Hi all,
We are glad to announce the release of WBPP 2.0. This is a major update that significantly enhances the control over the calibration process and removes some limitations present in the previous WBPP 1.5.3.
Main Improvements
In this release we introduced a brand new Control Panel view that gives a comprehensive and interactive overview of the entire WBPP session. The purpose of this panel is to have both a global dashboard and calibration control center in a single place, providing a summary of the groups in the session and their configuration, and giving the possibility to manually override any specific configuration or calibration master file assigned to each group. The second main feature introduced is called Grouping Keywords, which enables the possibility to group frames by arbitrary criteria, thus addressing the increasing demand of managing complex cases like multi-night session and separate pre-post meridian frames, to name a few.
The new Control Panel
A new tab Control Panel is now available. This panel provides an overview of the current status of the whole WBPP session with regards the calibration settings:
This overview allows to:
By selecting a dark group you can:
By selecting a flat group you can :
By selecting a light group you can:
Calibration Diagram
Any time a group that needs to be calibrated is selected, the "Show Calibration Diagram" button gets enabled and by pressing it the Calibration Diagram dialog will be presented. It depicts the calibration process that will be preformed by WBPP and it could be a good reference to double check if the calibration settings are properly configured.
Grouping Keywords
[Representation in Control Panel]
[Representation in frame Panels]
The new Grouping Keywords feature provides the flexibility to group frames by custom matching criteria. A keyword is a name that can optionally be found into the FITS header or stored either in the file name or in the file path (like in the containing folder's name or the parent's parent folder name, etc). Any keyword has a value that is read from the FITS header (if the keyword is found) or from the file name or folder path if it has been added using the following syntax: "<keyword>_<value>". Few examples for the keyword SESSION are:
Even if we assume that light frames have the same binning, same filter name and same duration, by using the keyword SESSION three separated light frame groups will be created: SESSION 01, SESSION 02 and SESSION 03. Each group will be calibrated, debayered (eventually), registered and integrated separately to generate three master light frames.
To generically understand flexibility provided by this grouping strategy, here are the rules that determines the matching logic:
Keywords are case insensitive while values are case sensitive. Keywords can be added/updated/removed at any time by means of the provided control above the global options, as soon as the keywords list will get updated the groups will be regrouped accordingly. A good and simple approach to learn how to take advantage from grouping keywords is to practice by adding/removing keywords and see how groups get reorganized.
Once the generation of the master frame is completed, the corresponding grouping keywords will be saved into both its FITS header and its file name.
Master Frame automatic detection
Master frames are now automatically recognized by checking the presence of the word "master" in either the "IMAGETYP" FITS keyword's value or in the file path (case insensitive). This removes the limitation of the previous WBPP 1.5.3 with respect the possibility to mix master files and single frames in a session.
Note: Dark Tolerance parameter is applied only to dark frames, thus when a Master Dark file is added the dark tolerance value is ignored and the master dark frame is added to an existing group only if the duration exactly matches.
Global checkboxes removed
Several global checkboxes are removed from the "Global Options" right panel. In particular:
Global Defaults updated
Some default values have been updated:
New Diagnostics
Diagnostic messages have been redesigned to provide better readability. Messages are now grouped by the following topics:
Process Logger Updated
Process logger has been updated to provide the tracing information that reflects the new features.
The whole process logger's final report can now be exported as a text file.
Dedicated Script Icon
A dedicated icon has been designed and assigned to the new WBPP script. This icon is the original work of our new icon designer Ana Carracedo.
—————————————
Thank you for your attention.
We are glad to announce the release of WBPP 2.0. This is a major update that significantly enhances the control over the calibration process and removes some limitations present in the previous WBPP 1.5.3.
Main Improvements
In this release we introduced a brand new Control Panel view that gives a comprehensive and interactive overview of the entire WBPP session. The purpose of this panel is to have both a global dashboard and calibration control center in a single place, providing a summary of the groups in the session and their configuration, and giving the possibility to manually override any specific configuration or calibration master file assigned to each group. The second main feature introduced is called Grouping Keywords, which enables the possibility to group frames by arbitrary criteria, thus addressing the increasing demand of managing complex cases like multi-night session and separate pre-post meridian frames, to name a few.
The new Control Panel
A new tab Control Panel is now available. This panel provides an overview of the current status of the whole WBPP session with regards the calibration settings:
This overview allows to:
- See the full list of bias/dark/flat/light groups.
