[Versión en Español disponible en breve]Hi all,
PixInsight 1.5.5 is now available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.
This is a bug fix / optimization release, but it also contains some new tools and important improvements.
Download AddressesPixInsight 1.5.5 is now available for download from our file servers:
* For commercial users (user name and password required):
http://dist.pixinsight.com/* For users of 30-day trial licenses:
http://pixinsight.com/download/STD/Preserving User Preferences and SettingsBefore uninstalling your current version of PixInsight, you should be aware that due to some important changes, PixInsight 1.5.5 requires a full reset of all platform settings and user preferences. This will happen automatically the first time you launch the new core application. If you have customized your preferences in a significant way, you may want to save a Preferences process icon that you can run on the new version to recover most of your current settings. Otherwise you'll need to reconfigure PixInsight manually. We apologize for the inconveniences.
However, if you save your preferences as a .psm file to restore them later, we suggest that you try out the new default settings in PixInsight 1.5.5 first.
InstallationWe encourage you to update your current installation as soon as possible. Before installing PixInsight 1.5.5, it is advisable to uninstall a previous version. This is the recommended procedure:
Linux 1. Exit all running instances of the PixInsight core application, if any.
2. Delete the whole directory where a previous version of PixInsight was installed.
If you have created files of your own within PixInsight's installation directory, please don't forget to backup them first.
3. Unpack the .tar.gz file on a suitable directory, preferably one under the user's personal directory (for example, $HOME/PixInsight).
4. To launch PixInsight, run the PixInsight.sh shell script on the bin installation directory.
Mac OS X 1. Exit all running instances of the PixInsight core application, if any.
2. Delete the previous version of the PixInsight.app application bundle. If you installed it on the standard location, it should be on the /Applications folder.
3. Double click the .zip installation archive for version 1.5.5. This will create a new PixInsight.app application bundle. PixInsight can be executed from any location, but we recommend copying PixInsight.app to the standard /Applications folder. You may want to add it to the Dock as well.
4. If you are a commercial Windows or Linux user, your existing license file works fine on the Mac; you do not need to reactivate your license. Do the following:
4.1 Locate your PixInsight license file. It is the .pixinsight-license file on your personal folder of your Linux or Windows machine.
4.2 Make a duplicate of .pixinsight-license, and rename it to pixinsight-license (that is, the same name but without a starting dot character).
4.3 Copy the pixinsight-license file to your home folder on the Mac. Now you can run PixInsight for Mac OS X with your commercial license.
Windows 1. Exit all running instances of the PixInsight core application, if any.
2. Uninstall PixInsight. There is a Start > PixInsight Platform > Uninstall menu item that should be used. Never try to uninstall PixInsight by manually removing files.
If you have created files of your own within PixInsight's installation directory, please don't forget to backup them first.
3. Run the PixInsight installation module for version 1.5.5.
4. To launch PixInsight, go to Start > PixInsight Platform > PixInsight Core.
Bug FixesVersion 1.5.5 fixes all confirmed bugs and regressions as of the date of release. Please refer to the
Bug Reports board of this forum.
New Tools and FeaturesPlease refer to the
Release Information board on this forum, where we'll be providing detailed descriptions and practical usage examples of all new features and improvements during the next days. Also stay tuned with our video tutorials collection because we'll be authoring new videos during this Summer.
As a brief summary, PixInsight 1.5.5 comes with the following main changes and improvements:
- Completely redesigned and rewritten screen rendering engine. New
fast rendering mode.
- New mask rendering modes, including eight
color overlay modes and a
mask replacement mode, along with the traditional
mask multiplication mode that has always been used to render masks in PixInsight since the first LE version.
- Important changes to the ImageIntegration process. Implementation of a new noise evaluation algorithm based on the multiresolution support (Starck et al., 1998, 2002). New image normalization modes for pixel rejection. Improved file cache management and Winsorized sigma clipping rejection.
- Important changes to the StarAlignment process. Improved star detection engine. Improved RANSAC implementation for rejection of false putative star pair matches. New preview operation mode for mosaic construction.
- New scripts available: Batch CMYG deBayer utility by Niall Saunders, Deconvolution Preview by Juan Manuel Gómez, and MathTran Client by Juan Conejero.
- New command-line commands available in the core PixInsight application: echo, set, dedicated.
- New script preprocessor directives: #ifoneof, #ifnoneof
- Important boost to the PixInsight JavaScript Runtime (PJSR) development framework. New native JavaScript objects: Cursor, Matrix, Vector, FileTransfer, FileDownload and FileUpload. New objects implemented as pure JavaScript code: ColorComboBox and SimpleColorDialog. New automatic garbage collector. Important new methods of the Math object for basic linear algebra operations (SVD, Gauss-Jordan solvers) and generation of Gaussian and linear filter distributions. Lots of new features added to the Global, Image, Settings, Graphics and Font native objects.
- Important changes to the PixInsight Class Library (PCL) C++ development framework. New MIME type support for image file formats (changes to all file format related classes). New member functions of the ImageWindow and Bitmap classes to implement access to the new mask rendering modes and fast bitmap/screen rendering engine.
- New thread priority scheduling policy that avoids exhausting system resources on Windows.
Note for DevelopersPixInsight 1.5.5 introduces important changes to the low-level C API for modules (new API interface version 0x118). All modules built with previous versions of the PCL require full recompilation and linkage against PCL 1.0.70.
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I hope you'll like it. Have fun!
