Annotation script

[Andres.Pozo]

I am working in a new layout for the configuration dialog. The idea is making easier to discover that selecting a layer in the list, the panel at the right changes and shows the configuration of the layer.

What do you think?

[troypiggo]

I like it.  Much more intuitive IMO

[georg.viehoever]

[...The format will be very simple:
   RA(deg) <tab> Dec(deg) <tab> Diameter(arcmin) <tab> Name
...

Please note the RA is usually in HMS (1h=15 degrees), while Dec in in degrees, arc minutes, arc seconds (d'"). You should also have a field for the type of object (star, nebula, galaxy,...), since you may want to draw them in different styles.

Georg

[georg.viehoever]

New GUI is looking good. Having the panels side by side suggests that they correspond to each other - which (for me) was not the case in the old layout. The "<=>" symbol is not really necessary-

Georg

[Andres.Pozo]

[...The format will be very simple:
   RA(deg) <tab> Dec(deg) <tab> Diameter(arcmin) <tab> Name
...

Please note the RA is usually in HMS (1h=15 degrees), while Dec in in degrees, arc minutes, arc seconds (d'"). You should also have a field for the type of object (star, nebula, galaxy,...), since you may want to draw them in different styles.

Georg

Hi Georg,

the RA is not always in hour format. The PGC catalog is in hours, but Tycho-2, PPMXL and USNO-B1.0 are in degrees (with decimal point, not DMS). The new catalog that I am integrating is in HMS format. Since there is not a consensus and the script uses degrees internally I have decided to use degrees in the file.

Also, I think that all the filtering should be done by the person who generates the file. There are lots of different use cases and trying to implement all would be very long. I think that it is a better idea to allow several custom layers which contain only one class of objects. Since it is possible to assign different styles to each layer you can differentiate between object classes.

I only intended to support one custom layer, but after your comments I seems necessary to have more than one.

[Harry page]

Hi

Sorry being dumb

Get this error

Processing script file: C:/Users/Ian/Desktop/ano/AnnotateImage.js
*** Error [000]: C:/Users/Ian/Desktop/ano/AnnotateImage.js, line 339: Error: Unable to open file: C:/Users/andres/Documents/PCL/ngc2000.txt:

Win32 error (3): The system cannot find the path specified

Help 

Harry

Oh sorry should have read the earlier post

[Harry page]

Hi

how do I do this

You have to select the NGC layer and fill the path of the catalog. I will add a check for an empty path and warn the user.

Harry

[Andres.Pozo]

Hi

how do I do this

You have to select the NGC layer and fill the path of the catalog. I will add a check for an empty path and warn the user.

Harry

The file ngc2000.txt is in the .zip that I published. You should have decompressed it when you extracted the script.
Launch the script and select the NGC layer. The panel under the list should have changed and now it should have the settings of the NGC/IC layer.
Press the blue triangle near the path field and select where you saved the file.

[Harry page]

Hi

Got it thanks , I have a hard day so my brain was not working 

Harry

BTW many thanks for your excellent work

[bitli]

Hi,
I had a hard time with the 'empty string' error too, finally had to read all the replies. Otherwise it works fine, many thanks, it is a great script.

A small problem: if you blindly add all catalog on a busy area, PI will block for a very long time trying to remove duplicates. This is due to the algorithm used for finding duplicates. I had to kill PI. May be it could be possible to have a limit on the number of objects annotated (with a default that could be very large, but not to the point of blocking PI in the duplicate search), as a security.  The duplicate algorithm could be enhanced, but I am not sure this is worth it as the annotation become unreadable due to the overloading of text long before the duplicate search time is a serious problem.

Thanks again -- bitli

[Andres.Pozo]

I have a new version of both AnnotateImage and ImageSolver scripts.

ImageSolver has the following changes:

• Support for online catalogs (PPMXL and UCAC3) with much more stars than the catalog currently used by StarGenerator. It supports also proper motion computations.
• Changed parameters of StarAlignment that should allow to solve more images.
• Added control for the sensitivity of the star detector
• Reset button

AnnotateImage still is in a preview state and it needs much more tests. It has these changes:

• New layout.
• Validation of the path of the catalog NGC/IC.
• New catalog "Named stars". It is the catalog "IV/27A HD-DM-GC-HR-HIP-Bayer-Flamsteed Cross Index" that contains the common name of the brightests stars and the Bayer-Flamsteed names (i.e. "57 sig ori") for about 4000 stars. It does not support proper motions so it should not be used with long focals.
• New catalog UCAC3.
• Proper Motion in Tycho-2, PPMXL, UCAC3 and USNO-B1.
• Filter by magnitude (minimum and maximum).
• The label of the objects can be chosen between name, coordinates and magnitude.
• Much faster removing of duplicates.
• The font family can be changed

It still needs more work, including customizable catalogs and the ability of changing the figure for the star markers (cross, circle, square).

Edited: There was an important bug in the script. I have published a new version

[Andres.Pozo]

New version 

[Harry page]

Hi

Excellent stuff , will have a new play 

Many thanks for your most skilled work 

Harry

[pfile]

somehow i could never get the solver to work until this latest version. i think it had something to do with the way stargenerator was creating the reference images; i had to tell StarGenerateor to use large-ish FWHMs or i could not even register my test image to the output of StarGenerator.

anyway, the latest version works, and the annotate script is working for me on a pretty widefield image, except for 2 things. one is that the NGC/IC textfile is not included in the zipfile that was posted immediately above, so i can't try that, and when i used the TYC catalog, only 1/2 the image was annotated. it looks like it stopped annotating at the celstial equator...

these scripts are really phenomenal! thanks for all your hard work.

[pfile]

well, okay. it seems that i am still struggling with other widefield images.

this is actually a problem with ImageSolver.js so maybe it belongs in the other thread, but i was trying to solve an image so that i could annotate it...

i discovered the following: if i generate a star field with StarGenerator and then try to solve that field with the script, it does not work. i never get any matched stars and the script fails.

the coordinates given are for the center of the veil nebula and if i generate this synthetic starfield, i can use StarAlignment in 'normal' mode to register a real image with this center and image scale. so i think the coordinates are good, and also if i ask the script to show me the stars it's found, they look good.

maybe you can try this experiment and tell me what i've done wrong here: