SignalK RouteIQ Nautical Route Planner

⚠️ Alpha release. RouteIQ is under active development. Routing data currently only covers a small set of test regions (parts of the Netherlands and the US East Coast) — it is not yet suitable for real-world passage planning. Use it for testing and feedback only, always verify routes against official charts, and do not rely on it for actual navigation.

An offline-first, vessel-aware nautical route planner designed to run natively as a webapp and plugin within the Signal K ecosystem. Optimized for inland waterways and coastal navigation, it dynamically calculates safe routes based on a vessel's physical dimensions (draft, beam, air draft) and user safety preferences.

Features

• Offline-First Routing: Pre-computed routing graph enables instant route calculation without internet connectivity
• Vessel-Aware: Considers draft, beam, and air draft (with configurable safety margins) to ensure safe navigation
• Tide-Aware (optional): Can factor in tidal currents — needs a tide data plugin installed and running: signalk-tidal-currents for real harmonic current stations (preferred), and/or signalk-tides for a height-derived estimate. Without either, routes fall back to plain distance
• Interactive Web UI: Leaflet-based map interface with click-and-drag route planning
• Freeboard-SK Integration: Runs as a Freeboard-SK Plotter Extension panel, so you can plan routes without leaving Freeboard-SK's own charting UI
• GPX Export: Export routes for use in OpenCPN, WilhelmSK, and other navigation software
• POI Search: Offline search for ports, marinas, locks, and other points of interest
• Chart Selection: Nautical charts via Signal K's resources/charts API (raster and S-57 vector), plus built-in OpenStreetMap / OpenSeaMap
• Downloadable Routing Data: Fetch pre-compiled regional routing databases on demand from within the app — no manual data prep required

Screenshots

| | | |---|---| | Planning a route through the Zeeland delta | Running as a Freeboard-SK plotter extension | | Tide-aware routing with a 24 h departure scan | Downloading and managing regional routing data | | The departure planner mid-scan — every hour of the window is listed at once and fills in coarse to fine, so the best departure shows up long before the scan ends | |

How It Works

RouteIQ is made up of three pieces:

1. A cloud data pipeline (separate repo, signalk-router-pipeline) that processes nautical charts into compiled routing databases.
2. This Signal K plugin, which runs on your Signal K server, loads one or more of those databases, and calculates routes.
3. A web app, served by the plugin, for planning routes on a chart and exporting them.

Compiled routing databases are published to signalk-router-data and can be downloaded directly from the plugin's "Manage Routing Data" screen — you don't need to run the pipeline yourself.

RouteIQ can be used two ways: as its own standalone web app (served by the plugin), or embedded directly inside Freeboard-SK as a Plotter Extension panel, so you can plan routes on top of the chart you're already viewing there.

Installation

1. Install RouteIQ from the Signal K App Store (Server → Appstore, in your Signal K server's admin UI), or manually by placing this plugin in your Signal K server's node_modules.
2. Restart your Signal K server and enable the plugin under Server → Plugin Config.
3. Open the RouteIQ web app (linked from the Signal K webapps list), or open it as a panel inside Freeboard-SK if you use that.
4. Click the ☰ menu icon in the top-right corner of the screen to open the Routing / Charts / View settings, and use Manage Routing Data there to download a routing database for your area.
5. Set your vessel dimensions (or let RouteIQ auto-detect them from design.draft etc. if your Signal K server provides them) and start planning routes.

Want tide-aware routing? Install and enable a tide data plugin first — signalk-tidal-currents for real harmonic current stations, and/or signalk-tides for a height-derived estimate — then turn on "Consider Tides" in RouteIQ's settings (☰ menu → Routing) or per request. When both are available RouteIQ prefers the current stations and falls back to the height estimate outside their range.

Configuration

These settings are available under Server → Plugin Config → RouteIQ:

| Setting | Default | Description | |---|---|---| | Routing Data Directory | the plugin's data directory | Directory containing the .sqlite routing graph files RouteIQ loads. Empty means <Signal K config>/plugin-config-data/signalk-routeiq/routing-data, which survives plugin updates; a relative path is resolved against the plugin install directory | | Draft Safety Margin (m) | 0.3 | Under-keel clearance added to the vessel's design draft | | Air Draft Safety Margin (m) | 1.5 | Mast clearance added to the vessel's design air draft | | Beam Safety Margin (m) | 2.0 | Width clearance added to the vessel's design beam | | Default Min Coast Distance (NM) | 0.5 | Default minimum distance to keep from the coastline | | Average Speed (kn) | 6.0 | Cruising speed used to estimate route duration / ETA | | Typical Lock Wait (min) | 60 | Time allowed for each lock on the route, counted towards duration and ETA. Adjustable per route under ☰ → Routing | | Typical Opening Bridge Wait (min) | 30 | Time allowed for each opening bridge. Fixed spans cost nothing | | Consider Tides by Default | off | Factor in tidal currents when calculating routes (needs signalk-tidal-currents and/or signalk-tides); can be overridden per request | | Max Tidal Current (kn) | 2.0 | Spring-tide current at full flood/ebb, used to scale the estimated tidal flow model | | Tides API Base URL | this server | Server hosting the tide/current data plugins, if not this one | | Waypoint Simplification Tolerance (m) | 30 | Max deviation allowed when simplifying the computed path down to route waypoints | | Wrong Way Penalty | 5.0 | Cost penalty applied when routing against marked traffic flow | | Line-of-Sight Sample Interval (m) | 500 | Spacing between samples when checking line-of-sight for route smoothing | | Line-of-Sight Search Radius (m) | 0 | Radius to search for graph nodes when verifying line-of-sight | | Database Catalog URL | signalk-router-data catalog | Where to look for downloadable routing databases | | Dynamic Database Loading | on | Load each region into memory only when a route actually needs it, instead of loading everything at startup. Recommended when you have multiple regional databases installed | | Eager-load Region at Vessel Position | on | With dynamic loading on, pre-load the region under the vessel so it's ready to route as soon as it's positioned | | Proactive Load Radius (NM) | 0 | Load a region before the vessel actually enters it, once within this distance | | Max Loaded Regions | 6 | Cap on how many regions stay loaded in memory at once when using dynamic loading |

Safety Constraints & Routing

Routes avoid edges where:

• Water depth is insufficient for the vessel's draft (plus safety margin)
• Vertical clearance is insufficient for the vessel's air draft (plus safety margin)
• Channel width is insufficient for the vessel's beam (plus safety margin)
• Distance to land is below the configured minimum coast distance

Routing prefers marked fairways over open water and penalizes travel against marked traffic flow.

License

Apache License 2.0 - see LICENSE file for details

Contributing

This is an alpha-stage project. Bug reports and feedback are very welcome — please open an issue or pull request on GitHub.

Acknowledgments

• Signal K team for the plugin framework
• Dutch Hydrographic Office and Rijkswaterstaat for reference data
• OpenStreetMap and OpenSeaMap contributors for map tiles
• Freeboard-SK (Apache-2.0) — the webapp's chart-source handling (Signal K resources/charts normalisation, built-in OSM/OpenSeaMap sources) and its simplified S-52 chart styling are adapted from Freeboard-SK, which in turn derives its S-52 symbology rules from OpenCPN's s52plib