oeSENC

OpenCPN Vector Charts

OCPN Vector Charts are licensed and sourced from chart providers like Hydrographic Offices. These - non free - charts give OCPN access to up-to-date and proven charts for areas where those are not available for free.

The charts are delivered in an encrypted format optimized for OpenCPN and are requiring the corresponding oeSENC plug-in. They appear like all the other vector charts in S-57 format and can be quilted and managed identically.

Same as in the case of the S-63 plug-in, the operational part is managed by an outside entity, o-charts.org. The charts are available at its web shop.

Install the plug-in, enable it at Options | plug-ins and create your system identifier file from “Preferences” The plug-in will report the path to the file. For Windows and macOS systems a copy is created directly on the desktop.


Create System Identifier


At the shop at


http://o-charts.org

  1. Select the chart set you want to license.
  2. Upload your SystemIdentifierFile - it is used to encode the charts for a specific system - and finish the purchase.
  3. You will receive an e-mail with the download path and your license key.
  4. Depending on the workload of the production system this can take some time.

Download the packet

  1. Unzip it to a directory of your choice.
  2. Add an entry to the source chart directories pointing to the directory of the chart set.
  3. Apply.

The downloaded set contains a text file with information about the set, the license key, the EULA and the chart “blob” itself.
OeSENC add OeSENC Directory

Each Use

Each time you will use the charts from the set, a pop-up will inform you about the licensing period of the charts and you will have to accept the terms of use. These are requirements from our licensors.
Pop UP

One additional license for back-up purposes is included and can be generating by the user when required.

Windows10 users:

  1. Be aware that a W10 system after one of its unattended and forced self-updates imposed by Microsoft may appear as a different system, voiding the license.
  2. You will need the back-up license then.
  3. The announced schedule of MS for updates is about every 6 months.
  4. We are working to enable alternative solutions under W10.

Until the solutions are in place we cannot recommend to use the combination W10/oeSENC.

Chart Examples












OeSENC chart example


OeSENC chart example 2


OeSENC chart example 3