PixInsight 1.8.0 RC1 'Ripley' Released

[Juan Conejero]

Hi all,

I am glad to announce that a new version of PixInsight has been just released and is now available to all users: 1.8.0.932 RC1 for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Release Candidate Version

This is a first release candidate (RC1) of the final 1.8.0 version that we'll publish on January 2013 for all supported platforms (including FreeBSD). We have released this initial version as RC1 because it still lacks some important new features and tools that we have planned for the 1.8 series. However, 1.8.0 RC1 is a production-stable version that fixes a large number of bugs and introduces very important improvements. We encourage you to update all your PixInsight installations as soon as possible.

PixInsight 1.8 Codename 'Ripley'

Ellen Ripley is a warrant officer aboard the spaceship Nostromo in the 1979 science fiction film Alien, directed by Ridley Scott. As was the case with the previous version 1.7 'Starbuck', the new codename has been suggested by Fernando Ballesteros, a researcher at the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Valencia, Spain. When Fernando suggested us a list of possible codenames, we liked 'Ripley' because it characterizes well the courage and endurance that a new version of PixInsight will need to represent our excellence-driven concept of astrophotography.

How to Install the Release

This version is not available through the automatic updates system. You have to download the appropriate installation package(s) for your platform(s) from our Software Distribution system. Simply uninstall your current version and install the new one. With this version we recommend resetting the entire PixInsight configuration to factory-default settings:

- Linux: Run the 'PixInsight.sh' launcher script from a command line with the '--uninstall' argument.

- Mac OS X: Right-click (or Control-click) the PixInsight.app application bundle, press the Control key and hold it pressed while you select the 'Open' option from the pop-up menu.

- Windows: Select the 'Start > All Programs > PixInsight Platform > Reset PixInsight Settings' menu option.

If you have customized PixInsight and don't want to lose your settings, be sure to save a Preferences icon before you proceed.

Information on New Features

For more information, please visit the Release Information board on this forum, where we are going to describe the improvements and new features in this version.

We hope you enjoy this new release. We wish you happy holidays and all the best for 2013.

[Geoff]

Just in time for Christmas.  Thanks Juan

[Juan Conejero]

Thanks to all of you for your patience and support!

[Josh Lake]

This is wonderful, Juan, thank you! I love the new File Explorer functionality, it's already made my life easier (and I've been running 1.8 for about 10 minutes).

Merry Christmas to you and the team!

[DanH]

Hi Juan,

Thank you for this nice Christmas gift
Merry Christmas and happy New Year to all of the PI users !

Dan

[FunTomas]

Thank you for christmas gift.

Here is first bug report.
I try this release for 15 minutes, and got this message when I try to process DBE. In release 1.7 was this operation on this same image correct.

[Giorgio]

You're like Santa Claus.
Thank you and happy holidays to all of you.

Giorgio.

[kwiechen]

Hi Juan,

thank you very much! Is clang in place?

Best,

Kai

[MickyWay]

Thank you Juan, and all the contributers to 'Ripley' 1.8, for all the hard work and dedication.

A Happy Christmas and New Year to you all.

Colin.

[sreilly]

What a wonderful message to receive! All the people working in the background to continually make this great software even better. Thanks for the hard work and dedication.

One question I have is, since we need to uninstall the previous version, do all the optional scripts need to be downloaded and installed again?

Thanks so much again and Merry Christmas.

-Steve

[slang]

Dear Juan and other devs (apologies I do not know you all).

I have used a fair amount of software in the last 3 decades, much of which is complex although not image processing focussed. I work with software devs as well.
In all my experience (before using PI), I have never used software that without fail every 3 months or so gives me a OMFG moment. As in, OMFG it does _that_ or like WOW, that is impressive.
This is the most impressive piece of software I have ever used, and after a few years I'm VERY much still noob, I'm still learning a few bits more every week.

Today, I find myself rushing back from an extended family Christmas asap to struggle to have enough time to install and play with 1.8.

It does look and feel a bit different, slightly newer, crisper and quicker.

I'm currently running an image set through that has caused a few probs in the past (with batch pre-processing). I don't expect to see any significant difference in output, but first appearances are that it is measurably faster. To quantify this - <ctrl-A> to do an auto stretch screen transfer function is prolly 6 times faster on my PC (2 core, 11,500 bogoMIP, 8GByte RAM, oldish mobo - AMD Athlon(tm) 7750 Dual-Core Processor, 2.879GHz (overclocked), ubuntu 12.04).

I gather from previous threads that part of this improvement is due too more SIMD instructions etc.

In any instance, I'll keep a close eye, and report anything I see.

Well done, congrats, take a break - you deserve it.

Cheers -

[federico]

Merry Christmas Juan and All.
I've made a try with 1.8 RC1, it seems quicker etc, but at my first attempt with AutomaticBackgroundExtractor (default params with subtraction) I received a:

Critical Signal Catched (11): Segmentation Violation.

Linux Ubuntu 12.10, 64 bit, 8GB RAM.
PI 1.7 works perfectly.

FYI only, no problem, PI is a charm, but I can't wait for the new tools.
Thanks for your wonderful job.
 

[cbradshaw]

Ripley seems to have broken some scripts.  I'm having the preprocessing script crash during debayering after about 10 files.  However, the stand-alone Debayer script works fine. The diagnostics run OK.   The input lights are Canon .cr2 files.  The message is "Batch Preprocessing Script 1.23: FileFormatInstance.Set(): Invalid argument type."  This message occurred on Debayer: Processing view: Image37, VNG debayering: done 2.000 s.  The next step should be writing the FITs file.

I also notice that the image solver search button does nothing. 

I got a new 64-bit computer for Christmas and this is my first look at Ripley.  I'm trying the same calibration on my old "obsolete" 32-bit machine to see if it's a file problem instead of a script problem.

In the 32-bit version, the image solver search button also does nothing.


Best regards,

Charlie

[Herbert_W]

Ripley seems to have broken some scripts.  I'm having the preprocessing script crash during debayering after about 10 files.  However, the stand-alone Debayer script works fine. The diagnostics run OK.   The input lights are Canon .cr2 files.  The message is "Batch Preprocessing Script 1.23: FileFormatInstance.Set(): Invalid argument type."  This message occurred on Debayer: Processing view: Image37, VNG debayering: done 2.000 s.  The next step should be writing the FITs file.

I can confirm that - see: http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=5039.0

Best regards.
Herbert, Austria