From: "Milton Aupperle" <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: June 23, 2005 5:01:32 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Astro IIDC 2.01.00 on Friday June 24.

Hi folks;

I should be releasing Astro IIDC 2.01.00 tomorrow. Friday June 24. I'm

hoping that I can run some final test with the tracking code tonight

(assuming we don't get hit with 16" of rain, hail or tornados) on some

stellar targets instead of fuzzy solar limbs.

Here's a list of fixes and a few new features.

-----------------------Start of "Read Me 2.01.00 Changes.rtfd"

Astro IIDC 2.01.00 Release Notes - June 24, 2005

- Fixed problem with iRez and ADS Pyro cameras not being recognized

properly as color cameras.

- Fixed bug where Gamma control was not being reset properly from last

settings.

- Fixed several hideous bugs with tracking, both logic flaws on my

part (it has been a very long time since I had to do differential

equation solving) and a few typo / code bugs too. It should actually

work now - however mother nature has been decidedly nasty over the

past 2 weeks in Alberta. We had a 200 year flood event with thousands

of homes submerged and tens of thousands of people evacuated. So other

than testing it with arbitrary data and briefly tracking the sun's

limb it still is considered "alpha" quality.

- Worked around Tiger induced bugs with resource corruption caused by

having multiple NIB files in a project. Compiling it under Tiger and

all menu related controls would be erratically hosed in the other

NIBS, whereas compiling the same project under 10.2 or 10.3 always

work fine. This affects all menus and menus bars items, which have now

been moved into one .nib resource file ("Resistance is Futile - you

will comply"). This affected many menus, such as Tracking Rate menu in

LX 200 Controls window and some times when command key shortcuts

simply would not work.

- Added auto selection of Bayer CFA patterns for The Imaging Sources'

Bayer "DFx 21BF04" and "DBx 21BF04" color cameras.

- Added "Auto" exposure control, which will adjust the CCD exposure

time to keep the brightness reasonably (+/- 3%) constant. Auto

exposure is done in software and is not hardware dependent, therefore

it is available for all cameras regardless if the manufacturer

implemented it or not. This is primarily intended for Microscopy users

who switch to different objectives or for people doing time lapse

sequences and would like brightness to remain relatively constant.

This does not change the CCD gain levels, which could increase image

noise and results in loss of image detail.

To use Auto exposure:

1) Adjust the average image brightness to what you want it to stay at

by changing the Expos, Brightness, Black Point, Gain(s) or Saturation

sliders. Note that Invert, Gamma and Histogram Expand controls are

applied much later in the image processing, so they do not have any

influence for Auto exposure.

2) Check mark the "Auto" item besides the "Expos:" slider (as shown

below). If your in a "long exposure" CCD mode, then this option is

not enabled.

3) Astro IIDC will attempt to keep the image brightness constant by

adjust the CCD exposure times for you.

If it image is too bright or to dark and the CCD exposure time is at

it's minimum or maximum limits, then it will not be able to maintain

image brightness. Also while "Auto" is engaged, all changes to the

Brightness, Black Point, Gain(s) and Saturation sliders will have very

little effect to the image brightness, as the CCD exposure will

adjusted to compensate. Lastly, some cameras have finite number of CCD

exposure increments, therefore it may not be able to maintain

brightness perfectly. If it calculates that it needs a CCD exposure of

12.5 milliseconds, but the camera only can do 11.5 or 13.5 ms, then it

won't match precisely.

- Added "Export Movie…" item to the Video menu which can convert your

recorded movies into image sequences, .avi or re-compress the movie

using different compressors. This duplicates the functionality that

the "Pro" version of Apples "QuickTime Player" application provides,

but a no cost to our paying Astro IIDC customers. However, as I was

testing it for AVI exports, I ran across a really nasty bug in Apple's

code (Bug Reporter #4157915). This bug affects any application that is

using ConvertMovieToFile() API call, including Apples own software for

AVI exports. If you use the "Best" frame rate for AVI exports it may

NOT select the actual frame rate for you and will default to 12 frames

per second. For example, I recorded a QuickTime movie which consisted

of 12 frames and the duration of each frame is 40 seconds, so the

movie was 8 minutes in duration and used 3.6 megabytes of disk space

(Bayer 8 bit codec). After exporting to AVI using "Best" frame rate

and the None compressor in millions of colors, the resulting avi

contained 5760 frames (not 12 frames) , used up 4.94 gigabytes of disk

space and was now running at 12 frames per second, not 1 frame every

40 seconds. So if your movies are slower than 1 frame per second, you

better of exporting as an image sequence to tiff or bmp files than an

AVI file.

-----------------------END of "Read Me 2.01.00 Changes.rtfd"

Thanks in advance..

Milton J. Aupperle

President

ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting

Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist

#1005 - 815 14th Avenue. S.W.

Calgary Alberta Canada T2R0N5

1-(403)-229-9456

milton@outcastsoft.com