APP Request For Change / Suggestions

[Haverkamp]

Hi, all please post your RFCs or suggestions in this topic, I’ll update this post with everything that is posted.

Current TODO:

– Work on Quick Start Guide, Manual and tooltips (Marc, Kees)

– Add a warning box / Check+info step /suggestions just before the atual stacking process to inform the user about any settings that are sub-optimal. Like “No Bias frames added for Flatframe calibration (Flatframe ISO/Gain = XXXX, Lightframe ISO/Gain= XXXXX)” (Kees, Vincent)

– “Create complete workflows, 1 for DSLR (OSC camera’s) & 1 for Mono (HaLRGB, SHO) channel data” (Kees)

– APP can crash in multi window situations where a window is disabled/enabled (Wei-Hao)

– Rememer work directory location after restarting APP (Wei-Hao)

– Fix 2GPixel limitation  (Wei-Hao)

– FIX application speed, focus is now on stack engine and data normalisation speed.

– In the tools, enable the showing of the correct file names (Mabula)

– FIx 64bit integration (like 32bit) (Mabula)

– Optimise linear fit algorithm (Mabula)

– Fix registration failure when images have very little overlap, see Maurice Toet’s 6-panel mosaic data of NGC7000. (Maurice) Possible an extra routine/algorithm is needed to fix this. Should help all mosaics.

– When more than 1 masterflat/masterdark/masterbias is loaded and selected and applicable for calibration of  a certain frame, issue a warning to the user. (Rob)

– Investigate slow start-up time APP on Wei-Hao’s mac system (Wei-Hao)

– Investigate possible long startup time for APP, on Wei-Hao’s machine (MacOS 10.10.5. The machine is a 3.4GHz i7 iMac with 16GB of RAM.  The OS and apps are all stored in a 1TB-SSD*2 RAID0 external enclosure through a Thunderbolt2 connection.) is takes several minutes to startup, icon is shown immediately, by the User Interface only shows after a couple of minutes (Wei-Hao)

– Adjusting the memory setting of APP in CFG should start with selecting the current memory usage (Hans)

– Add fish-eye and stereographic projections to possible projections (Wei-Hao)

– If possible, only weekly license verification system, instead of each time the application starts. Try to find a solution with a one-time activation while maintaining application security.(Scott, Kees)

– implement align channels (part of saving calibration frames now) to reduce chromatic aberration in he light frames, as part of a complete stack routine, without having to save the calibrated lights first. (Dominique, Mabula)

– For mosaicing, I need to provide option that pattern descriptors per scale are created along the borders instead of only squares spread over the entire image. By using rectangles instead of squares, the registration must become more robust with little star count at the borders. (Mabula, Maurice)

– bad column detection in darks, masterdark & lights (Kees, Mabula)

– investigate error with 360 degree 40 panel mosaic reported by Wei-Hao. Image dimensions become negative? (possible that rectilinear cause unlimited perspective distortion?)

– give possibility to rotate stack compostion automatically to have the widest part of the stack/mosaic horizontally or vertically, will give a more optimal pixel count of the whole composition and therefor reduces limtiations on required RAM to produce the stack/mosaic. (Wei-Hao)

– Using version 1.034.2: During Remove Light Pollution (but probably also applies for the other tools on the 9) TOOLS tab) the other buttons were not disabled after the Calculate button was pressed. When during calculating the OK button is pressed APP will hang… (Rob)

– place calibrated, registered frames and stacks in subfolders of the working directory. (Rob)

– bij TOOLS, bij calculate/create process, moet de cancel knop aanblijven en het proces kunnen stoppen, de andere knoppen moeten tijdens het process disabled worden. (Rob)

– At save calibrated files, report the Channel Align RMS improvement in the FITS header, so user can check the align channel improvement. This option corrects chromatic aberration in your lights. You can apply this on a stack as well.

– file output do only a prefix or a postfix for calibrated and registered files, now it’s both (Rob)

– More output about results in the FITS header ( all stack settings in the header ) (Mabula)

– Preview filter sliders, need cosmetic adjustments

– Maybe it is already in there but I would like to see a console with history window so I can see what actions APP is doing/has done this would help to diagnose better issues like calibration (for example is bias being subtracted from a master flat file that already had bias removed, what value’s did LNC report etc …) (Yves)

– Add configuration file in user directory to remember all settings, include number of processors (Rob)

“stretch slider reach is off/long. With my first stack, I could only work in the very first bit of the slider, making minimal corrections very hard. Maybe you could implement keyboard number input as well.”

(Marco, Yves)

“all the sliders on the right: Spacing between slider & text is odd. I always select the slider nearest to the text. Therefore the wrong one….(could be my bet)”

( Yves, Marco )

– Zoom percentage for image viewer and a zoom slider possibly ?

“can’t find a zoom function. That is: zoom out, double click I did find. (add shortcut instead or in addition?)”

