345 replies to this topic

[Sunspot]

Emil,

Got it. Are we still in beta with this release?

Paul

[MvZ]

I think the software will forever be in beta . I tend to break things whenever I make changes to it, so it probably isn't a good idea to call it stable.

But I do think the current version (2.1.0.5) is definately an improvement over the last one (2.1.0.0), so I suggest to update. Nothing has changed in aligning/stacking routines though, if I make such change that can really improve the image quality expect me to make a big deal out of it. Now I mainly fixed some issues with jpg/bmp/tifs/etc image files, and fixed the edge quality estimator.

[JoeR]

JoeR, I still haven't gotten around to writing a manual. I'll have more time later this week, perhaps in the meantime someone else can help you out? Have you looked at the first post in this thread? It should provide enough pointers to get you started. What kind of recordings are you trying to process (what is the target, how did you make the recordings)?

I've been using the solar guide on your site for help. I was able to process a Saturn AVI but my Venus AVI is stuck. It is about 3GB in size. To use AS!2 I have to convert the video twice. First converted to make it the correct 640x480, for some reason when it is recorded with IC Capture the AVI picture is stretched. Then it needs converted with Virtual Dub to be readable. Lots of codec error messages before I did this. I've tried Single and Multi point on Venus and still won't work.

Another issue is I'm using a Mac with Boot Camp so I am always having to reboot between Mac OS X and Win 7 to make a SS image and process it in PS5. Also I have very limited drive space on the Windows partition. The Mac volumes are read only when botted in Win 7 so I can't write AVIs to them.

[MvZ]

What kind of codec do you use for recording? Could you post a screenshot of AS!2 when it's stuck and fails to load an avi you made?

Perhaps you could send me the smallest possible avi of Venus that consistently fails to process in AS!2?

[LiamMcD]

Hi Emil

Just a note to say Thank You! Darryl put me onto AS!2 and I'm a convert

Clear skies
Liam

[njherr]

Hey Emil,

I have to say I love AS2!! Hands down my favorite stacking program for Planetary AP!

Just one little bit of feedback/wishlist... I was batch processing 100 stacks of Jupiter w/ Io and Europa for an animation I was working on. How feasible would it be to have a function where it would apply "Auto AP" for each clip when batch processing? (Like something as simple as a little check box).

The next morning when I checked the data, I noticed that about halfway through, Io went from a nice tight circle to a fuzzy looking blob... It occurred to me after the fact that it must have drifted out the AP box that was selected in the first sequence. It wasn't a huge deal, as I just went back and put some extra APs along its expected path and reprocessed the bunch.

Anyways, again, thank you for such a wonderful product. I thought the first version was great and v2 is even better!

[woodworkt]

Quick question on Autostakkert... how do you open a sequence of TIFF file frames to work on them? The web page suggests that version 2 will take TIFF sequences, but the dialog box to open things doesn't show any of them, and only lists .AVI and .SER options as supported. Is there a trick I'm missing, or am I wrong about what it supports?

Really hope I can get it to do this; extracting frames to TIFFs seems more reliable in the Mac/IIDC to PC/stacking software conversion than most of the Quicktime MOV to AVI options.

Thanks,
--Ken T.

[MvZ]

Thanks Liam, and Nick!

Nick, I'll think about that. I use the solution you came up with (placing the APs at the expected locations of the moon).

Ken, try dragging and dropping either a couple of TIF files, or an entire folder of TIFFs onto the main form of AS!2. If it doesn't work, send me some of the files by email, and I'll see what I can do.

[Sunspot]

Ken,

I drag and drop tif (and bmp) files onto AS!2 all the time. You can drag and drop the folder, or do a mass select of the number of files you want and drop them on AS!2. Make sure you open the program first...

Paul

[Sunspot]

Emil,

Another thought I had. A lot of times I'm multitasking when running AS!2 and it's running behind other screens. Would it be too hard to have the icon on the toolbar blink when AS!2 is finished with a task? No big deal if not, but I thought I'd ask. I love that Registax does that.

Thanks!!
Paul

[moxican]

I've read all over here several times that AS2 is updated to except BMP/TIF .... image files. However I am unable to open anything else with it but AVIs. Is there something I'm doing wrong? I tried drag and drop, open, nothing works.
Besides this it is a great program in some ways I found it to be better then R6.

[Sunspot]

I use bmp files almost exclusively with no problems. To make sure we are doing the same thing, I open AS!2 first, then select the bmp files I want and drag them onto the AS!2 open screen. You can also drag the folder onto the open program as well if you want to process all the bmp files in the folder.

