Rogelio's talk at AIC2010

[pfile]

i just got home from the saturday session of AIC2010.

in the morning Rogelio gave his talk about widefield imaging and how he uses pixinsight to create his beautiful images.

it was an excellent talk, fast moving and dynamic, and interesting. i think the power of pixinsight was on full display. he covered the ScreenTransferFunction, DBE, StarAlignment for mosaics and histograms/curves. he showed the power of the ColorSaturation tool as well, and how you can completely avoid 'painting'/'selection lasso' techniques. he also covered multiscale processing. unfortunately, it seems that i might have been the only other pixinsight user in a room of about 200 people. after his talk, Rogelio answered questions at the back of the room, and about 6 or 7 people expressed a lot of interest in Pixinsight in general and DBE in particular.

there was a fair amount of "outreach" in his talk, in the sense that he explained that he's using pixinsight not because he thinks the alternatives are bad, but that PI is just different. he hit this point a couple of times at least.

later in the day the hubble heritage team gave a talk about the work they did for the Hubble3D movie. they seem to be pretty die-hard photoshop users, but during her talk Lisa did say that she found PI of interest and she might check it out. after her presentation i talked to her and encouraged her to at least look at PI. apparently she removed 1000s of stars by hand in order to make the textures for 3D models of the nebulae that were featured in Hubble3D.

anyway, i think it was good exposure for PI. it was an interesting day, i was able to put faces to a lot of the names i see around the web.

[RBA]

Thanks and glad you liked it!

he covered the ScreenTransferFunction, DBE, StarAlignment for mosaics and histograms/curves. he showed the power of the ColorSaturation tool as well, and how you can completely avoid 'painting'/'selection lasso' techniques. he also covered multiscale processing.

For those who didn't see the presentation (I suppose most of the people here), I would like to point out that it wasn't a presentation focused in showing a bunch of PI tools, but rather it focused on 5-6 different problems and how to go about solving them - then well, it just so happens that I use PI for that. Of course, one of those problems was getting rid of gradients, so I showed how I use the DBE tool for that, but rather than focusing on how to use the tool, I focused on more practical things such as "check your background model!" or "diff your images to see if the result does look like a gradient", stuff like that. Likewise I showed one way to build mosaics so the StarAlignment tool got some nice exposure, and so on.

And yes, after the presentation a small group of people gathered and we talked about a bunch of things. I don't think there was a particular interest in the DBE (this is not new  - one reason the LE version was retired was allegedly because there was a feeling many people were using it as a DBE+SCNR tool and that just wasn't right) but yes, one person was commenting that he originally purchased PI (or downloaded the LE version, one or the other) because of the DBE tool, and now he felt more compelled to go deeper and not using the software just for that. Later during the day, many people came and asked questions of different nature and I'd say the most interest seemed to come from the use of wavelets to build masks - something so natural for most of us but that seemed like a new world (of opportunities) for them. It was fun.

A few also came and wanted to buy PI from me!! (too bad I didn't come to an agreement with Juan beforehand  )

[h0ughy]

news of your talk has travelled FAR.  http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=67393 for example.  i really wished i could have been there...

[sleshin]

Pfile, you weren't the only PI enthusiast at AIC.

I must agree that Rogelio's presentation was outstanding and did generate a lot of positive conversation about and interest in PI. At least it did among the group of guys I drink, I mean, converse with. 8) intended or not, RBA is definitely a great ambassador for PI.

Steve

[RBA]

I must agree that Rogelio's presentation was outstanding and did generate a lot of positive conversation about and interest in PI. At least it did among the group of guys I drink, I mean, converse with. 8) intended or not, RBA is definitely a great ambassador for PI.

Thank you Steve for your kind words! It was a pleasure to meet you as well.
BTW wasn't it you the one who won some Photoshop stuff during the door prize raffle? 

[sleshin]

Hi Rogelio,

Indeed, it was a pleasure to meet you and have a chance to talk a bit. Yes, it was I who won a copy of CS 5 but I guess I can't gloat too much on the PI forum. I've been to all but the first AIC conference and this is the first time I've won anything. I guess all the bad karma my wife tells me I'm loaded with is diminishing a bit. I think I remembered to recycle something.

BTW, congrats on your latest APOD. Certainly well timed appearing on the day of your talk. It's a spectacular  image.

Steve 

[pfile]

Pfile, you weren't the only PI enthusiast at AIC.

I must agree that Rogelio's presentation was outstanding and did generate a lot of positive conversation about and interest in PI. At least it did among the group of guys I drink, I mean, converse with. 8) intended or not, RBA is definitely a great ambassador for PI.

Steve

excellent... i live locally to santa clara so i did not stay at the hotel, and home is still 40min from santa clara, so i left early. plus, i was only around on saturday and the upshot is that i did not do a whole lot of socializing... anyway, i guess i figured that if PI people didn't walk up to RBA right after the talk then they probably were not there. or maybe you were standing there but i didnt realize you were a PI user.

maybe next year the organizers will be interested in having PI workshops, that would be great.

[sleshin]

I do believe attendees will be asked for conference feedback and I do intend to request they consider more presentations/workshops about PI for next year. I believe Jack Harvey did do a PI workshop in the past but unfortunately, that was before I had discovered PI.   I believe there will be a lot more interest now.

