What's new in AutoStakkert! 4.0.11 Beta
Jan 22, 2024
- Fixed bug another RGB Align bug causing seems showing up in the R and B channels.
New in AutoStakkert! 4.0.10 (Jan 18, 2024)
- Fixed bug causing incorrect colors when using RGB Align option.
New in AutoStakkert! 4.0.9 (Jan 16, 2024)
- Fixed bug when stacking images when AVX2 instructions are not available, causing lines in the image stack.
- Added option to manually enter a path in the data browser.
- Fixed date modified not showing the correct time in the data browser for folders of images.
New in AutoStakkert! 4.0.7 (Jan 14, 2024)
- Fixed frame derotation bug.
- Added scrollbars for drives in data browser.
- Fixed ColorID when exporting raw color bayer SER.
- Fixed data browser displaying number frames and width/height from actual file when available (instead of only using Firecapture log file).
- Fixed horizontal/vertical blurring settings not being remembered correctly (rewrote the automatic quality method that could overwrite these settings).
- Optimized color and drizzle processing speed (minor change).
- Fixed bug when trying to save stacks for color images without sharpening the images.
- Fixed not opening certain session files in data browser (session files saved manually from interface).
- Fixed changing browse form when reading session files.
- Added option to read the metadata or not, and improved browser performance for large AVI files when reading metadata.
- Fixed file size metadata for image files.
- Modified form sizes.
- Added refresh of data browser as directories change (+manual force refresh)
- Added sorting of files in data browser according to all columns (click on column header; click again for descending sorting)
- Fixed black lines around image when using pre-filtering.
- Fixed bug that kept .AS3 file open in background after using data browser.
- Fixed bug in not re-reading files when stacking when blurring enabled (causing weird results, particularly when making multiple image stacks in one go).
- Fixed bug for AP placement not taking into account scaled brightness of the frame.
- Updated to FastMM5 memory manager for slight speed improvements.
- Removed Vampyre Imaging Library requirement to clean up code. This library was not
- Removed other components that weren’t really necessary to clean further up code.
- Many small code improvements behind the scenes.
- Added shortcut for some more menu (e..g, old style open browser = ctrl + shift + p).
New in AutoStakkert! 4.0.6 (Dec 10, 2023)
- Improved data browser; added support for images and folders of images, as well as stability improvements.
- “Find Anchor” now unchecks when manually placing an alignment anchor.
- Added brightness levels up to 256x under Display Options.
- Increased time of tooltip visibility (25 seconds).
- Default FFmpeg conversion command line parameter for conversion of compressed videos to raw avi files is now [automatic]. This setting tries to automatically detect grayscale/colour conversion instead of forcing to RGB. Remove [automatic] from the ini file to revert to previous settings. Keep ffmpeg.exe file next to autostakkert.exe for this to work!
New in AutoStakkert! 4.0.4 (Nov 19, 2023)
- Fixed reprocessing of first recording during batch processing of recordings
- Fixed not stacking batch processing surface recordings with find anchor set to True
- Fixed bug for BGGR bayer data showing an empty R channel.
- Fixed not opening avi files through the data browser with extensions not showing up in windows (due to hide extensions for known file types being enabled).
New in AutoStakkert! 4.0.3 Beta (Nov 13, 2023)
- Fixed bug moving frame view window too far to the right.
- Fixed bug ignoring checkbox for automatic alignment anchor placement.
New in AutoStakkert! 4.0.2 Beta (Nov 12, 2023)
- Fixed interface bug affecting missing setting for manual reference frame settings. The setting “% around center” tells the software to only use frames around the midpoint to create a reference frame (e.g., settings this to 50% means it will ignore the first and last 25% of the frames in the recording). This setting can be handy when processing very long recordings (to still create a sharp reference frame), or when creating animations the results can be a bit smoother. I don’t expect huge differences though. Note to self; this is not a change note, this is something that should be written in a user manual….
New in AutoStakkert! 4.0.1 Beta (Nov 12, 2023)
- New data browser / selector
- Performance optimizations, particularly when processing very large files
- Automated placement of Surface alignment anchor
- Automated quality estimation settings
- Improved command-line execution
- Many small interface changes
- Many small bug fixes
- Many more bugs introduced!
New in AutoStakkert! 3.1.4 (Mar 3, 2021)
- Fixed critical bug causing lock-ups during aligning/stacking
New in AutoStakkert! 2.1.0.5 (Oct 11, 2013)
- Fixed when switching to Single AP mode, AS!2 would not stack automatically (you had to manually place an AP first).
- Maximum size of the frame is set to 3000×2000, internal frame size limitations have been removed. Use the INI-file to further increase the maximum image size (the INI-file contains a maxWidth and maxHeight value).
- Made edge quality estimator more robust still. It will now still provide a meaningful quality estimator whenever it encounters missing information.
- Fixed bug in detecting horizontal and vertical artefacts, causing random lockups after analysing.
- Fixed regression bug: failed to open any image files (fit, bmp, tif, jpg, etc.. it would all show there were no frames available).
- Fixed some typos.
- Fixed repeating “No buffering override” message… for real this time…
New in AutoStakkert! 2.1.0.0 (Oct 11, 2013)
- A new checkbox Force Global Quality is added under the Gradient Quality estimator. When this option is checked it Forces all APs to use the same subset of frames (those frames with the best overall quality), instead of the default function where each AP uses its own local quality estimator and own subset of frames. The global quality results in slightly less detail per AP, but should prevent seams showing up on recordings made under variable transparancy.
- MAP is now default stacking method (this basically saves you one click).
- Clicking in the quality graph will now show the frame at that position (similar to using the framebar in the frame window). Pressing ctrl+click in the quality graph, will also set the frame percentage to stack according to the position in the graph.
