What's New?¶

Version 0.66¶

Improve documentation for configuration via JSON
Fix chart colors when running web viewer in iframe on Firefox
Technical details of equipment added to shipcard (press information icon in sender field)
CS unit for class B is displayed in shipcard of the web viewer if available
Serial devices can be initialized with an init sequence
Remodelling of realtime NMEA tab with options to filter on MMSI and share NMEA lines with decoder tab for message parsing
Option to track NMEA in webviewer for a specific ship or station
Shortcut to measure distance between two objects or points is now SHIFT-CLICK to select the first point. This should improve behaviour for devices that cannot distinguish between a left and right mouse click.

Version 0.64 - 0.65¶

Various updates to improve stability, security and minor bug fixes.

Version 0.63¶

Enhanced Features¶

NMEA 4.0 Tag Blocks: support for NMEA tag blocks (msgformat nmea_tag for networking or -o 7 for screen). Note that when reading the timestamps are overwritten by default which can be switched off with -go stamp off

Version 0.63¶

Enhanced Features¶

Data throughput: significant reduction in data throughput to community hub
Online NMEA decoder: Built-in NMEA decoder in the local webviewer
Kiosk Mode: Full-screen display mode for dedicated monitoring setups
MSGFORMAT Configuration: Flexible output format definitions for customized data presentation. Introduction of msgformat binary_nmea to save on bandwidth
Extended Binary Messages: Additional binary message types now decoded and displayed
Verbose JSON Output (-o 6): Enhanced JSON format with detailed field descriptions (WIP)
Debian Trixie Support: Compatibility with Debian 13 (Trixie)

Filesystem-based Map Tiles:

  # Serve map tiles from filesystem
  AIS-catcher -N 8100 FSTILES /path/to/tiles
  # Filesystem overlay maps
  AIS-catcher -N 8100 FSOVERLAY /path/to/overlay

For complete edge changes, see the commit history.

Version 0.62¶

ADSB Integration¶

Connect to ADSB feeds to visualize aircraft alongside vessels:

# Beast format
AIS-catcher -t beast localhost 30003 -N 8100

# BaseStation format
AIS-catcher -t basestation localhost 30002 -N 8100

Binary Message Decoding¶

The WebViewer now decodes and displays regional binary AIS messages (availability varies by location).

Offline Mapping¶

# MBTiles format support
AIS-catcher -N 8100 MBTILES map.mbtiles
# Or as overlay
AIS-catcher -N 8100 MBOVERLAY map.mbtiles

RTL-SDR V4 Support¶

Debian packages now include statically-linked RTL-SDR library with V4 dongle support.

AIS-catcher for Android¶

Auto-start decoding when USB device connects
Built-in webviewer on configurable port

Version 0.61¶

MQTT Integration¶

# Publish messages
AIS-catcher -Q mqtt://127.0.0.1:1883
AIS-catcher -Q wsmqtt://127.0.0.1:1883
AIS-catcher -Q mqtt://127.0.0.1:1883 admin MSGFORMAT JSON_FULL TOPIC data/ais
AIS-catcher -Q mqtt://username:password@127.0.0.1:1883 admin CLIENT aiscatcher

# Subscribe to messages
AIS-catcher -t mqtt://username:password@127.0.0.1:1883

Protocol Expansion¶

WebSocket text transmission (ws://)
SDR data streaming (sdr://)
Text over TCP (txt://)
GPSD integration (gpsd://)
RTL_TCP support (rtltcp://)
Raw IQ data (tcp://)

Web Viewer Improvements¶

Map-first default view
Enhanced color palette
Draggable ship information cards
Context-aware card positioning
Configurable vessel track display (on hover/selection)

Configuration¶

NMEA2000 settings in JSON configuration
System daemon auto-restart (10s interval)