Pixinsight extremely slow reading Canon EOS raw fits files

[cbradshaw]

Recently, I've been trying to process Canon 20d DSLR raw fits files (captured and saved as 32-bit fits by Nebulosity) and Pixinsight is incredibly slow (~ 10-15 minutes to read all three layers) reading these files.  I don't remember this happening before.  Is there something in recent updates that may cause this.  I've tried it on two computers (a 32-bit Vista and a 64-bit Win7) and both are very slow.

Nebulosity reads the same files in seconds.

Regards,

Charlie

[Cleon_Wells]

Charlie, are you talking about Image Integration when you say reading?
Cleon

[cbradshaw]

No!  Just opening the file.

[georg.viehoever]

How large is the fits file? How large is your RAM?

[cbradshaw]

The files are 6059 kB.  On the 32 bit machine, I have 2GB and, on the 64-bit machine, 8 GB. I can load a 93,000 kB RGB fits file in 1-2 seconds on the 64-bit machine and ~ 5 seconds on the 32-bit machine. 

Charlie

[georg.viehoever]

Hmm, 6 MB is not really large. Maybe you upload one of the problematic files somewhere, so people can test. Also, this way Juan can have a look when he finds time.
Georg

[cbradshaw]

I was going to crop the image to see if the effect continued when saved by Pixinsight, but got the following error:
PCL FITS Format Support: FITS file write error:
CFITSIO error message stack:
01: Error reading PCOUNT keyword value as an integer: 9690800
02: Failed to read the required primary array header keywords.

I loaded the file into Pixinsight and cropped with Dynamic Crop to reduce the file size.  This error occurred with the Save As function.



Regards,

Charlie

[cbradshaw]

I've solved my problem.  In Nebulosity, I checked "save as compressed fits" to save disk space.  Apparently, Nebulosity either incorrectly compresses the file or Pixinsight incorrectly reads the file, which results in the save error. 

I unchecked "save as compressed fits" and had Nebulosity do a 2x2 binning of all files.  After the files were binned and saved, I checked the fits header and it was normal and without compression.  The binned files loaded correctly and quickly in Pixinsight.

Regards and thanks,

Charlie

[pfile]

oh phooey, i've had that happen before with files coming out of maximDL. i guess compression is just One More Thing that's not defined in the FITS standard and everyone does it differently.