# Features

> Olex features: layered vector charts, a route plotter driven by the mouse, unlimited memory and 2D/3D bathymetry analysis tools.

Olex is a navigation system that generates seabed topography maps from the GPS and the echo sounder. By
combining this information with vector charts in S-57 or C-Map CM93 format, it offers 3D navigation.

## Vector electronic charts

- **Selective display**: each type of information (lights, light sectors, names, aids to navigation) sits
  in a layer that the user shows or hides. Depending on the zoom level, Olex only shows what is useful:
  every detail at large scales, the essentials when zooming out, to keep the chart readable.
- **Dynamic display**: when the vessel is inside a light sector, the sector flashes in the light's colour.
- **Chart orientation**: north-up, a direction set by hand, or the vessel's course (*Course Up* mode). In
  course-up, the vessel points to the top of the screen and chart labels are redrawn to stay horizontal.

[[image : Lights and light sectors displayed in Olex]](https://www.justmagic.com/images/Olex_light_animated-long.gif)
*Light animation (click to play)*

## An easy-to-use route plotter

- **Deliberately simple interface**, so that every function can be learned quickly.
- **Mouse (or trackball) and function buttons**: very few functions are in menus. The keyboard is only
  needed to type names or comments on the chart.
- **Marks, lines, routes and areas** in several colours, created in a few clicks.
- **Automatic, real-time saving** of user data: even after a power cut, everything entered is still there.
- **Fast display**: all information is held in a single file, organised as a multi-level geographic
  database, for fast selective display according to scale.
- **Unlimited memory**: Olex keeps all the vessel's tracks and can redisplay them track by track, year after
  year. The bathymetric map it builds can cover the whole Earth without saturating the system.

## Seabed map generation

- Bathymetry computation that is automatic, real-time and runs in the background.
- The more the vessel sails over an area, the better the seabed representation.
- Soundings from the navigation charts shown in the background are not used in the computation and are not
  updated by the vessel's surveys.
- 5 m by 5 m cells.
- Analysis tools for the bathymetric maps:
  - 2D relief for an overview;
  - surface mode, with depths shown as a colour palette;
  - depth contours generated quickly, at the chosen interval (down to 1 m);
  - zoom on a sounding line with slope shading, for example to find drop-offs;
  - seabed profiles, to locate peaks and hollows and their distance from the vessel;
  - 3D view with scales and distances, for an intuitive understanding of the underwater relief.
- Data exchange between users: Olex users can share the bathymetric data they collect, through MIS or
  directly with each other by import and export.

[[image : Seabed relief in Olex 2D view]](https://www.justmagic.com/images/Olex_relief.gif)
*2D view, relief mode*

[[image : Seabed in Olex 2D view with slope shading]](https://www.justmagic.com/images/Olex_fonds.gif)
*2D view, slope shading mode*

[[image : Seabed profile drawn by Olex along a line]](https://www.justmagic.com/images/Olex_profil.gif)
*2D view, seabed profile mode*

[[image : Underwater relief in Olex 3D view]](https://www.justmagic.com/images/Olex_3D.gif)
*3D view*