So what does it do?
Patrols
So I started with the Patrol screen because that is what we do most often. We run two logs on the boat, a radio log and deck log. The mechanisms for logging we fashioned after maintaining those two logs. With ISIS we start a patrol and enter in some information such as engine hours weather conditions and fuel levels as well as select a crew. This first screen is still a work in progress.
After the Patrol is started it is very simple to add a regular log entry you press the log button on the screen with your finger (touch screen). At that exact time the log screen pre-populates the current Lat and Long as well as the time. This leaves the users with just the text of the log to enter. The goal here was to eliminate user error in recording coordinates and time. The other thing about this is it is quick and easy. You can still edit the coordinates and time in the box. Once you are done hit enter and that is it. Your entry appears below in the log. On thing I have observed while doing the log is it would be ideal if whoever is making the log entry puts their initials at the end of the text so that you know who made the entry. We could force that feature is a separate box but my concern is that would slow down and complicate the entry.
Recording radio logs is very similar, in fact in the background the logging mechanism is the same. The radio log does expose two different fields. It allows the selection of the type of call as well as the input of a channel(s). The radio log works the same and will populate below in the log field.
At the end of a patrol again you log the fuel and engine hours the system auto populates the time and then you are done.
Patrol Report
I just added this in the last two days you can run a patrol report that will give you all of the log entries that you have made. It separates them out into deck log type entries and radio logs. It also currently produces a speed graph and a dump of the vessel auto logs which I will describe below. I will likely remove the vessel logs and put them on a different report as there is a lot of them. You can export the report to PDF. Eventually you will be able to email it out. I will post a sample of the current Patrol log.
Vessel Auto Logs
This is like a black box feature. As long as ISIS is running in the background it is currently logging time, position, depth, and speed. I want to add to this, specifically heading and perhaps sea and air temps. Unfortunately the electronics I have access to do not expose these NMEA sentences. I am working on that. 🙂
Coming Real Soon
I am working on the SAR screens in fact some are done. It will incorporate the same logging features but will prompt the user for more detail that is required for SITREPS. I am modeling this after the required entries in CCGA’s SMS. If you have some ideas or would like to see something please leave a comment. I would like to grow this to fit the needs of the people using it. The next big thing will be the upload to the central server. Because you never know what will happen to a computer on a boat 🙂 I have linked a video below with a quick preview of ISIS.
Hardware blog is next 🙂 Have a great weekend.
Chris Webb
Electronics Officer
PARA Rescue
