NormalizeScaleGradient: Bookmark website now!

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Juan Conejero feels that the NSG script is competing with PixInsight's standard image preprocessing tools in the image weighting and normalization tasks.

I am still new here, and somewhat new to PixInsight, but this explanation is illogical. I would imagine that if there was a formal poll to users of the software, the vast majority would rely on plugins to PixInsight beyond the core capabilities for every image that they process. Specific to NSG, I watched several videos which provided objective evidence that the NSG results outperformed the integral weighting routines to the standard PI processes. I have found this to also be true for my image processing over the last several weeks.

To me, the decision described within this thread will kill the community innovation for the application; why should you spend your time and resources developing additional functionality to have it killed down the road by the developers because of some perceived competition? If the next version of PI will have capabilities that will be better, let the new capabilities do the talking; the software users will be the ones to decide if it's better.
 
A reminder that you need to take action now, and bookmark my NormalizeScaleGradient website. Since the website is new, it may be difficult to find via a Google search. News, and a link to a new forum thread will be announced on the NormalizeScaleGradient website.


Juan Conejero feels that the NSG script is competing with PixInsight's standard image preprocessing tools in the image weighting and normalization tasks. He has therefore decided not to include NSG in the official PixInsight distribution, and to block the NSG thread from this forum.

You can also contact me via email:
johnastro.info[at]gmail.com
(replace [at] with @, I did this in an attempt to avoid automated spam)
Send me an email with 'NSG Email List' in the title if you would like an update when I know more.

Thanks for your support
John Murphy
 
I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I think it's Juan's prerogative to determine which scripts are or aren't part of the core PI release. This prevents bloat and confusion for new users, particularly if he feels that a core process essentially provides the same functionality in a more integrated fashion and/or is the best practice for most people for a particular task. I don't take the use of the word "competing" to mean anything deeper than that. When I heard of the new LN developments, I fully expected NSG would drop from the core release and move to a repository-based install or at least I'm not surprised. Even so, in the past, the devs have added back scripts that were popular enough (e.g. NBRGBCombination), despite feeling they were obsolete. And let's not forget, I believe, that a lot of the core scripts or processes started life from outside and were adopted.

On the other hand, if it's actually the case (and I'm only getting one side of the story so far) that they take the extra step of preventing third-party scripts from being added by the user or blocking access to core code hooks that allow them to work just so as to not allow them to work, then I'm not sure why that's necessary. Hopefully, we get a full account publicly of the reasoning for such a move, if it takes place.

If NSG continues to work, I will likely contribute for the paid script because I like to experiment and I've benefited from it already, whether or not I eventually move my workflow to use the newer LN process.
 
... if it's actually the case (and I'm only getting one side of the story so far) that they take the extra step of preventing third-party scripts from being added by the user or blocking access to core code hooks that allow them to work just so as to not allow them to work, then I'm not sure why that's necessary. Hopefully, we get a full account publicly of the reasoning for such a move, if it takes place.
Hi @Juan Conejero, can you clarify this? So far I have been kept completely in the dark. Will the new version of PixInsight add restrictions to what scripts can do? If so, what restrictions have been applied?

Regards, John Murphy
 
A reminder that you need to take action now, and bookmark my NormalizeScaleGradient website. Since the website is new, it may be difficult to find via a Google search. News, and a link to a new forum thread will be announced on the NormalizeScaleGradient website.


Juan Conejero feels that the NSG script is competing with PixInsight's standard image preprocessing tools in the image weighting and normalization tasks. He has therefore decided not to include NSG in the official PixInsight distribution, and to block all NSG threads from this forum.

You can also contact me via email:
johnastro.info[at]gmail.com
(replace [at] with @, I did this in an attempt to avoid automated spam)
Send me an email with 'NSG Email List' in the title if you would like an update when I know more.

Thanks for your support
John Murphy
 
Juan has explained to me the 1.8.9 changes that will affect NSG. I will only need to recompile the NSGXnml C++ module, and make a minor change to the script.

Please remember to bookmark my website:

Regards, John Murphy
 
Juan has explained to me the 1.8.9 changes that will affect NSG. I will only need to recompile the NSGXnml C++ module, and make a minor change to the script.

Please remember to bookmark my website:

Regards, John Murphy

Hopefully it was a productive conversation. Any plans to adopt the approach of using a repository for NSG/NSGXnml so that it works within the automatic updates process and avoids the manual installation steps?
 
Does NSG benefit from using an integrated reference? That is to say that, with LocalNormalization, it's a best practice to create a reference of your best images, but I've always used NSG with just one of the subs as reference. Or does it work just as well with (or even require) a single best sub?
 
Any plans to adopt the approach of using a repository for NSG/NSGXnml so that it works within the automatic updates process and avoids the manual installation steps?
I would love to. However, I am currently using a free Google hosted website. This restricts what is possible, and therefore I don't think it is possible to add a PixInsight repository page to it. If It is possible, please let me know!

