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