- Differentiate between groups that contain a master file and groups that contain frames to be calibrated and integrated.
- See the binning, the reference exposure and the filter name for each group accordingly to its type.
- See if proper bias/dark/flats are matched for each group that needs to be calibrated.
- See the calibration settings for each group ("Contains Bias" option for darks, "Optimize Master Dark" and "Separate CFA Scaling factors" for flat/lights).
- See groups that contain monochrome or mosaiced images and, in the latter case, see which debayer pattern will be used to debayer the images after their calibration.
- See the status of the calibration settings for each group. The status highlights the result of the sanity check that is performed automatically in order to identify potential issues or blocking errors due to a wrong configuration.
- See the list of grouping keywords for each group (more on that below).
- See the warnings and/or errors detected on each group's settings.
- Manually change settings and override master files for each group.
- Inspect the Calibration Diagram that depicts the calibration process performed by WBPP on each group with the current configuration.
- Highlight in green which master bias/dark/flat will be used to calibrate the group.
- Highlight in black bold which groups will be calibrated using the master file corresponding to the selected group.
- Enable the editing of the calibration settings.
- Enable the "show Calibration Diagram" button to see the graphical representation of the calibration process that WBPP will perform on the selected group.
By selecting a dark group you can:
- Set/unset the "Contains Bias checkbox".
By selecting a flat group you can :
- Override the Master Dark that will be used to calibrate flat frames (the drop down shows only the compatible Master Darks available).
- Enable/disable the Master Dark optimization (the Optimize Dark column will change accordingly).
- Mark the flats as containing CFA or monochrome images (the CFA Images column will change accordingly).
- Enable/disable the "Separate CFA Flat Scaling factors" option (if group contains CFA images).
- Apply the same settings to all flat frames.
- Read the warnings and/or errors detected.
- Show the calibration diagram for the selected flat frames group.
By selecting a light group you can:
- Override the master dark and the master flat that will be used for frames calibration.
- Set/unset the master dark optimization (the Optimize Dark column will change accordingly).
- Mark the flats as containing CFA or monochrome images (the CFA Images column will change accordingly).
- Set the Bayer pattern and debayer method to be used during Debayering, only if group contains CFA Images (the CFA Images column will change accordingly).
- Apply the same settings to all light frames.
- Read the warnings or errors detected.
- Show the calibration diagram for the selected light frames group.
Calibration Diagram
Any time a group that needs to be calibrated is selected, the "Show Calibration Diagram" button gets enabled and by pressing it the Calibration Diagram dialog will be presented. It depicts the calibration process that will be preformed by WBPP and it could be a good reference to double check if the calibration settings are properly configured.
Grouping Keywords
[Representation in Control Panel]
[Representation in frame Panels]
The new Grouping Keywords feature provides the flexibility to group frames by custom matching criteria. A keyword is a name that can optionally be found into the FITS header or stored either in the file name or in the file path (like in the containing folder's name or the parent's parent folder name, etc). Any keyword has a value that is read from the FITS header (if the keyword is found) or from the file name or folder path if it has been added using the following syntax: "<keyword>_<value>". Few examples for the keyword SESSION are:
Keyword in the containing folder | Keyword in the file names | Keyword in the file path |
M42/SESSION_01/light_600sec_01.fits M42/SESSION_01/light_600sec_02.fits M42/SESSION_01/light_600sec_03.fits M42/SESSION_02/light_600sec_01.fits M42/SESSION_02/light_600sec_02.fits M42/SESSION_02/light_600sec_03.fits M42/SESSION_02/light_600sec_04.fits M42/SESSION_03/light_600sec_01.fits | M42/light_600sec_01_SESSION_01.fits M42/light_600sec_02_SESSION_01.fits M42/light_600sec_03_SESSION_01.fits M42/light_600sec_01_SESSION_02.fits M42/light_600sec_02_SESSION_02.fits M42/light_600sec_03_SESSION_02.fits M42/light_600sec_04_SESSION_02.fits M42/light_600sec_04_SESSION_03.fits | M42/SESSION_01/lights/light_Ha_600sec_01.fits M42/SESSION_01/lights/light_Ha_600sec_02.fits M42/SESSION_01/lights/light_Ha_600sec_03.fits M42/SESSION_02/lights/light_Ha_600sec_04.fits M42/SESSION_02/lights/light_Ha_600sec_05.fits M42/SESSION_02/lights/light_Ha_600sec_06.fits M42/SESSION_02/lights/light_Ha_600sec_07.fits M42/SESSION_03/lights/light_Ha_600sec_08.fits |
Even if we assume that light frames have the same binning, same filter name and same duration, by using the keyword SESSION three separated light frame groups will be created: SESSION 01, SESSION 02 and SESSION 03. Each group will be calibrated, debayered (eventually), registered and integrated separately to generate three master light frames.
