Master calibration frames tool

[Rainer]

Hi,

I am a newbie in PixInsight and read the tutorial about creating Master calibration frames (BIAS, DARKS and FLATS)

http://www.pixinsight.com/tutorials/master-frames/index.html

As being the calibration frames one of the most important issues for a goos astrophotography and having read the tutorial down to the conclusion I would like to ask when will this be implemented or is it already implemented and I just did overlook it in the long list of processes 

Thanks in advance and regards

Rainer

Conclusion

PixInsight's tools usually require different acquisition and processing methods. Although we will have a master frame generation tool in the near future, the ImageCalibration tool works better with the acquisition methodology that we have described. The same methodology will be necessary with the future master frame generation tool.

[Andres.Pozo]

You can try the BatchPreprocess  script

[Rainer]

You can try the BatchPreprocess  script

Hi and Thank you,

You say try instead of use 

¿ Does this mean there is a better way to create Masters apart from BPP (BatchPreProcessing) or does it mean I should better use ImageCalibration? as explained in the tutorial ...

Gracias y Saludos
Rainer

[jkmorse]

two schools of thought.  Lots of people use BPP and many of us do each step manually.  I have a workbook that sets out each of the individual steps in detail if you are interested.  If so, just drop me an email at jkmorse57@gmail.com and I will be happy to send it along.

Best,

Jim

[Rainer]

two schools of thought.  Lots of people use BPP and many of us do each step manually.  I have a workbook that sets out each of the individual steps in detail if you are interested.  If so, just drop me an email at jkmorse57@gmail.com and I will be happy to send it along.

Best,

Jim

Thanks Jim. PM is on its way.

saludos Rainer

[Andres.Pozo]

Hi and Thank you,

You say try instead of use 

¿ Does this mean there is a better way to create Masters apart from BPP (BatchPreProcessing) or does it mean I should better use ImageCalibration? as explained in the tutorial ...

Gracias y Saludos
Rainer

I always use BatchPreprocess for the calibration and registration but YMMV. Then I use SubframeSelector and ImageIntegration.

[Rainer]

Hi and Thank you,

You say try instead of use 

¿ Does this mean there is a better way to create Masters apart from BPP (BatchPreProcessing) or does it mean I should better use ImageCalibration? as explained in the tutorial ...

Gracias y Saludos
Rainer

I always use BatchPreprocess for the calibration and registration but YMMV. Then I use SubframeSelector and ImageIntegration.

Thank you Andres.

I tried to make some Masters using the BPP but did not succeed.

Then I made a trial with " ImageIntegration " and there I succeeded to make them. I used those 3 masters in " ImageCalibration " for my Light frames and then " Image Integration " with my Light frames and yes the Masters where applied correctly and the result was good.

Sorry, what does YMMV mean ... never ever came across that ¿? 

BTW, I am reading a lot here in the forum and from time to time I find something that I can use for my next steps  8)

[Juan Conejero]

what does YMMV mean

YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary = Tu experiencia puede ser diferente, o puede funcionar de otra forma en tu caso.

BPP is the recommended (even, encouraged) way to generate master calibration frames in PixInsight. Unless you have very special or nonstandard requirements, there is no reason to perform the image calibration task by hand with the ImageCalibration tool. It may be a good exercise for beginners to understand how things work, though.

I always use BatchPreprocess for the calibration and registration

That's fine, but remember that BPP uses triangle similarity by default for registration. Unless you have mirrored images in your data set, you may want to change this default option to use polygonal descriptors, and/or increase the default limit of 500 stars, if necessary. The tooltips for these controls explain this in more detail.

[Rainer]

what does YMMV mean

YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary = Tu experiencia puede ser diferente, o puede funcionar de otra forma en tu caso.

BPP is the recommended (even, encouraged) way to generate master calibration frames in PixInsight. Unless you have very special or nonstandard requirements, there is no reason to perform the image calibration task by hand with the ImageCalibration tool. It may be a good exercise for beginners to understand how things work, though.

I always use BatchPreprocess for the calibration and registration

That's fine, but remember that BPP uses triangle similarity by default for registration. Unless you have mirrored images in your data set, you may want to change this default option to use polygonal descriptors, and/or increase the default limit of 500 stars, if necessary. The tooltips for these controls explain this in more detail.

Hola Juan,

Gracias.

Well when I said I did not succeed in making BPP process the problem was that I did not see any result the moment I clicked on run (I did not upload a set of Light frames in that case)

... and while writing this, in order to try it again, PixInsight, latest version, does not start anymore on my PC and it hangs with the notice

" Creating component windows ... " 8)

 

[Rainer]

... and while writing this, in order to try it again, PixInsight, latest version, does not start anymore on my PC and it hangs with the notice

" Creating component windows ... " 8)

 

PROBLEM SOLVED

Somehow my PC went Nuts 

Just tried it and it works again

[mmirot]

BPP is in need of few upgrades. The main weakness is in the integration routine.

We need to have the ability to do iterations and evaluate rejection setting as can be done in the integration module.

Maybe it is time to make BPP more flexible and perhaps a module.

Max

[msmythers]

Max

You sort of can do that now. Once BPP has finished it's intergration and you close BPP, open the process console. You can scroll through the Intregration and see everything that ImageIntergration did during BPP. You can then open ImageIntegration, load the registered image files thatwere used in BPP, set ImageIntegration to the same settings used as BPP and tweak the rejection parameters. The BPP integration is cached so it doesn't rerun the full integration, only the rejection just like any other manual ImageIntegration.


Mike

[mmirot]

Sure that's what do now Mike. 
This suggests that integration in BPP is a waste of time that needs to be repeated by the module anyway. 
I just would like to see a cleaner work flow that makes it a little smoother process.

[msmythers]

I wouldn't say a waste of time since you do all of the calibration and first run of integration within the script. For me that is a time saver over doing those steps manually. Then I just switch to ImageIntegration and tweak like I would if I had to done everything manually. Since I know my setup and location issues I can get the BPP integration settings very close. Sometimes I only have one or maybe two iterations of Imageintegration after BPP. Those iterations take only a minute or two for my images.

Also Juan has said all along that BPP was never considered for final image processing.   


Mike

[mmirot]

Also Juan has said all along that BPP was never considered for final image processing.   


Mike

Why? That's avoiding the potential of a better work flow such as automatically populating the integration module with the registered images. If the images are already in memory than it will be even shorter time processing the image data.

Btw, When my sky conditions are good and there is no moon , my default settings work optimally too. Still, a quick recheck to see if I can improve SNR verses rejection is not a bad idea.

There a few other things that PI could add such the intergration information for your script and better way to save the cosmetic correction setting info between sessions. (I don't like how we have to save the icon right now.)

Max