From: "milton_aupperle" <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: March 15, 2012 12:08:45 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Astro IIDC 4.08.00 Alpha 2 Available


Hi Folks;


I have just posted Astro IIDC 4.08.00 Alpha 02 (1.2 megabyte download):


http://www.outcastsoft.com/Prototype/AstroIIDC40800A2_20120315.zip


If you have a problem with the new release, please send it directly to me at "milton@outcastsoft.com". Please do not post it to the Yahoo Astro IIDC group list, as in 99.9% of the cases I will need all sorts of information that should not be posted to the group - and in many cases will not be included in your posting anyhow (like crash logs, tiff files, movie snippets etc. etc.).


The main changes are summarized in the included "4.08.00A2 AstroIIDC Changes.rtf" file and as listed below:


- Completed stacking and image processing testing under Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion for G4, G5 and x86 Macs for 8 and 16 bit movies.


- The weather (90+ kmph winds, snow, freezing rain, clouds and jet stream right over top of me)  here has been too bad to test any of the Guiding code for the new SSE3 Optimizations for centroid calculation. I hope to get some real tests done later this week on an exoplanet transit.


- Rewrote the Sharpness Estimation code to use SSE3 / Altivec processing to speed it up. Unless your using an SSD Drive that can read at rates exceeding 250 megabytes per second, the Apple movie frame reading code has now become the slowest part of the process and there is pretty much nothing more I can speed up for it.


- Added a few optimizations for SSE3 and Altivec for Centroid Calculation and Image processing code.


- Finished off the movies special case code needed for 8 bit (ARGB32 type) codecs that are not thread safe to run them from non preemptive threads.


- Added newest (3.01.00) version of our Bayer Codec with a few speed improvements of 16 bit bayer movies with x86 Macs. If you have a color IIDC camera, then run the "BayerInstaller.pkg" to install it.


Milton Aupperle