Hi all,
We are glad to announce the release of a new version of PixInsight: 1.8.4.1193 for Linux, OS X, and Windows. Installation packages are now available to all users on our software distribution system. A FreeBSD version should also be available during the next weeks.
Version 1.8.4.1193 is a production stable release with important improvements and new features on all platforms. We encourage all our users to update their installations as soon as possible.
How to Install the ReleaseThis version is not available through the update system integrated with the PixInsight Core application. You have to download the appropriate installation package(s) for your platform(s) from our software distribution system:
https://pixinsight.com/dist/Once downloaded, you can install the new version as follows:
FreeBSD and Linux: Uncompress the .tar.gz archive on a directory under your home directory, then run the installer program as root from a terminal. Answer "yes" to the confirmation question and you're done. The old version (if any) will be removed, and version 1.8.4.1193 will be installed on the /opt system directory by default, as usual. Graphical shortcuts will be created automatically on most X11 desktop environments, including GNOME, KDE, Xfce and LXDE.
Windows: Uninstall the current version if you have it installed (this is absolutely necessary!), then run the new installation package, and follow the instructions. Once installed, you'll have a new entry on your Start > All Programs menu (or equivalent item on Windows 8), namely PixInsight Platform, where you'll find an option to launch the PixInsight Core application.
OS X: Copy the .zip archive to your /Applications folder, remove the previous PixInsight folder if you had a previous version installed, and uncompress the new .zip archive. A new PixInsight folder will be created, where you'll find a PixInsight.app application bundle. We suggest adding it to the dock for easier access.
See also FAQ Section 3 for important information about installations and updates:
http://pixinsight.com/faq/index.html#3_InstallationNew FeaturesAlong with hundreds of bug fixes and stability improvements, PixInsight 1.8.4 introduces important new features. This is a partial list with the most relevant ones:
- Full support for high-dpi screen resolutions. PixInsight 1.8.4 is a fully scalable application, able to work at native resolutions up to at least 10240×5760. This includes Retina monitors in high-dpi modes, 4K (3840×2160), 5K (5120×2880) and 8K (7680×4320) monitors. The application is able to detect the current monitor density in virtually all cases on Windows, OS X and X11 (with the latest versions of GNOME and KDE). In the rare cases where automatic monitor density detection does not work, or when it does not give the desired results, the Preferences tool provides suitable options to define interface scaling factors and font resolutions manually in a flexible way.
- Universal user interface. Starting with version 1.8.4, the graphical user interface of PixInsight is virtually identical on all supported platforms. The same interface style sheet, fonts and icons work now identically on FreeBSD, Linux, OS X, and Windows. There are only a few exceptions, namely: (1) the possibility to use a native menu bar on OS X (enabled by default), (2) the possibility to render workspace window buttons to the left sides of window title bars (enabled by default on OS X), and the use of special low-resolution fonts on Windows by default. Besides this, dialog frames are different because they are generated by the underlying windowing system, and hence are out of our control.
- Migration of the whole PixInsight platform to Qt 5 (specifically, Qt version 5.5.1 in this release; version 1.8.3 used Qt 4.8.6). This provides compatibility with Windows 10, OS X 10.10, 10.11 and future versions.
- New color management system. PixInsight 1.8.4 has a completely rewritten color management system, faster, more accurate and more flexible. The system monitor profile is detected automatically on OS X and Windows by default, as before, but now it can be changed manually with the ColorManagementSetup tool (note that this option has always been available on Linux and FreeBSD).
- Real-time swap file compression. Swap files (which, in case you don't know, are temporary working files generated under the hood to support undo/redo operations) can now be compressed/decompressed in real time with the LZ4 compression algorithm. This option, which is disabled by default, is available on the Directories and Network section of Preferences. Swap file compression can save significant disk space at the expense of some computation time. For moderately sized images on fast machines, the impact on I/O throughoutput is normally small, especially when parallel swap storage is being used (that is, several swap storage directories).
- Project compression. Data blocks stored in projects are now compressed by default using the Zlib/deflate lossless algorithm. The LZ4 and LZ4HC lossless algorithms are also available for faster compression, at the price of smaller compression ratios. Project compression can be spectacular in terms of disk space savings. Typical size reductions are between a 40% and a 75%, depending on project contents. For example, most masks can be compressed to just a 10%-20% of their original sizes.
- Resolution-independent projects. Starting with version 1.8.4, projects also support high-dpi screen resolutions. This is achieved by storing all coordinates and dimensions in a resolution-independent coordinate system. This means that you can save a project working with a 4K monitor, for example, and open it later on a standard monitor without major problems. Without this feature, sharing projects between high-dpi and low-dpi platforms would be very problematic.
- Improved project robustness. The new version 1.1 of the XOSM format is even more fault-tolerant than before.
- Important improvements in some critical low-level components, including separable and nonseparable convolutions and morphological transformations. For example, the MultiscaleMedianTransform tool is now about twice faster than previous 1.8.3 versions.
