Furuno Marine GPS System - Manual (Page 3)

56 OCEAN NAVIGATOR JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 www.oceannavigator.com JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 OCEAN NAVIGATOR 57 www.oceannavigator.com
This Furuno
diagram shows
the various
sensor and
display
elements that
can be plugged
into the system
using Ethernet,
NMEA 0183 and
NMEA 2000.
ius Satellite weather receiv-
er, Furuno Weatherfax
receiver, Network Fish
Finders, the FA/30/50 AIS
receiver, up to 4 IP video
cameras and a PC connect
to the 3D system via Eth-
ernet, greatly simplifying
installation and control of
the system. Audio signals
from the Sirius receiver are
accommodated by the
NavNet 3D system,
including the provision of
a front panel audio volume
control (a feature frequent-
ly asked for in NavNet vx2
installations). Connections
to other sensors including
the Furuno Weather Sta-
tion, the new GPS com-
pass, Furuno’s new sailing
instruments and
engine/vessel data are
accomplished using
NMEA 2000 or NMEA
0183. NMEA 2000 is used
for communication
between the Network Fish
Finder and the sonar trans- ducer to provide the trans-
ducer’s model number, fre-
quency and date of manu-
facture information for use
in optimizing system per-
formance by compensating
for known ageing effects in
the transducer.
The new NavNet 3D
system does more and is
significantly easier to man-
age than previous Furuno
chartplotter/radar multi-
function systems whose
control logic remained
rather opaque even after
years of use. We believe
that the system’s user-
friendly interface is in part
a result of Furuno’s invest-
ment in MaxSea and their
participation in the design
of the system software.
Examples of the new
way of doing things are
especially visible in the use
of point and click control
functions and the elimina-
tion of the need to
progress through menu
layers to select or change
functions or displays.
Almost everything is only
one click or a slight rota-
tion of the RotoKey away.
The wisdom of Furuno’s
decision to use Ethernet as
the communication bus
beginning with the original
NavNet system in 2001 is
reinforced in NavNet 3D.
The plug and play nature
of the Ethernet bus system
is illustrated by the ease
with which an IP video
camera can be plugged into
a hub and the image it cap-
tures is displayed on the
screen and controlled from
the system’s scrolling pad.
Having seen all the new
features and capabilities of
this new system we can’t
help but wonder what’s
next. Perhaps the coming
year will see a new chart
image option, the ability to
overlay a raster chart on a
vector chart, providing the
navigator with the best of
both worlds: the familiar
and easy to use conven-
tional chart image and
with a click, access to the
mass of data that is instant-
ly accessible from the ENC
database. In the area of
sensors, an integrated video
surveillance camera using
both night vision TV and
an infrared camera would
likely be welcomed by
many navigators, as would
an effective look-ahead,
depth-scanning sonar.
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