Hi all,
I am glad to announce a new version of the PixInsight core application: 1.8.8-5. This is an important maintenance release providing bug fixes, new features and stability improvements on all platforms.
Installation packages for PixInsight 1.8.8-5 are now available to all licensed users for FreeBSD, Linux, macOS and Windows:
https://pixinsight.com/dist/This version is not available as an application update.
You have to install version 1.8.8-5 manually:-
FreeBSD and Linux: The installation packages are xz-compressed tar archives (.tar.xz). To install one of these archives, just extract its full contents on any directory, preferably on one located under your home directory. Then become root and run the installer program from a terminal. Normally you should just type "yes" and press Enter to accept the default settings. Say './installer --help' for detailed information on command line arguments.
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macOS: If you have a previous version of PixInsight already installed, you must uninstall it by moving the /Applications/PixInsight folder to trash (also known as
bin on macOS 10.15). Run the .pkg installation package and follow the instructions. All our macOS installation packages have been notarized by Apple.
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Windows: If you have a previous version of PixInsight already installed,
please uninstall it from Control Panel or
Add or Remove Programs. Then run the installation package for version 1.8.8-5 and follow the instructions. All executable files in the PixInsight distribution for Windows, as well as our installation packages, have been signed with our EV code signing certificate.
If you have version 1.8.6, 1.8.7 or 1.8.8 already installed, this new version does not require a license reactivation. If you are still using a 1.8.5 version or older, see the
official 1.8.6 version announcement for a detailed description of our new licensing system. See also
FAQ 2.10 for additional information on license reactivations.
Main Bug Fixes and ImprovementsThis version is a maintenance release focused on performance and stability improvements, paving the way towards PixInsight 1.8.9. Version 1.8.8-5 fixes most confirmed bugs since the initial 1.8.8 release, and provides some relevant new features. A partial list follows with the most important changes.
AnnotateImage Script version 2.1.1PixInsight 1.8.8-5 introduces a new version of the AnnotateImage script by Andrés del Pozo. Version 2.1.1 implements the following new features and improvements:
* New label placement optimization algorithm. In this version I have implemented a new algorithm that prevents overlapping of annotation labels and optimizes readability. The following screenshot shows an example of the dramatic improvements achieved with this new feature (left: no label placement optimization, right: optimized):
Image courtesy of Adam Block
The algorithm uses rectangle quadtrees for fast searching of graphical entities and local optimization with a minimum distance maximization criterion. This is one of my favorite computational geometry
problems, so you can expect more improvements in successive versions.
* New drop shadow feature. When this option is selected, the entire annotation is drawn with a drop shadow effect. This feature can be used to improve readability of annotations over extended bright areas, such as bright stars and nebulae. See an example below (left: optimized, no drop shadow; right: optimized + drop shadow):
* Improved label typography: - Label dimensions and locations are now correct on all platforms.
- Supports applicable fonts included in the standard PixInsight distribution, selectable for all layers.
- The Named stars catalog translates
SIMBAD abbreviations of greek letters in star names to Unicode characters (from \u03b1 to \u03c9)
* Improved user interface.* Removed the limit to annotate images larger than 500 Mpx.ImageSolver Script version 5.4.4* Improved user interface.* Removed the limit to draw on control images larger than 2 GiB.ImageIntegration: Improved Pixel Rejection Algorithm Implementations* ESD Rejection: New low relaxation parameter. This is a relaxation factor for rejection of low pixels implemented in the Generalized Extreme Studentized Deviate (ESD) outlier detection algorithm. The larger the value of this parameter, the more permissive the ESD algorithm will be for rejection of pixels with values below the median of each pixel stack. This can be useful to reject less dark pixels on sky background areas and extended nebular regions, where high dispersion induced by noise may lead to excessive detection of false outliers.
* ESD Rejection: Improved robustness. In this new version we have modified slightly the original algorithm described by Bernard Rosner in his 1983 paper
Percentage Points for a Generalized ESD Many-Outlier procedure to make it more robust for the pixel rejection task. Our tests show that these changes have improved the performance of this pixel rejection method significantly.
* Winsorized Sigma Clipping Rejection: Improved robustness. We have modified the Huber estimation loop with an improved initial scale estimate (Rousseeuw and Croux Q
n instead of the standard deviation).
PhotometricColorCalibration: Usability Improvements* The Online Coordinate Search dialog has been improved. It now allows you to select one of two public SIMBAD database services: The master SIMBAD service in France (Centre de Données Astronomiques de Strasbourg) and its mirror site in the USA (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics). This should fix most connectivity issues when one of these servers is temporarily out of service.
Windows: Stability ImprovementsRecent Windows 10 updates have generated reproducible problems with PixInsight 1.8.8-4 and older versions, which have been reported in many occasions on this forum. With version 1.8.8-5 we have worked hard to avoid all of these stability issues. As a result, this new version of PixInsight is very stable on Windows 10 in all of our tests. We believe that we have done all we can do to prevent these problems on Windows for now. Unfortunately, since these problems are out of our control because they don't originate from our code, we cannot guarantee that they won't happen on some hardware/software/driver configurations. If there are new reproducible issues, we'll try to fix them as far as possible.
Linux: Experimental Wayland SupportPixInsight 1.8.8-5 for Linux supports the
Wayland protocol. Please note that this new feature is
experimental, so it
should work but we cannot guarantee anything. For total stability and maximum performance, we still recommend (and predictably will recommend for a long time) an X11-based desktop environment (KDE recommended) on Linux and FreeBSD.
Known IssuesFreeBSD and Linux* Recent versions of the KDE Plasma desktop environment include a morphing popups desktop effect that causes problems with recent PixInsight versions. If this effect is enabled, it slows down some dragging operations in the PixInsight core application, such as dragging icons and view selectors. You should disable this effect, which is very easy from KDE's System Settings panel. This problem is also present on Linux.
* On recent versions of the KDE Plasma desktop environment, a display tearing prevention option (v-sync) is enabled by default. This option can cause input lag problems (e.g., slow cursor movement over image windows). This option should be disabled for optimal PixInsight performance:
- System Settings > Display and Monitor > Tearing prevention: set to 'Never'
- Click Apply
Linux* PixInsight is not compatible with the open-source Nouveau graphics driver. If your distribution is using Nouveau, you must remove and replace it with the proprietary Nvidia driver in order to use PixInsight.
macOS* On Apple MacBook laptops with dual graphics cards, the integrated Intel HD graphics driver has been causing minor usability issues on macOS 10.14 Mojave. Apparently these problems have been fixed in macOS 10.15 Catalina. However, for maximum performance and stability, we recommend disabling the integrated Intel HD graphics before running PixInsight on MacBook laptops. This can be done very easily:
- System Preferences > Energy Saver > Automatic graphics switching: disable.
Windows* Intel HD graphics drivers have been causing serious problems on Windows. Hopefully most of these issues have been resolved once we no longer depend on desktop OpenGL drivers by default.
* On some laptops with nonstandard screen resolutions, such as the Microsoft Surface, PixInsight cannot find valid screen scaling factors automatically. On these machines, you may have to run the PixInsight core application with the --ui-scaling command line argument. For example, to apply a UI scaling factor of 2:
C:\Program Files\PixInsight\bin\PixInsight.exe --ui-scaling=2
You only have to do this once, since the scaling factor will be stored in application preferences automatically. Of course, if you already are using version 1.8.6 and the interface looks correct, then you don't need to do this; this is only required for new installations.
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Thank you for your attention.
