PixInsight 1.7 — New Project Functionality

[Juan Conejero]

Hi All,

The upcoming version 1.7 of PixInsight introduces the new project functionality. This is a long awaited feature most PixInsight users have been requesting during the last months (years?), and the plans are for exceeding all expectations

Projects are running extremely well in the current development version of PixInsight 1.7. We have extensively tested them and, except perhaps a few last-hour refinements, they are 100% functional now. You can (should!) watch a movie we have just uploaded to PixInsight Studios:

http://www.youtube.com/user/PixInsight

Also directly at YouTube by following this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8jw3Zjcyw

A PixInsight project is a special file in XOSM format (XML Object Serialization Module) along with an associated folder where all image data (main views, previews and all existing states) are stored. PixInsight projects are completely self-contained, position-independent structures. You can move a project (that is, a .xosm file and its associated .data folder) to any location and even copy it to removable media or share it with other users.

A project can include, among other objects:

- The states of all workspaces.

- Images and previews, with full preservation of processing histories and their associated states.

- Icons, including process icons and ImageContainer icons.

- Screen transfer functions for all stored images.

- Masking relations, including image masks and masks related to stored processing histories.

- The states of all process interfaces, including their instances and GUI states (positions, sizes, shaded positions, etc.).

- All text documents from the Script Editor window.

- Project metadata: Date and time of creation (UTC), author and a description with optional HTML contents. Project generation features are also stored.

- A filetime-based object versioning system (similar to the make utility) that prevents accidental replacements of newer versions of existing image and text files.

What a project does not change:

- The current user preferences. Projects don't store preferences, readout options, toolbar states and other user-defined elements of the PixInsight platform.

- The current color management settings. These are not stored nor changed by projects as color management is hardware-dependent and hence installation-dependent.

- Existing workspaces are reused as possible and new ones are created if necessary, but workspaces are never destroyed when a project is loaded.

Enjoy! (and have a bit of patience...  )

[Alejandro Tombolini]

Excelente, cuantos cambios!!! Sin dudas va a estar muy bueno. Va a ser un placer poder guardar todo lo que se está haciendo y poder retomarlo tal cual esta.

Muchas gracias!

Excellent, a lot of changes!!!. It is going to be very good and will be a pleasure to be able to save everything and to be able to recapture it as it was.

Thank you!!!

[Nocturnal]

Woohooo! Will view the videos soon.

[Harry page]

And a double woohoooo   8)

Harry

[oldwexi]

Excellent! Thanks for bringing it that fast.

Also many thanks from my wife...

Gerald

[Nocturnal]

Gerald must live in a time dilution field

I first proposed this to Juan in an email several years ago. I don't think my 'sent email' history goes back far enough to determine when this was but early '08 or even in '07 I would guess. I've wanted project capability soon after starting to use PI. I think this is my original RFE here on the forum. Note that -no one- commented on it.

http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=933.0

Juan: the project functionality looks terrific. It does all I envisioned. Storing processing histories means the entire undo sequence is preserved, right?

[Silvercup]

Excellent.

[DaveS]

Nice one guys, well done indeed  8)

Dave

[Enzo De Bernardini]

It looks very useful and complete. Excellent!

Enzo.

[Emanuele]

PixInsight gets better and better, and it never stops!

This looks amazing.

Thank you Juan and all of you in the development team.

[RBA]

Thanks for the hard work, Juan & co.
It's very appreciated and it will definitely be very useful.

Question: Does the project file includes image data, or it refers to separate image data files in the disk?

[RBA]

I first proposed this to Juan in an email several years ago.

Hey, you've got to admit many times we see new features that were requested maybe just a few weeks earlier.

[Juan Conejero]

Thanks to everybody for your supportive words  

I first proposed this to Juan in an email several years ago.

That's true. PixInsight projects is Sander's original idea, which we discussed in private emails during 2008 and 2009 if I can remember well. The platform was not mature enough then and we had too many priorities, but now is the right moment. I've been working on this feature during March and we have it now well tested and almost ready for release.

This is what really makes PixInsight different: we have a huge development team composed of all our users. Sometimes it may seem we don't listen but we actually do

Storing processing histories means the entire undo sequence is preserved, right?

That's right. The entire history of each view can be traversed just as if you hadn't exited the application. A PixInsight project is much like a snapshot: time freezes when you save the project and continues when you load it.

Question: Does the project file includes image data, or it refers to separate image data files in the disk?

PixInsight projects are completely self-contained; they don't depend on any external files. So a project stores the whole set of states for each image (including main views and previews): from the original image as it was when it was first loaded, to its current state including all intermediate steps. This means that a project can indeed be huge, depending on the sizes and number of images stored, and on the lengths of the processing histories. Another important property of projects is that they are position-independent. You can move a project to a different location on your filesystem, or copy it to an external storage device, and it will continue working in the same way. This is great to share projects with other people, too.

[Nocturnal]

You implemented everything I wanted and probably more. Thanks! Can't wait to give this a try.

[Jordi Gallego]

Really great news Juan, thank you very much for this long time desired improvement in PixInsight