From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: March 24, 2009 11:47:10 AM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Astro IIDC 4.03.00 available


Hi Guys;


No problem and glad people are using it.


TTYL..


Milton J. Aupperle

President

ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting

Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist

#916, 742 Kingsmere Crescent S.W.

Calgary Alberta T2V2H8

1-(403)-453-1624

milton@outcastsoft.com

www.outcastsoft.com




On 24-Mar-09, at 10:15 AM, Jim Chung wrote:

I second the thanks to Milton for his continued refinement.





Quoting Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>:


Hi Folks;


I just posted the Astro IIDC 4.03.00 dmg.


http://www.outcastsoft.com/Astro_IIDC_Installer40300.dmg


The main web site is not updated and 4.02.00 is still the "official"  

release version until likely friday.


Please try it out and get back to me soonest if there are any  

issues, especially on x86. I would like to release it on Friday  

March 27, assuming no issues show up.


The main changes include (form the Read Me First.rtfd" document.


-In the "Others" folder of the dmg installer are three Apple scripts  

named "Example All Commands Script", "RecordMultipleFrames Script"  

and "RecordMultipleMovies Script". The RecordMultipleMovies and  

RecordMultipleFrames can record multiple movies and frames over a  

time period automatically. You can customize them by changing the  

time durations.


- Fixed a bug where nudging a Selection area with up/down/left/right  

arrow keys does not recalculate and update the Pixel Variance value.


- Fixed a bug where clicking on a the 128th or higher selection area  

would not find the object (unsigned char overflow).


- The per frame pixel comparison code now checks to see how many  

equal minimum areas it finds. If it find more than 2 that match up  

but have different locations, it will report this selection as  

unmatched and not add this image to the stack. This should eliminate  

false positives when stacking frames.


- Added Checkbox named "Histogram expand brightness of all frames  

used for pixel alignment." to the Stacking Options window. What this  

does is apply a histogram stretch (use 0.5% low and 99.5% on the  

high end) to the frame used for alignment, which increases the  

brightness and contrast. This was specifically designed for cases  

where you have to under exposes the movie or you need to use the  

darker portions of the movie for finding good alignment features. It  

mainly should be used when trying to do MAP alignment for lunar  

terminator type images, as it will cause brightly lit areas to  

brighten up significantly. The effect this has will only be  

displayed when selecting pixel alignment areas.


- When importing L R G B image alignments in Astro IIDC, I found  

that usually one or more of the RGB channels are excessively dark.  

So we added an automatic Histogram stretch (0.5% low 99.5% High) to  

each of the imported channels to programatically brighten things up.  

This will make aligning dark images work a lot easier.


- Added the pop up menu "Dont' blend in a stack if # of frames drops  

below xxx of expected." to the stacking options. The pop up menu  

runs from 40% to 95% in 5% increments. If the number of frames that  

Astro IIDC uses when creating a stack drops below a certain number  

of frames, then Astro IIDC will not add this stack into the blended  

MAP image. For example let's say you use a selection of 80% and have  

picked 150 frames for stacking, so the minimum number of stack  

frames is 120. If Astro IIDC creates a stack that only has 100  

matchable frames then this stack will not be included in the  

resulted MAP image because it falls below our acceptable cut off  

limit of 120. If the stack has 120 frames or higher it will be added  

in, but not otherwise. This is designed to prevent those situations  

where noise or turbulence causes a poor matching of a selection  

area, and when these low stack frame stacks are sharpened, you can  

easily pick it out from the background.


- Added checkbox "Do not create individual Stack images, just the  

blended MAP image." which prevents the intermediate stack frames  

from being saved to disk. Note that this can result in no frames  

being stacked at all, especially if you have a high percentage for  

the  "Dont' blend in a stack if # of frames drops below xxx of  

expected"


- Changed most text file output so that we use Tab separator instead  

of commas, so that importing into spreadsheets is easier.


Have a great week..


Milton Aupperle













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