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Getting Started

This guide walks you through the app. You do the work in the browser — the server downloads and bakes charts for you. It takes a few minutes.

Step 1: Start the app​

The web frontend is built into the binary, so you need no other files. Start the server:

chartplotter serve

Open http://127.0.0.1:8080 in your browser. You see an empty map and a toolbar.

Step 2: Add charts​

Open the Chart Library, pick a source, and choose a region. The server downloads the cells and bakes them into tiles in the background.

The Chart Library, where you pick a source and region

  • NOAA — official U.S. charts, grouped by Coast Guard district.
  • Inland ENC — USACE inland waterway charts.
  • User Charts — import your own S-57 cells or a NOAA ENC zip.

When the bake finishes, the chart appears on the map. Baking is the memory-intensive step and can use several gigabytes of RAM for a large region; on a small machine, add one region at a time. See Memory and disk.

A baked NOAA chart of Chesapeake Bay

Step 3: Switch Day, Dusk, and Night​

Tap the color-scheme button to cycle Day → Dusk → Night. The map restyles at once, because the engine stores color names and resolves the palette in the browser. You never rebake to change the lighting mode.

The same chart in the Night palette

Step 4: Adjust the display​

Open Settings to control what the chart shows: the basemap, the level of detail, depth shading, soundings, contours, and more. These settings apply live — the viewer reads attributes already baked into the tiles, so there is nothing to rebake.

The Settings panel with display options

Step 5: Inspect a feature​

Tap any feature to open the pick report. It lists the feature's attributes — restrictions, light characteristics, depths, source dates, and any attached text.

A pick report for a charted feature

Where to go next​

  • Put a chart on your own page — see Widget mode for the read-only, no-server build and how to package and deploy it.
  • Learn how a cell becomes tiles in Architecture.
  • See the exact tile layers and fields in the Tile Schema.
  • Look up the commands in the CLI Reference if you want to bake archives from a script.