understand the information regardless of brand. They aren’t meant to be intuitive and beautiful, they are meant to match extensive training and expectations of professionals. They are meant to be the digital evolution of a product with centuries of development. Nothing about nautical charts is a mistake. By comparison googles maps are extremely faddish, the look of their maps has changed quite a bit since launch their launch 19 years ago.
As far as the UI outside of the charts, that works the same as any iDevice or app.
The fact that I can think back over my work history and not remember the brand of the instruments and displays I’ve used is a feature not a bug.