The alternative is to buy a domain name, and find a cheap (or free) website hosting package. Since I am currently living on my savings, I have a very limited budget. Any advice would be gratefully received.

Regards, John Murphy
 
Does NSG benefit from using an integrated reference? Or does it work just as well with (or even require) a single best sub?
Is it worth averaging several good images together to make a 'super' reference?

(1) Lets look at the accuracy of the (brightness) scale measurement first:
1647172140826.png

This is a useful test data set because it covers a wide range of conditions. The imaging run started in twilight, which adds a large light pollution gradient. Between image 9 to 15 the sky was as dark as it was going to get. After image 15, the sky started to brighten. After image 17, the images were taken through thin cloud. Of course twilight does not change the sky transparency, so we only expect it to increase the noise. The scale should not be affected. The thin cloud after image 17 does affect sky transparency, so we expect the measured scale to go decrease.

The blue line (NSGS0) is the scale calculated by NSG. I checked the accuracy by using the photometry program APT (used by professional astronomers) on the unregistered data. See the red line. The APT standard deviation was an impressive +/- 0.003 The NSG accuracy was +/- 0.005 The NSG scale measurement is far more accurate than is required, so averaging together images is unlikely to have any benefit.

(2) Gradient subtraction
It is likely that any single reference image will contain a gradient. Provided that this gradient is smooth, it will not usually cause a problem. Even if a smooth gradient is large, a smooth gradient can easily be removed using DBE after stacking. Remember that normalization is only designed to remove the relative gradient between the reference image and the target images.

If all images contain a very lumpy gradient, then it might be worth being a bit more creative. There are several options:
  • The best option is to take a single image on a particularly dark, moonless, clear night when the object is high in the sky. Use this as the reference.
  • Alternatively, apply more smoothing to the gradient correction. The gradient trend will still be corrected, and the 'lumpiness' might average out.
I would not recommend averaging several images together to create a super reference, because if the images were dithered, you may end up with 'staircase' artifacts at the edges of the averaged image. This will adversely affect the gradient model.

DO NOT apply DBE to the individual subs. The black areas around the registered images may become non zero, which will also affect the gradient calculation.

So, in conclusion, you should use a single sub as the reference image.

Hope this was useful,
John Murphy
 
One option is to buy a domain (it will help with the search engine ranking) and start by pointing it to the existing site. This will give you flexibility later to point it to a web site, should you wish to. Also, creating subdomains is free, so you'll be able to test something like beta.<your domain>.co.uk to point to a repository for testing without affecting where the base domain points to.

I'm not personally familiar with the layout of a PI repository but it must be a static web site so if the Google package allows that, I'd expect it should work. Amazon's cloud service also has quasi-free hosting for static web sites. To quote: " As part of the AWS Free Tier, you can get started with Amazon S3 for free. Upon sign-up, new AWS customers receive 5GB of Amazon S3 storage in the S3 Standard storage class; 20,000 GET Requests; 2,000 PUT, COPY, POST, or LIST Requests; and 100 GB of Data Transfer Out each month. " - I think this might be enough – the main thing to consider is how many requests for the repository would be issued every time a user starts PI and thus hits the repository to check for an update.

Github also has free hosting for static web sites and you can point your own domain to them.

I think the bottom line is that having a custom domain decouples the user's configuration from where the repository is hosted and that's useful.


I would love to. However, I am currently using a free Google hosted website. This restricts what is possible, and therefore I don't think it is possible to add a PixInsight repository page to it. If It is possible, please let me know!

The alternative is to buy a domain name, and find a cheap (or free) website hosting package. Since I am currently living on my savings, I have a very limited budget. Any advice would be gratefully received.
 
I agree with the GitHub idea. It's win/win because could also use it as your code repository and manage releases. The domain shouldn't be more than 5-10 GBP/year. You'd more than pay for that with increased adoption.
 
I'll also suggest pursuing the Github angle. They've slowly been moving towards being a more real-time repository for tools like this and it'll probably be fine.
 
Hi John,
I've been reading the PixInisght forums for many years and never posted anything, but I thought this was the best time for writing my first post. I've been following your NsG development and, allow me to say, "cause" since the end of 2021. I run a small Italian YouTube channel where I share tutorials about astrophotography and we even had a live event with one of my good AP friends, Attilio, where we showed your script and praised the effectiveness in normalizing the images and returning a final image that has a manageable gradient compared to other normalization methods available in PixInisght.
That said I'm willing to support you at 100% for free in keeping NsG running as a project. If you need a help with hosting, SEO, whatever can help you in creating visibility and sharing your work you can count on me. I'm a developer myself, but in the image processing field I'm not as good as you are, so my support in the development of NsG wouldn't be so effective.
Feel free to shoot me an email if you need anything at astropills.it (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll be more than happy to help you out on anything. I'm honestly shocked on how you've been treated for your work that helped many people worldwide in their image processing and I don't want all your work to be thrown away.
Marco
 
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