Hi all,
I have just uploaded what I believe is the
final 1.0 release version of the PixInsight Platform: it is PixInsight Core 1.0.47.341 and PCL 1.0.25.144:
http://pixinsight.com/download/STD/This version comes with important bug fixes and additions. It has passed numerous, exhaustive tests on both Linux and MS Windows and has proven to be extremely stable.
Main Bug Fixes*
Fixed a problem that was causing sporadic crashes on Windows. Until now, the PixInsight core application has been using sophisticated multithreaded code to keep its entire user interface coherent with the states of all images, icons, instances, etc, as well as user-defined preferences and settings, in a completely automatic and transparent way. This was working without flaws on Linux, but was causing sporadic crashes on Windows, which manifested mainly during PSM file management actions and image file writing actions. After unsuccessfully trying to fix the updater threads to work well on Windows, I have had to rewrite the entire interface updating code to suppress threads completely. I have used system timers, which are less efficient, but fully stable. The performance penalty is unnoticeable, and now the core application is rock-solid on both platforms.
Thanks to Thomas W. Earle and Jack Harvey for their continued testing work an support.
*
Fixed some incorrect behaviors of file dialogs. File dialogs (actually, QFileDialog) had some problems, which are now mostly fixed. For example, something very irritating was that the Save As dialogs were ignoring the file types specified by the user. This one and other incorrect behaviors are now fixed. There remain a few issues, though, which will require more attention, but file dialogs are now much more comfortable.
Main New Features*
Improved PSM file format. The new PSM format version 1.1 implements several strategies for automatic error recovery of icon files. This makes it much more difficult to lose icons due to damaged PSM files or less-than-perfect implementations in third-party modules. Of course, the new version is fully backwards-compatible.
*
Added new keyboard and mouse navigation to the CurvesTransform, ColorSaturation and HistogramTransform interfaces. Now the curves and histogram graphics on these interfaces accept the following commands when they are focused (e.g., by clicking them):
Curves and color saturation only:
- Use the direction keys (up,left,down,right) to move the currently selected curve point.
- Use Ctrl+left to select the previous curve point.
- Use Ctrl+right to select the next curve point.
- Press the Shift key to temporarily activate the point selection mode (allows you to select a curve point without changing it).
- Press the Control key to temporarily activate the point deletion mode.
Curves, color saturation and histograms:
- Press the space bar to temporarily activate the pan mode (on zoomed graphics).
- Clicking the middle mouse button also activates the pan mode. Click and drag it to pan a zoomed graphic very easily.
- Press Ctrl+Space to temporarily activate the zoom in mode.
- Press Ctrl+Alt+Space to temporarily activate the zoom out mode.
- Use the mouse wheel to zoom in/out.
Note that most of these commands also work with images in PixInsight.
*
Integration of LittleCMS version 1.17 (color management engine).*
New parallelized processes: SCNR, ExponentialTransform, UnsharpMask. These processes use now all available processors.
*
Improved handling of floating point FITS and TIFF image files. Please refer to
this thread for more information. The new version comes with the updated format support modules.
*
New splash image. You'll see it upon application start, and also on the About window. I hope you'll like it.*
New "alert" function when a process finishes and the application's main window is not active. The typical flashing icon on the task bar.*
New PCL class: FFTConvolution. This class implements high-performance convolutions with fast Fourier transforms and automatic fix of boundary artifacts. FFTConvolution is able to convolve images of arbitrary sizes; the only limit is the available memory.
*
Improved UnsharpMask, ExponentialTransform and DigitalDevelopment processes. The improvement consists in the use of the new FFTConvolution class. These processes are now much faster.
*
New JavaScript runtime functionality for the Image object. The following methods are now available and have been fully tested:
void Image.convolveFFT( Array kernelFilter )
void Image.convolveFFT( Image responseFunction )
void Image.morphologicalTransform( int operator, Array structure[, Number thr0[, Number thr1[, int interlacing]]] )
Number Image.selectionPoint (static property, used for morphological selection)These new items will be documented on the Software Development subforum.
*
New installation files for Windows versions. For MS Windows, the PixInsight Core application and PCL distributions are provided as standard Windows installation packages now. To install one of these packages, simply launch the executable file and follow the instructions. Once installed, you'll have a new entry on your Start / All Programs menu, namely
PixInsight Platform, where you'll find an option to launch the PixInsight Core application. The installation also includes an uninstall utility.
The new Windows installation packages for PixInsight have been made with
NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System), a professional, open-source installation system for Windows.
*************************
Thank you all for your support, and for your participation in this forum. It's great to be here in touch with you.
Enjoy it!