To generically understand flexibility provided by this grouping strategy, here are the rules that determines the matching logic:
- Grouping keywords works on top of the standard matching criteria which are:
- Single frames
- Same binning between bias frames and
- Same binning and duration within the provided tolerance for dark frames.
- Same binning and filter name for flat frames.
- Same binning, duration within the provided tolerance and filter name for light frames.
- Master frames
- Master bias must have the same binning.
- Master dark must have the same binning and the closest duration.
- Master flat must have the same binning and filter name.
- Single frames
- Missing keywords are ignored in the comparison.
- Only the values for the keywords that are found in both the frames or the groups to be matched are compared, if there is a mismatch (even a single one) then the match fails.
- If more than one frame or group matches (i.e. all the keywords found on both have the same values), the precedence is given to the frame or group that has the highest number of matches.
Keywords are case insensitive while values are case sensitive. Keywords can be added/updated/removed at any time by means of the provided control above the global options, as soon as the keywords list will get updated the groups will be regrouped accordingly. A good and simple approach to learn how to take advantage from grouping keywords is to practice by adding/removing keywords and see how groups get reorganized.
Once the generation of the master frame is completed, the corresponding grouping keywords will be saved into both its FITS header and its file name.
Master Frame automatic detection
Master frames are now automatically recognized by checking the presence of the word "master" in either the "IMAGETYP" FITS keyword's value or in the file path (case insensitive). This removes the limitation of the previous WBPP 1.5.3 with respect the possibility to mix master files and single frames in a session.
Note: Dark Tolerance parameter is applied only to dark frames, thus when a Master Dark file is added the dark tolerance value is ignored and the master dark frame is added to an existing group only if the duration exactly matches.
Global checkboxes removed
Several global checkboxes are removed from the "Global Options" right panel. In particular:
- Flat panel's "calibrate with dark flats" checkbox has been removed, this matching logic is no more required since now we can check the matching Master Dark to calibrate the flat frames and manually override it if needed.
- Light panel's "calibrate only" has been removed, to calibrate only you can simply disable image registration and integration.
- Global option "use master bias / dark / flat" checkboxes removed and replaced by the automatic detection of master frames feature.
- Global option "master dark contains bias" checkbox removed and replaced by the "per-group" settings in the Calibration Panel.
- Global option "CFA images" checkbox removed and replaced by the "per-group" settings in the Calibration Panel.
Global Defaults updated
Some default values have been updated:
- Globals
- "Save frame groups on exit" is enabled by default.
- Generate Subframe Weights is disabled by default.
- Image Registration is disabled by default.
- Image Integration is disabled by default.
- Image Registration
- "Use triangle similarity" in the registration panel is disabled by default, (pentagons is the default value).
- "Maximum stars" in the registration panel is set to "Auto" by default.
New Diagnostics
Diagnostic messages have been redesigned to provide better readability. Messages are now grouped by the following topics:
- XISF writer check (library sanity check) errors.
- Output directory error checks (existence, permission to write).
- Missing of bias/dark/flat/light frames notes.
- For each group:
- Less than 3 frames to be integrated warning.
- Frame file not existing error.
- Usage of bias-subtracted master dark warning.
- Filter name containing invalid characters to be replaced in master file name warning.
- No master calibration files found warning.
- Missing master bias and master dark warning.
- Master bias found but master dark missing warning.
- Missing of master flat warning.
- Wrong configurations that leads to a non bias-subtracted calibrated frames warning.
- Optimization of a master dark without providing a master bias warning.
- Master dark optimization with significant exposure difference warning.
- Unoptimized master dark with significant exposure difference warning.
- Inappropriate rejection method warning.
- Various Overscan warning/errors.
- Various Cosmetic Correction warnings/errors.
- Reference image settings checks.
Process Logger Updated
Process logger has been updated to provide the tracing information that reflects the new features.
The whole process logger's final report can now be exported as a text file.
Dedicated Script Icon
A dedicated icon has been designed and assigned to the new WBPP script. This icon is the original work of our new icon designer Ana Carracedo.
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Thank you for your attention.
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