Hello all,
The latest version of the PixInsight Standard core application, 1.0.1.230 RC1, is now available for download:
http://pleiades-astrophoto.com/download/STD/index.html Build 230 is the
first release candidate version of the PixInsight core application. After more than two years of intense work, we finally leave the beta development stage.
For developers: PCL 1.0.1.85 will be available tomorrow, including the build 230 core application.
This version is entirely based on our customized version of Qt 4.2.2, PCL 1.0.1.85, and the LittleCMS color management engine version 1.16.
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Improved ACDNRWe have parallelized ACDNR so it can use all available processors now. This should mean an important performance gain.
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Core Command-Line SupportMost of the planned internal commands have been implemented in the core application. Now you can apply almost all actions from the command line.
Use the
help command (without arguments) from the command line to see a list of all available internal commands and installed processes with command line support.
Use
help <cmd> to get help on any command or process (replace <cmd> by the command's or process' identifier).
You can use
help help, of course
We'll write a small reference document with all available commands. The command line is still under construction; many more commands will be available, and of course we'll have good scripting functionality.
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New Undo All and Redo All menu optionsAvailable under the Image main menu.
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Enhanced TIFF SupportPrevious versions of the TIFF support module were not handling alpha channels correctly in TIFF images. In particular, the EXTRA_SAMPLES TIFF tag was ignored and not written (refer to the TIFF 6.0 Specification). As a result, transparent TIFF images were not being recognized by other applications. This wasn't actually a bug, but rather a limitation, which we have addressed now. The TIFF support module offers now two new options to write images with alpha channels as TIFF files:
Associated alpha channels. Enable this option if you want your TIFF files recognized as transparent images by other applications. If this option is disabled, alpha channels are written but no alpha channel is intended to represent the transparency of the image.
Premultiplied alpha channels. Enable this option if you want to write transparent TIFF images with their RGB/gray channels premultiplied by the primary (first) alpha channel. This is what most applications expect to receive in a transparent TIFF.
Warning: with this option enabled, TIFF files are generated with modified pixel data. Strictly speaking, the original pixel values cannot be recovered from the premultiplied pixel values. This is particularly important for 8-bit and 16-bit integer TIFF images, due to roundoff errors.
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Bug FixesCore application: The processing console had lost its context menu. This has been fixed, so now you can right-click on the console to perform common edit actions (copy the selected text, select all, and clear) (bug discovered by Thomas W. Earle).
Core application: The screen rendering subsystem (what paints the images on the screen) had the risk of becoming unstable under some (cumbersome) circumstances on multiprocessor systems. This has been fixed and now the screen renderer can use all available processors in a completely stable and extremely efficient way.
Core application: The core color management subsystem (what applies ICC color transforms when images are rendered on the screen) was not using more than one processor, due to a limitation in LCMS 1.15. Now that we have integrated LCMS 1.16, color management can use all available processors.
Core application: When the user was trying to run an invalid command (nonexistent internal command or process) from the command line, a "bad thread termination intent" exception was thrown. This has been fixed, and now invalid commands are handled properly.
ChannelCombination process: The HSI color space was not working correctly due to a bug in PCL 1.0.1.84. This has been fixed in PCL 1.0.1.85, so now all color spaces work without flaws (bug discovered by Luc Coiffier).
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Known bugs that will be fixed in the next versionCore application: It seems that if a date change (in the UTC time scale) occurs during execution of a process, the computed elapsed time is wrong. This might be due to a regression in Qt 4.2.x, but I am not sure yet (bug discovered by Thomas W. Earle).
Core application: There are several nasty problems with the Open File and Save File As dialog boxes. There are some evident problems with Qt common dialogs, which have to be solved ASAP. I'll have to use the hammer (the big one) with some thousands of Qt source code lines...
PixelMath process: There are several bugs in this complex process that I'll fix when I find a bit of time. One of them seems to be in the Lum() function (discovered by Luc Coiffier).
CurvesTransform and ColorSaturation interfaces: Curves are not well drawn in linear interpolation mode sometimes. This should be easy to fix.
PCL: The bicubic spline pixel interpolation algorithm (not to be confused with bicubic pixel interpolation) seems to have slight boundary problems. This is not really very important, but of course we have to have absolutely correct pixel interpolation algorithms. What else?
Of course there are more bugs, but these five are the main ones, for now.
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Feel free to write on PixInsight Forum to let us know your suggestions, opinions, complaints, criticisms, and of course bug discoveries. Congratulations are well received, as well.
Enjoy it!
The Pleiades Software Development Team
