Messages

1

Bug Reports / Re: SampleFormatConversion Resizes the Image

« on: Today at 04:11 »

This bug is now fixed in the new version 1.8.6.1471, which I am now preparing for release. Thank you so much for discovering and reporting this weird one.

2

Bug Reports / Re: SubframeSelector save PDF - the output is cropped

« on: Today at 03:36 »

Hi Tony,

This is now fixed in the new version 1.8.6.1471 with Qt 5.12.3, which I am now preparing for release. Thank you for reporting this issue.

3

General / Re: Color space confusion...need help

« on: Today at 02:39 »

Hi Alex,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you here. Your image is tagged with the standard sRGB profile. Since you like what you see, we can affirm that the image is effectively in the sRGB space (a nice advantage of deep-sky astrophotography: we are not constrained by daylight color rules). So the correct procedure to export the image is embedding the standard sRGB profile—or, if the image is going to be deployed to the web, you can alternatively leave it untagged, since sRGB is the default color space of the web; however this is not recommended nowadays, in general.

You can also convert the image to ProPhoto, if you wish (and obviously, assign the corresponding profile). However, you'll gain nothing by doing this because ProPhoto is much larger than sRGB, and probably much larger also than your monitor's color space. In other words, what you already have restricted by sRGB cannot be improved by spreading it into a larger room such as ProPhoto.

If I assign the image a ProPhoto profile, it immediately has major color shifts.

You have to convert pixel values to the ProPhoto space, i.e., use the ICCProfileTransformation process instead of AssignICCProfile. If you simply assign the profile, you are cheating the color management system... and it always wins!

monitor profile: Calib 02262019 (which is from a calib device and I've been using it for several months now.)

If you use other applications to browse or view images, including your desktop files manager, make sure that the same profile is being associated with your monitor, either on each application, or at the global system level.

Let me know if you get the desired results by embedding the sRGB profile when you save the image.

4

Tutorials and Processing Examples / Re: New Method for Star De-Emphasis by Adam Block

« on: Today at 02:08 »

Hi Adam,

Congratulations on a nice and clever method of star reduction. I like the way you apply multiscale analysis. A good example of the outstanding usefulness of these algorithms, especially MMT to isolate structures. The use of artificial noise to generate seamless transitions is also an interesting algorithmic idea. I am implementing a related technique (randomization) for seamless mosaic generation. An effective and highly controllable technique, very recommendable.

5

Bug Reports / Re: Problem with installation of PixInsight 1.8.6

« on: 2019 April 21 04:17:41 »

Hi Susan,

I am glad to know PixInsight is now working on your reinstalled machine. Please don't hesitate to report other problems if they arise.

Thank you so much for reporting your success experience. Knowing the things that don't work is absolutely necessary for us to improve, but knowing when they work is great

6

Wish List / Re: Default values in RT-Preview windows + Zoom in RT-Preview

« on: 2019 April 21 04:02:56 »

Hi Rogelio,

Agreed, the Real-Time Preview functionality is in need of a complete redesign and reimplementation. This is probably one of the first things I should attack after the current high-priority tasks: improved astrometry support, new mosaic generation tool, new version of DBE, new JavaScript engine based on Google's V8. Hopefully a new R-T preview, at least with some basic improvements, will be available this year.

As for the default smooth mode, well, IMO it is the best option in most cases. I'll include a new permanent setting to remember the user's selection across application executions. Thanks for pointing all of this stuff out.

7

Release Information / Re: Mac Licecne Location

« on: 2019 April 21 03:55:13 »

Hi Aidan,

You can select Go > Go to Folder on Finder, and specify ~/Library/PixInsight. Or you can use PixInsight's File Explorer window and enable the Show Hidden Files option to see *everything* in your Mac's filesystem.

8

General / Re: Altair astro 183M, PixInsight, Starburst again - how to remove

« on: 2019 April 21 03:51:22 »

Glad to know it's working.

So... PixInsight is working correctly calibration wise, and you don't have to use other applications to work with these files necessarily. There is no bug here, so case closed.

Just a reflection. A note about these conclusions, especially on other public forums, when and where appropriate, would be nice. Spreading the voice that PixInsight—or for that matter any application—does not work without a demonstration (i.e. a test data set where the problem can be reproduced consistently), does not help the development project to stay healthy, and definitely does not help keep its developers motivated. Just thinking aloud.

9

General / Re: Color space confusion...need help

« on: 2019 April 20 05:06:47 »

Hi Alex,

To troubleshoot this color management problem, I have a few questions first:

- I assume you have (or can have) the image open in PixInsight and you like what you see, correct?

- Right-click on the image and select Load View Explorer. On the View Explorer window, right panel, look for the color-management tree item (usually near the bottom of the tree). Tell me the values of the following sub-items:

      icc-profile
      enabled
      proofing
      gamut-check

- Select Edit > Color Management Setup from the main menu. Let me know the monitor profile and the rendering intent selected in the Monitor Profile section. Let me know also the currently selected RGB default profile.

10

General / Re: Altair astro 183M, PixInsight, Starburst again - how to remove

« on: 2019 April 18 23:44:20 »

I'll quote myself from the other thread:

As always: We cannot help without a sample of the data where problems can be reproduced, analyzed and described. Sorry, we don't have crystal balls. So if you want to help us solve an issue related to specific data, or possibly a bug (damn, I am not perfect, sorry), then we need the specific data. Or a crystal ball, at your option.

