Feature request

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I'm quite new to PI LE, so please forgive me, if I request a feature that already exists.

- I'm missing the "Select" feature, e. g. for setting the preview with the mouse interactively.

- tooltips with detailed help/information for the sliders and buttons would be nice.

- an interactive "Flatten background" and "Gradient removal" tool based on a multidimensional algorithm to get rid of those &$§%@! light polluted colorful and uneven gradients.

BTW, I like the "feeling" of your application, the look & feel. Congrats.

Cheers,
  TJ

[Juan Conejero]

Hi TJ,

- I'm missing the "Select" feature, e. g. for setting the preview with the mouse interactively.

Of course you can do that. have a look at:

http://pleiades-astrophoto.com/pixinsight/help/08_previews/creating_previews/creating_previews.html

and here:

http://pleiades-astrophoto.com/pixinsight/help/08_previews/selecting_moving_and_resizing_previews/selecting_moving_and_resizing_previews.html

Previews play a key role in PixInsight, so I always recommend reading the whole documentation section:

http://pleiades-astrophoto.com/pixinsight/help/08_previews/working_with_previews.html

- tooltips with detailed help/information for the sliders and buttons would be nice.

I completely agree here. The next versions of PixInsight will show a lot of information in this way. Displaying "what's this" information will be an optional feature selectable through Preferences.

- an interactive "Flatten background" and "Gradient removal" tool based on a multidimensional algorithm to get rid of those &$§%@! light polluted colorful and uneven gradients.

Try the new DynamicBackgroundExtraction (DBE) process included in version 1.0.2 (go to the donloads page if you haven't updated yet). Here is a tutorial:

http://pleiades-astrophoto.com/pixinsight/help/tutorials/DBE-example/en.html

BTW, I like the "feeling" of your application, the look & feel. Congrats.

Thank you so much. Wait to see our next implementations based on the Qt library 8)

Juan

[tj]

Hello Juan,

> [...]
> Of course you can do that. have a look at:

I should have known. :-)

Thanks a lot for the detailed response. I really appreciate your business and am looking forward to see the final product.

Yesterday I worked a little bit with PI LE and put some more features on my wishlist:

 - transfer functions for working on the histogramm (log, Gamma and others, maybe user defined transfer functions). In my opinion, this is a "must" for astronomical image processing applications.

- show corresponding pixel (in a noticeable color) when moving over the histogramm or selecting a range on the histogramm (helpful feature).

- select or mask a region based on a selection on the histogramm (cool feature).


BTW, some of the dialog windows ("File has been modified. Save it") contain clipped text.

Best regards,
  TJ

[Juan Conejero]

Hi TJ,

I grab your suggestions on our TO-DO list  :wink:

You can click on any image (or preview, including real-time) in readout mode (the default mode when you open PI) and the readout pixel values show as vertical lines on the Histograms and Curves windows. I think what you are suggesting is just the opposite: show which pixels on the image correspond to a selection over the histogram functions. Well, this indeed could be done and might be useful. Thanks for pointing out.

The same applies to your idea on masking pixels as a function of a histogram selection. Our new implementations will include powerful mask generation resources, and this function could be included as well.

Hmmm, what you say about clipped text on some dialog boxes requires attention. What is your screen resolution? Have you customized your screen options? This might be caused by nonstandard fonts being used on dialog boxes and other interface elements. However, our interface in theory should be able to adapt to such circumstances automatically...

Thank you for your interest, and keep the good ideas coming  

Juan

[tj]

Hello Juan,

there is one point regarding the user interface and previews:

Every time I start a processing sequenze I have to select which preview mode to use. This has to be done even if there is only preview mode defined or a particular preview mode is visible.

Wouldn't it be more handier to automatically select a preview if
 - only one preview mode is defined
 - one preview is visible but no previews modes are selected for preview?

Best regards,
  TJ

[Carlos Milovic]

Hi TJ

In those cases (when you have only one preview, or want to try a process in only one preview) it is much more simple, and faster, to use the "drag and drop objects". They are little boxes in bottom left corner, with a "<" label. You can drag and drop them on images or previes just like if it would be a windows icon, and the current process will the applied. Those object can be droped in the background too, and then you create process icons of the current settings (this works with dynamic processes too).

[Juan Conejero]

Hello TJ,

As Carlos has pointed out, those small boxes found at the bottom left corners of processing windows are the answer to your question. We call these objects "process drag objects", and you recognize them since they are labelled with a "<" sign.

In fact, presently we know that about a 95% of the work is done with process drag objects instead of the Preview and Apply buttons. Process drag objects allow you to do the following:

- Create new process icons on the main window's work area: just click on the process drag object on any processing window, drag to a free area on the main window, and drop.

- Apply processes to previews and images: click on a process drag object, drag it to any image or preview, and drop.

In incoming versions of PixInsight, expect much more functionality added to these small things.

I recommend you to pay a good read to these documentation sections:

- The chapter on process icons:
http://pleiades-astrophoto.com/pixinsight/help/11_process_icons/working_with_process_icons.html

- Specifically to answer your question, the section on practical usage of process drag objects:
http://pleiades-astrophoto.com/pixinsight/help/10_processing_windows/working_with_process_drag_objects/working_with_process_drag_objects.html

- Also of general interest, the chapter on processing windows:
http://pleiades-astrophoto.com/pixinsight/help/10_processing_windows/working_with_processing_windows.html

Hope this will help. I am extremely interested to know your opinion on PixInsight's object-oriented interface design, since this is of maximum importance.

Thank you,

Juan