Charts

Orca runs on our tailor-made Orca Charts – the next-generation charts that are crisp and easy-to-read with instant response. The charts are built on top of data from Official Hydrographic Offices and augmented with in-house data for improved accuracy and coverage.

Orca Charts in brief

Navigate with confidence on charts built from official hydrographic data.
Carefully designed for legibility, clutter-free at any zoom level, even in complex areas
Easy on the eyes – with symbology and iconography that closely resemble traditional paper chart design
Runs on a blazingly fast chart rendering engine. Zoom and pan with instant response
Contains thousands of anchorages, marinas, and fuel stations – with hundreds of thousands of ratings and reviews by fellow boaters
Automatically updates whenever new chart updates are available

Explore the charts

Orca charts behave just like other maps you are used to on your phone and tablet. Pan, zoom in and out, and rotate the map freely with the gestures you already know:

Drag to pan the chart
Pinch in and pinch out to zoom in and out
Rotate with two fingers to rotate the chart

As you zoom in, the details shown in the map increase gradually.

Where other chart providers offer large stepwise increases in detail as you zoom into the chart, Orca Charts provide a carefully designed and gradual increase of details as you zoom in.

This careful balance means that you are able to view navigation-critical information, such as shallow rocks or soundings more easily without having to zoom far into the charts.

You can notice this effect in the video below – Orca Charts have no abrupt change in detail level as you zoom in, and critical information such as navigation marks and rocks stay visible and legible at all times.

Finding your location

The Follow Me button moves the chart to your current location.

On large screens, such as on tablets, the button is placed along the right side together with a pair of zoom buttons. On smaller screens, the Follow Me button is positioned in the bottom right corner.

The Follow Me button can be tapped multiple times with different results:

First tap – The charts center on your location and orientates itself course-up
Second tap – The chart centers on your location and orientates north-up

After pressing the button, the map camera will follow you so you are always at the center of the screen.

If you interact with the chart, such as panning or zooming, the chart will stop following your location. To make the chart follow your location again, tap the Follow Me button again.

If you rotate the map, sometimes you may want to return the chart rotation to North. To do so press the Compass button on the top right side of the screen.

The video below shows how the Follow Me and Compass buttons work.

Pin a location

Long press in the map at a location to take action or get information about that specific location.

A menu will appear at the bottom of the screen with the following information:

The coordinates of the location
The distance and bearing from your current position

There are several actions you can take in that menu

Press Save to save the location as a Spot
Press Weather to see the marine weather forecast for that location
Press Measure to enter the measure distance mode, more on that below
Press Navigate to enter routing mode and calculate a route to that location
Press Info to view detailed information about the mark or area nearby the pin. This option is only visible when you press at or near a mark or area with special navigation information.

Measure distance

The distance tool lets you calculate the distance and course between two points.

To measure distance, pin a location by long-pressing in the chart. Press Measure and a ruler will appear between your current location and the pinned location.

The ruler will show the distance and the course between the points.

To adjust the ruler, hold and drag the endpoints to move them around.

Chart settings

Orca Charts can be adjusted to behave the way you want them to do – from visual representation to how they behave when you move around in the charts.

To edit your chart settings, go open the Main Menu > Settings > Chart.

These are the elements available to you for tailoring the map:

Allow Map rotation - Allow map rotation or lock to north-up only.
Follow mode - Change how the Follow Me button behaves
Show navigation aim line - extends a navigation aim line along your current course or heading
Navigation aim line distance - If the aim line is enabled, you may select between showing a Fixed aim line or a Dynamic aim line. If you choose Dynamic, you may choose between 10 mins or 30 mins
Orientation and aim line direction - This option lets you choose how the orientation and the aim line direction are calculated, either your course derived from the GPS or the heading derived from your magnetic compass
Show breadcrumbs - Your location during the last 24 hours of activity is shown in the map as breadcrumbs.
Delete breadcrumbs - Press there to delete your breadcrumbs.
Show AIS targets - Enable to show AIS targets from your NMEA2000 AIS receiver and from the Orca online AIS network
Ignore own AIS - Enable to automatically identify and hide your AIS broadcast.
Obstacle height indicator - Bridge and cables lower than the selected height will be shown with red height indicators. Use the slider to change the height limit.
Depth shading - Depth areas more shallow than the selected value will be shown on shades of blue. Deeper areas will be white. Use the slider to select the depth shading limit.
Offline Chart data - Press on this item to manually force an update of the charts that you have downloaded
Delete offline data - Press to remove all offline chart data from the device