Let's try the first option first. Can you upload a complete and sufficient data set where this problem can be reproduced consistently (dropbox, etc)? Thank you so much in advance.

11

General / Re: Dark File Woes from Altair Hypercam 183CProTec

« on: 2019 April 18 23:31:15 »

As always: We cannot help without a sample of the data where problems can be reproduced, analyzed and described. Sorry, we don't have crystal balls. So if you want to help us solve an issue related to specific data, or possibly a bug (damn, I am not perfect, sorry), then we need the specific data. Or a crystal ball, at your option.

Let's try the first option first. Can you upload a complete and sufficient data set where this problem can be reproduced consistently (dropbox, etc)? Thank you so much in advance.

12

General / Re: PixInsight 1.8.6 Error - CreateSpinBox(): Low-level API function error (0x0001)

« on: 2019 April 18 02:27:01 »

Rodd,

Yes, a small number of users are reporting these or similar problems on Windows. Trust me that I am working seriously to understand and solve these issues, even if I can't reproduce them. From all of the information I have gathered so far, currently the relevant problems with version 1.8.6 of PixInsight can be classified as follows:

- Windows: System configuration problems, mainly as a result of missing or corrupted system components, wrong/outdated graphics drivers, conflicts caused by other applications, and defective Windows updates. This usually happens on Windows 7 and 8.1, but also on Windows 10 to a much lesser extent. These issues are completely out of my control and usually require a system reinstall.

- Windows: Problems with Intel HD graphics drivers. This mainly includes laptops with Intel processors. These problems are causing rendering errors and most memory access violation errors on Windows. Hopefully, the next version of PixInsight includes a solution to most of these problems. Basically, I am going to force the use of the dedicated AMD or Nvidia graphics card instead of the integrated Intel HD graphics card, by exporting specific symbols from the PixInsight core executable. I have tested this solution on two laptops with dual graphics and it works well. Note that this will only work for machines with dual graphics (which fortunately includes most of the problem reports) and unless the user has created a profile for the application to use the integrated graphics. As for the root cause of these problems, it is unclear. Intel HD drivers have a history of buggy OpenGL implementations on Windows. Qt should solve these problems, probably by detecting and blacklisting these drivers internally, just as Chrome does, for example. While this happens (unlikely in the short-medium term), I hope the solution I have implemented will fix at least many of these issues. The next version of PixInsight will be released next week.

- Linux: Incompatibility of PixInsight 1.8.6 with the Nouveau open-source graphics driver. The Nouveau driver has a long history of instability and bugs, to the point that the Chromium developers (Google) have blacklisted it. These problems can be fixed easily by disabling Nouveau and installing the proprietary Nvidia driver for Linux (strongly recommended), or by disabling the use of OpenGL acceleration through command-line options.

- All platforms: Hardware errors, including faulty RAM and disks, and a weird thermal dissipation issue consistently reproducible on some 2018 MacBook Pro laptop models. These cases form a marginal subset, which is obviously out of scope for PixInsight.

13

Wish List / Re: Additional Interpolation Methods in Debayer Module

« on: 2019 April 15 08:58:52 »

I am under the impression that AHD is superior to VNG.

Why? Yes, we can implement more CFA interpolation algorithms in the Debayer tool. However, this is not a priority task for the following reason: In current versions of PixInsight, CFA interpolation with the Debayer tool is intended exclusively for generation of temporary working images, required as input for StarAlignment. The only recommended way to generate integrated color images from CFA raw data, be it data acquired with digital cameras or single-shot CCD cameras, is DrizzleIntegration (i.e., CFA drizzle, AKA Bayer drizzle). The only exception may be if you have just a marginal number of raw frames, where drizzle may not be applicable.

As for the FBDD noise reduction algorithm, it is already implemented in the Debayer tool. However, I have disabled it for now. After extensive testing, I have found that this algorithm, while being great for most daylight images, is not so good for astronomical data, where it tends to generate artifacts. The FBDD implementation in Debayer is still experimental and subject to future evaluation. I doubt it will be available in production versions of the tool, at least at this point.

14

General / Re: Subframe selector - no graph?

« on: 2019 April 15 08:45:27 »

Hi Magnus,

Is your Linux distribution using the Nouveau graphics driver? If yes, then you know the cause of all of these problems. See this bug report where another user reports similar problems. Specifically, see my answer, where I provide information on how to remove Nouveau and replace it with the proprietary Nvidia driver. The information I give here is for Fedora distributions, but similar solutions exist for Ubuntu as well. This solves all of these problems on Linux.

Let me know if this helps, in case you are using Nouveau. Otherwise, this is not reproducible.

15

Tutorials and Processing Examples / Re: New book "Mastering PixInsight" by RBA

« on: 2019 April 15 08:33:35 »

...I tell you there are thousands of followers of pixinsight, in speech hipana, thousands are "very angry" because it is only in Spanish sindo that those who designed it are Spanish.

If you reduce it to some hundred people, then we may agree. To be more precise, less than 700 users, summing users from all Spanish speaking countries. This is a small fraction of the total amount of existing PixInsight users.

From my experience, accumulated over many years, the only thing that could make thousands of followers of PixInsight in Spain is that PixInsight were free (gratis). In such case, very few would be angry because PixInsight is only available in English. And then I would be a cashier at a local supermarket (being lucky) and PixInsight would not exist.