HTH.
Paul

[moxican]

Ohh ok now I got it. Here is what I was mising. To drag and drop you need to open my computer (or any file explorer) highlight there and drag and drop to AS2 from THERE. I tried to drag and drop from AS2 OPEN menu.
Thanks guys

[MvZ]

Just a quick note for all those out their stacking RGB frames and wondering why the stacking stage takes a lot longer then the aligning stage when using multiple alignments: this is the result of some extremely inefficient programming (let's just call it a bug ).

Expect a fix at the end of the week which will greatly increase the stacking speed of all RGB images (avis/bmps/jpgs/etc).

Paul, I'll look into that. If it's something that is easy to implement, I might include it in the next update.

[Kokatha man]

It wasn't that hard to live with Emil, but I did notice that stacking took quite a while when using AS!2 on the old duo-core home pc!

I look forward to the next update of your great program!

[Tharsis]

I made a little tutorial for spanish community(with your permission):

http://www.astronomo...hp?topic=8335.0

http://www.espaciopr...about20779.html

http://www.latinquas...00345#msg100345

[MvZ]

New september release (planned for september 22)

List of changes:

Performance
- Both creating a reference frame and aligning the images will be about twice as fast as in 2.1.0.5.
- Stacking phase of monochrome images with no drizzling is more than 2 times faster. The stacking times of monochrome drizzling are not affected (more difficult to optimize that code, but I'll be working on it).
- RGB color file stacking received a performance boost (have not measured it)
- Several other smaller performance increases.

Fixes:
- Flat field images now working correctly
- Increased FIT support
- Increased SER support (both little and big endian formats are now correctly read)
- Drag & drop of all folders of valid images files now works correctly
- Support some deformed avis from WinJupos (problem of AS!2, not WinJupos)
- Increased AVI file support (some Y800 and RGB avi files failed to open because the indexing of the frames was relative instead of absolute)
- FITs will be read from bottom right to top left. This should be the default order for the data in these images. If you find your fit images are now displayed upside down, contact the author of the capturing software (and let me know as well )
- Fixed image offset not being applied for color recordings
- Several smaller bugfixes

New features
- Copy bitmap version of current frame to clipboard using Ctrl + C (Ctrl + shift + C will include reference rectangles). The frame will be centered according to currently selected image stabiliser.
- More frames can be used for the reference frame.
- Automatically send stacks to Registax or Photoshop after stacking (really neat, it allows you to preview the stack or start processing right away).
- Native support for MJPEG files (and very fast). I still don't like lossy codecs, but if you already have the files and want to process them directly in AS!2, you can do so now.
- Multiple stacks in MAP mode now supported (you can again create up to 8 different stacksizes in just one single run)


More to come (manually disabling frames, custom filenaming, etc)

[Kokatha man]

Hmmm - sounds like AS! will go like an absolute rocket in the new version, not that the i7 isn't uber-fast with AS!2 already!

As for disabling frames I guess that's good but as I've said in a couple of my threads I'm finding AS!2 doesn't seem to worry about images bouncing in and out of the sensor boundaries one iota.....last week the winds were incredible and Mars shot around like a pinball, occassionally disappearing offscreen - but it didn't seem to faze AutoStakkert, something I'd noticed in earlier situations also..!

[Space Cowboy]

Sounds incredible! Twice as fast......WOW! Its already twice as fast as anything else at this rate we will be processing the images in between capturing the avis!

[SteveRosenow]

Any chance there'll be support for all AVI codecs? I cannot get any of my AVIs to load at all (MOVs converted to AVI's using conversion software)

I have the same problem with other stacking programs... Have had it since I upgraded processing equipment.

[MvZ]

Hi Steve, I find it really difficult to add directshow support in my project. At the moment the handling of video files is all written by hand, which is pretty fast and works just the way I like it, but it does not support a lot of different formats.

What kind of conversion software are you using, and which AVI codec have you selected?

[ZielkeNightsky]

Great news Emil

[Sunspot]

Emil,

Looking forward to working with it. The part about sending stacks to Registax/Photoshop sounds exciting. Talk about a time saver.

Paul

[SteveRosenow]

Hi Steve, I find it really difficult to add directshow support in my project. At the moment the handling of video files is all written by hand, which is pretty fast and works just the way I like it, but it does not support a lot of different formats.

What kind of conversion software are you using, and which AVI codec have you selected?

The conversion software I use is Pazera Free MOV-to-AVI converter. The codecs I normally select are Motion JPEG, H264-MPEG4, Divx3 Low Motion and HuffYUV lossless.

I have several Jupiter vids I'd like to convert and stack, but no program supports those codecs nor the ability to stack directly from MOV format.

[zAmbonii]

If anything I would just *LOVE* for HuffYUV support.

When I capture around 3500 frames 640x480 using HuffYUV compression with K3CCDTools the file weighs in at about 465MB. Capturing the same amount of frames uncompressed is a whopping 2.04GB.

I literally heard my hard drive screaming for help when I had to re-encode the videos uncompressed just to use AS2!