- Regarding YUV avi files. AS!2 now makes use of a more conservative YUV -> RGB conversion scheme whenever it notices the used YUV format is invalid. This should remove clipping effects for certain YUV files. I would recommend to not use YUV for astronomical images in the first place, recording in RGB (or better yet, raw bayered b/w frames) makes more sense.
- Fix. Resizing the frame will now remove APs that fall outside the allowed region.
- Fixed file opening permissions to read-only, this allows to open more files that are already open in another program. Should have done this a long time ago.
- Interface Fix: changed stack at framenumber/percentage labels to hopefuly make a bit more sense.
- Interface Fix: frame numbers now run from 1 to #frames (which is what normal people like), instead of 0 to #frames-1 (which is what programmers like).
- Fixed frame offset issue when stacking multiple files in a row.
- Preview first frame during batch processing.
- Fixed limited maximum memory usage on 32-bit OS to a maximum of 2 GB (on a 64-bit OS the application can use up to 4 GB). Didn’t work in version 2.0.0.48, a 32-bit OS could still use more than 2 gigabytes, which is NOT allowed.
- Added support for both Jpg (or Jpeg) and PNG files (just drag and drop, always make sure you load files of the same format only, and that have the same dimension!)
- Added create master stack option (for master flats or darks).
- Added image calibration options, both a master dark and/or flat frame can be laoded to calibrate your raw images. The resolution of these frames HAS to be the same as the resolution of the raw frames. The following filteypes are supported: PNG, TIF, BMP, JPG, and PSD(!) in either 16 or 8 bit formats (16-bit is recommended).
- Interface Fix: Opening new file will correctly reset processing times of previous file.
- Interface Fix: Clicking the open file button will not immediately close the previous file.
- Interface Fix: In surface mode the offset and image center are now longer shown (white and yellow cross near the center of the screen).
- Interface fixes (show filename without path of opened file in the bottom of the main window and as the caption of the frame view window. When hovering above the filename the full filepath will be shown. The total number of files opened is also listed.)
- Fixed placing too large APs in small images (an AP must now easily fit in the frame).
- Changed minimal image size to 96×96 pixels.
- Fixed output prefix text box is now actually always a prefix, wether the files are saved in folders or not.
- Changed from a static buffer to a dynamically allocated buffer to read in AVI frames. This allows for extremely large frames to be succesfuly read (e.g. 2592 x 1944 x 3 channels) without extra memory increases for those using normal resolutions ;)
- No longer showing a random frame when opening a new planetary imaging file, instead it shows the first frame.
- Fixed edge quality bug when using too small APs (it would hang at the end of Analysis)
- Limited maximum memory usage on 32-bit OS to a maximum of 2 GB (on a 64-bit OS the application can use up to 4 GB)
- Changed default priority of AS!2 to below normal. This has little effect to the processing speed, but it should make the system more responsive when you are also trying to perform other tasks during processing (like watching stupid movies on youtube… or making recordings)
- Fixed issue when reprocessing an entire batch of files when buffering was enabled (the program would wrongly think the first file was already buffered, which could result in either a program crash or wrong results)
- Fixed manually removing all APs now correctly disable the Process button.
- Interface Fix: enter percentage to stack during MAP mode automaticaly turns off the frame number option, and vice versa. So simply enter one of the boxes (left click) and type a % or frame number, and that is what is going to be stacked.
- Interface Fix: drizzling options better categorized (off, 1.5x, 3x)
- Edge quality checkbox changes now correctly forces new quality estimation.
- Changed drizzle filename convention (removed the . in the filename)
- Added error handling of opening/writing/closing the log-file (if it can’t get access to the log-file, it will silently accept that)
- Fixed quality graph not drawing when visualisation was turned off.
- Edge quality estimator more robust against missing information or abrupt edges (e.g., when the planet is moving outside the FOV).
New in AutoStakkert! 2.0.0.46 (Oct 11, 2013)
- Changed name of Coarse Alignment to Image Stabilization, which makes a bit more sense.
- Added option to manually set coarse alignment window location in surface mode. You should set it around a feature that stays in the FOV at all times. The default location works 95% of the time, but sometimes AS!2 surface alignment loses track because there is nothing interesting to see in the center of the screen.
- AS!2 is now aware of OS limitations on amount of memory available per process. There should be no more lockups caused by out of memory on 32-bit OS.
- Fixed caption of frame number at bottom left, it didn’t update properly in batch processing.
- Fixed caption of frame view in batch processing.
- Fixed unable to press Cancel button in batch processing.
- Added some extra lines at the back of the quality graph at 0, 25, 75 and 100% to increase readability of this graph.
- Tiffs are now saved uncompressed (instead of LZW). Should increase compatibility with processing software.
- Added support for 8-bit single channel bmp files.
- Fixed surface alignment bug causing a more or less random lock up during buffering or image alignment.
- Should be more stable now, especially for surface recordings containing poor frames.
- Automatically turn off bad frames with horizontal or vertical shifting artifacts.
- Speed increase for surface alignment (approximately 30-50% faster).
- Introduced two Surface options: ‘Expand’ will try to make the very biggest image stack possible, the edges will contain less frames (this was the default option). ’100%’ will crop the image such that each pixel will contain the same amount of data (the edges should be fine).
- Batch processing for surface recordings. When more than one surface recording was opened, when processing, for each frame all APs are replaced by a set of automatically placed APs (in a grid, just like when you press the grid button).
New in AutoStakkert! 2.0.0.37 (Oct 11, 2013)
- Fixed surface alignment bug causing a more or less random lock up during buffering or image alignment.