(Marco, Yves)

– Object prefix option, like M42_stack….. fit (Marc)

-When ticking the option remove LP in the calibration fase, retain the previous selection, as in many cases the LP is for all the X numbers of frames the same. Allow these boxes to be moved/deleted in the subsequent frames … (Yves)

– Implement GPU acceleration to really boost speed in APP (Mabula) , I am plannin to use the http://www.aparapi.com library . This will be very usefull for lots of tasks in APP, like the previewfilter, data interpolation when images are warped due to registration (with Lanczos etc). Right now, APP is multi-core, but with GPU accelaration, APP will become smoother and speed increases could be 10-100x for some tasks if a nice GPU/APU is on your machine. (Mabula)

-Enable option to split image viewer with histogram and preview filter from the APP main window. Nice option if you are using multiple screens. The Image viewer and preview filter should be able to use full-screen mode as well then. ( Marco, Mabula)

– making it possible to Open a fits file right from Explorer/Finder or any other filemanager (Linux) with the context menu or by double clicking the fits file.Technically this demands a default work directory pre-set? (Marc)

– drag and drop files into the filelist would be nice as well instead of going through the Load tab (Rob)

– ALL tools in 9) now create a new Frame, should be integrated in APP main frame for much better user experience

“the interactive vignetting correction window(or any other tool window) disappears in the background after input (in my case drawing a box). I’t’s handy to put that on top.”

( Marco, Mabula)

–    addition of shortcuts. (Marco)

– show completion of a process like star analysis or Normalisation clearer (Scott)

– the option of switching to other HD’s. (Marco)

– Batch tool  to process all channels of channel data at once ( Rob, Yves)

– XISF support (Marc)

[Theunissen]

RfC: Add object name prefixes to filenames

I think it would be very handy to have the possibility to add object name prefixes to the filenames (like Backyard EOS does).

Example:

M42_St-avg-1874.0s-LFC_3_2.0-x_1.0_LZ3-ref-eq-add-sc_BWMV_nor-AA-RL-noMBB_1stLNC_it3-lpc.fits

[Haverkamp]

It’s on my list ;-)

[Theunissen]

RfC: Low disk space protection

Low disk space protection, I hanged my system (Mac OS) due to the fact that almost al diskspace was used, is it possible to let APP abort when x% of disk space remains?

[Haverkamp]

Yes, I will work on that to prevent a crash or failure.

[Verstraaten]

Suggestions:

• the option of switching to other HD’s.
  can’t find a zoom function. That is: zoom out, double click I did find. (add shortcut instead or in addition?)
• the interactive vignetting correction window(or any other tool window) disappears in the background after input (in my case drawing a box). I’t’s handy to put that on top.
• all the sliders on the right: Spacing between slider & text is odd. I always select the slider nearest to the text. Therefore the wrong one….(could be my bet)
• addition of shortcuts.
• stretch slider reach is off/long. With my first stack, I could only work in the very first bit of the slider, making minimal corrections very hard. Maybe you could implement keyboard number input as well.
• floating windows for tools and all for working with 2 screens? With saved workspaces (might be a major reprogram thingy, I don’t know)

[Rosen]

Hi Mabula – in your notes, you mention that “APP will always need an internet connection to verify your license”.  I think it might be useful if you change that behavior to something like “APP will need to connect to the internet once a week (when you start APP) so that it can verify your license”.  The problem I foresee is that someone may be out at a remote site without internetservice, gathering data at night and wanting to process during the day.  In this scenario, they wouldn’t be able to use APP.  The other possibility is that someone wants to use APP while they’re having problems with their internet connection (it does happen!).  By changing APP to only verify the license periodically, you avoid this potential problems while still ensuring that licenses aren’t abused.

Hope this helps.

[Haverkamp]

Hi Scott, I’ll put it on the RFC list, and I will need to think about this. Your arguments are very sound ;-)

[Rosen]

Minor interface suggestion- when doing various processing steps, APP displays a progress bar and window showing the percentage completed.  When done, the progress bar goes away and you’re often left with a screen that looks much like the screen that started that process.  If the progress bar/window stayed on the screen showing 100% with an OK button the user had to click, it would be clearer that the process completed.

[Rosen]

To clarify the “– Little bug: The progress bar during registration does not update during the processing. (Rob)” – when I click on “Start Registration”, the progress bar works correctly.  When I click on “Save”, it displays 5% progress and stays there until it’s done saving.

[Haverkamp]

Hi Scott,

Regarding the interface suggestion. Yes that might be a good idea ;-)

Now , you can only see that the process completed by looking at the results in the file list and the status of the ligths. When the lights go through the processes, you’ll see

CA = calibrated

STAR = stars analysed

REG = registered

NORM = normalised

I’ll put it on th RFC.

 

[Haverkamp]

About the registration progress:

the progress bar for saving registered frames is fixed in the next version that I’ll release. The progress bar during registration works fine I believe, but I’ll check it ?

[Van den Broek]

When ticking the option remove LP in the calibration fase, retain the previous selection, as in many cases the LP is for all the X numbers of frames the same. Allow these boxes to be moved/deleted in the subsequent frames …

/Yves

[Haverkamp]

Excellent suggestion Yves, it’s on the RFC list

[Van den Broek]

Maybe it is already in there but I would like to see a console with history window so I can see what actions APP is doing/has done this would help to diagnose better issues like calibration (for example is bias being subtracted from a master flat file that already had bias removed, what value’s did LNC report etc …)

[Author]

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