Steve

[mmirot]

I would go if they pay my ticket.

[RBA]

I believe Jack Harvey did do a PI workshop in the past but unfortunately, that was before I had discovered PI.

Yes he did and I was there. How many people were in the room, Jack? I think I counted 10 to 12, maybe 15?
And to be honest, the feeling across the room was kind of like "I probably don't want to get into this"...
In the meantime, Mike Unsold giving a workshop about ImagesPlus next door was enjoying a full room.
That was two years ago.

I'm pretty sure PI has now gotten enough exposure among AIC regulars to become that full room.

But if one goes there (or many other places) to lecture, the message won't get through.
One needs to go there to teach and to show, not to make them a believer of the DSA or what not.
People want to learn, not to be lectured (I mention this just in case).

[Juan Conejero]

Well it has been a long route since we started this project in 2003, and I can tell you that reaching its current state hasn't been the easiest task.

When Jack did his workshop on 2008 everything was quite different. Consider that we started selling PixInsight licenses in January 2008, and Jack's workshop was held in November of the same year. As a commercial product, PixInsight was practically newborn then. I think Jack's initiative was very positive. We have worked really hard since then, and I think we have worked well, although we also have made mistakes, that's for sure. The fact that we are now more visible is a logical consequence of the good work.

PixInsight has a bright future and we are just at the beginning of the trip, as I often say. Whether we'll be able to shine as we should or not will depend exclusively on ourselves. I don't believe in luck. I don't believe in marketing or advertising, either. I only believe in hard, serious, constant work everyday, and this is just what I'll continue doing, as long as I can.

People want to learn, not to be lectured (I mention this just in case).

I'm not sure if I quite understand this. Excuse me if I don't get the subtleties here, but what's the meaning of lecture in your sentence? Is it either:

1. To deliver a lecture to (a class or an audience).

or:

2. To admonish or reprove earnestly.

In the first case, I don't see a fundamental difference between 'lecture' and 'teach'. In the second case, do you think we have been reproving somebody? And in such case, why do you have that feeling? I want to know in order to fix the problem, in case we have been making that mistake.

On the other hand, why do you mention the DSA here? Why do you think somebody has been trying to make 'believers' of anything here? I don't have that feeling. Among other things, the DSA statement and principles aren't something one has to believe or not believe. Or at least they haven't been formulated with that purpose. Agree is not the same as believe as I understand them. So we again might have a communication problem here, which should be fixed quickly.

[Jack Harvey]

Yep we had all of about 15 with Sander and Rogelio probably the only two that were really more than mildly interested.  And for sure the mood at the end was I really don't need the hassle<G>.  Obviously times they are achanging and Sanders articles and talks, Vicents work and talk and now the huge success of Rogelio's AIC talk have really increased the interest in PI.  Also Juan has matured the project immensely since my talk at a workshop.  And finally the much needed documentation is proceeding.

Last, but not least for sure, much of the improvement has come about by the work of the people on this forum.  Questions, examples, scripts and tutorials have all advanced PI and stimulated the rest of us to learn and improve.

Well done Rogelio, WELL DONE ALL!!!!!!!!!!

[RBA]

When Jack did his workshop on 2008 everything was quite different.

Of course. I hope my comment wasn't seen as Jack not doing a good job. Quite the contrary! It was all about the timing.

People want to learn, not to be lectured (I mention this just in case).

I should have thought twice before bringing it up, and when deciding to do so, perhaps I used the wrong language. My fault.
But I'll try to explain in a simple manner...

For example, in my presentation, for everything I explained, I tried to address it as "this is how I do this".
However, the feeling I sense many people get when some PI tools and workflows are explained is "this is how you should do this".

And I'm not saying this is what's being done but what sometimes is being perceived. And you may disagree but I don't think I'm wrong.

BTW, one might think that actually, the "you" message is in fact teaching, and the "I" message is nothing more than sharing, but depending on your audience, the "you" message may sound like lecturing (read: imposing) while the "I" message is actually well received, with the result being that people in the end actually learned something.

So what I meant by "teach, don't lecture" is simply a suggestion of using the "I" message, rather than the "you" message.

Regarding DSA... My opinion about this is quite clear... The DSA members are pretty much the entire PTeam (except Carlos Milovic AFAIK), and a couple of "additions". So there's more than just a connection between PI and the DSA.  In essence, I don't see anything wrong with that. But the DSA has a particular definition of what is astrophotography and what is not. And so my suggestion was simply, again, to not "lecture" people about what AP is and it is not when the power of PI is being presented. I'm not saying that's what is being done, though I suspect it might be, and that's why I'm only making a suggestion "just in case", as I said.

[Carlos Milovic]

Yeah, I didn't sign the DSA manifest I'm a free bird
Actually, I agree with most of the statements of it, but instead of viewing astrophotography as a documentary "field", I see it more like a artistical expression. That means, I don't care if the colors are not exactly related to the human vision, I don't care if with wavelets or other means we changed the overall properties of the objects... as long as we are honest and have respect, both with the data we collected, and to the people that is viewing the result.
To sumarize, while I conform to the DSA in many aspects, I keep an open mind about what is allowed, and my target is just something visually pleasant.

[pfile]

what is this DSA manifesto? if i sign it, do i have to go live in a cabin in the woods by myself?