- Robust OpenGL support on Windows. The new application is now robust to deficient OpenGL implementations on Windows. PixInsight includes now its own OpenGL ES 2.0 implementation (
ANGLE), which is used automatically when the host graphics drivers are not valid. If necessary, a software OpenGL emulation layer will be used in extreme cases where the available hardware is unusable.
- Improved X11 (FreeBSD/Linux) installation program. PixInsight native file formats (XPSM, XOSM, XISF) are now automatically registered as MIME types on X11 desktops adhering to the
Freedesktop specifications, such as KDE and GNOME. This means that you can open an .xisf file or an .xosm project by double clicking or right clicking it from a desktop file manager application on these platforms.
- Improved icon description management. Instance descriptions are now edited with ScriptEditor instances, including specific syntax highlighting and advanced editor features.
- Improved XISF format. The XISF support module implements now many advanced features available in the XISF Specification Draft 7 document (still unpublished). This includes high-performance lossless data compression using the Zlib/deflate, LZ4 and LZ4HC codecs with byte shuffling, block checksums for improved data integrity control (SHA1, SHA256 and SHA512 checksums supported), storage of display functions (aka screen transfer functions), storage of RGB working spaces, and automatic generation of image thumbnails.
- Extensive use of the XISF format. The XISF format is now used by default by all tools and scripts working with disk image files, providing a more consistent user experience and all the advanced features and benefits of XISF over legacy formats.
- New graphical effects and animations implemented in PixInsight's workspace, including translucency and sliding effects for auto-hide docked windows.
- Integration of the latest
dcraw version 9.26 (revision 1.476, released 2015 May 25) by David Coffin.
- Integration of the
LittleCMS color management engine version 2.7.
- Integration of
libcurl version 7.44.0
- Integration of
gnuplot 5.0.1
- Integration of
LibTIFF version 4.0.6
- New dark frame optimization algorithm with robust read noise suppression.
- New versions of the ImageSolver, MosaicByCoordinates, AperturePhotometry and AnnotateImage scripts by Andrés del Pozo, with high-accuracy plate solving based on surface splines and distortion correction.
- New
BayerDrizzlePrep script by Ian Lawerys
- New
WavefrontEstimator script by Mike Schuster.
- New
MureDenoise script by Mike Schuster.
- New software development tools. The
PixInsight Class Library (PCL) has been rewritten almost entirely with many new classes, much more features, more efficient implementations, and a substantial support of C++11 features. New features include support for resolution-independent resources and high-dpi screen resolutions for interface definitions and interactive GUI code.
- Redesigned
GitHub PixInsight repositories with the whole
PCL C++ source code, more
modules released as open-source products, more
JavaScript scripts, and a new
Reference-Documentation repository with the PIDoc source codes of all existing reference documents.
- Improved JavaScript runtime (PJSR), with new properties, methods and objects to support resolution-independent resources and high-dpi screen resolutions, in a similar way to PCL.
- New ElapsedTime PCL class. ElapsedTime is a platform-independent, monotonically nondecreasing high-resolution time stamp based on hardware time resources that are independent on any external time reference. It allows for high-precision measurement of time intervals (at the nanosecond level) on all supported platforms.
- New ElapsedTime core JavaScript object, with the same functionality as its C++ PCL counterpart.
- New PDF core JavaScript object. PDF is an abstract painting device with the same functionality of SVG or Bitmap. This means that PixInsight scripts can now generate PDF documents, along with SVG graphics and bitmap renditions.
Known Issues- Windows: Incompatibility with Dell's Backup and Recovery utilities. If you use PixInsight on a Dell laptop or workstation with Dell utility software installed, you'll probably have to uninstall it to run PixInsight 1.8.4 on your machine. This is an unfortunate problem caused by Dell not fixing a known error with their software. Please read
this forum post for complete information on this issue.
- All platforms: Some icons are still not available for high-dpi modes. A few icons, especially on tools such as MorphologicalTransformation and HistogramTransformation, haven't been rebuilt yet for high-dpi resolutions. These icons look fuzzy on 4K and 5K monitors, and appear quite small on Retina high-dpi display modes. This issue does not limit the functionality of the affected tools in any way. We'll try to fix these icons as soon as possible.
- OS X: In high-dpi Retina display modes, navigation of large images at reduced zoom ratios of 1:2 and lower can be somewhat slow compared to X11 and Windows platforms working at the same display resolutions. This happens because the difference between the physical and logical coordinate systems in OS X high-dpi Retina modes prevents some optimizing algorithms implemented in our screen rendering routines. We'll fix this problem in the next version. If you use to work with big 32-bit color images on OS X, such as large mosaics, you may want to disable high-dpi support for image renditions by selecting
Edit > Global Preferences > Miscellaneous Image Window Settings > High-DPI screen renditions (disable option).
- OS X: There are some problems on OS X with cursors not updated correctly during icon drag operations. This small issue will also be fixed in a future version.
I hope you enjoy this new release. Thank you all for your continued support.
