PixInsight 1.8.4.1185 Released

[Juan Conejero]

Hi all,

Just a quick note to let you know that version 1.8.4.1185 is now available for Linux and Windows on software distribution. This is a special prerelease announcement for forum members - we'll make the official announcement next week. Hopefully an OS X version will also be available very soon.

Build 1185 is mainly a stabilization version. Here is a brief list of features and improvements:

- Lots of bug fixes on all platforms.

- Improved graphical interface with new core style sheets, new graphical effects, and faster image renditions.

- Improved high-dpi monitor support. The new PixInsight Core application applies heuristics along with improved hardware detection to scale its graphical interface automatically under different monitor resolutions and system configurations on each platform.

- Important improvements in some critical low-level components, including separable and nonseparable convolutions and morphological transformations. For example, the MultiscaleMedianTransform tool is now about twice faster than previous versions.

- Improved Windows support. The new application is now robust to deficient OpenGL implementations on Windows. PixInsight includes now its own OpenGL ES 2.0 implementation (ANGLE), which is used automatically when the host graphics drivers are not valid. If necessary, a software OpenGL emulation layer will be used in extreme cases where the available hardware is unusable.

- Improved X11 (FreeBSD/Linux) installation program. PixInsight native file formats (XPSM, XOSM, XISF) are now automatically registered as MIME types on X11 desktops adhering to the Freedesktop specifications, such as KDE and GNOME. This means that you can open an .xisf file or an .xosm project by double clicking or right clicking it on these platforms.

- Update to PCL version 2.1.0.763

- Update to LittleCMS 2.7.0

- Update to cURL version 7.44.0

- Update to gnuplot 5.0.1

- Update to LibTIFF version 4.0.6

- The WavefrontEstimator script by Mike Schuster (with documentation) is now part of the official PixInsight 1.8.4 distribution.

- Update to the latest versions of the ImageSolver and AnnotateImage scripts by Andrés del Pozo.


This version stabilizes the platform in preparation to exciting new tools and features that will be announced this Fall/Winter, including the new TGV-based tools under development. Enjoy!

[llpastro]

Juan, will this update cause loss of personalized settings as the previous version did?

Larry

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Larry,

No, build 1185 won't change any preferences settings.

[Juan Conejero]

Unfortunately, we have found a nasty bug that will be fixed next Monday: http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=9112.0

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[LarryC]

Hi Larry,

No, build 1185 won't change any preferences settings.

Not entirely true.  I followed the install directions (i.e. uninstall the old version on Windows with the uninstall utility), and lost at least my swap file settings.  Easy to fix, but not exactly "won't change any preference settings".

[msmythers]

Larry

On my Windows 7 system I did not lose any settings. The only thing I had to do was reinstall second party scripts and modules but that was expected.


Mike

[timc770]

Hi - I just updated to 1.8.4.1185 and it crashes every time I try to open a picture. I select File and then Open and I get: PixInsight Core 1.8.4 Ripley has stopped working.   Any help would be appreciated.

[timc770]

I should probably have made my post in the bug forum so will do so there.  Ignore this one.